Newsletter #7 - April 2026
This is the seventh and one of the last newsletters of the Resilient Tourism project. As the project gently comes to a close, we warmly invite you to join us for the final conference in Sierre on May 26–27, 2026. Please register as soon as possible to help us plan and to secure your place.​​​
Join us for the fourth and final Flagship Annual Conference on May 26-27, 2026 in Sierre.
​Do not miss this unique opportunity to connect with industry leaders, academic experts, and public organizations as we explore how data, digital innovation, and resilient systems are reshaping tourism. The conference will spotlight the achievements of our four-year Flagship project, featuring keynote sessions from Booking.com, Amazon Web Services, and MSC Cruises. Attendees will engage in hands-on demonstrations and strategic discussions on the future of tourism. Program details and registration information are available in the link below - sign up now as it is free for project partners!
SP1
National Data Infrastructure for Tourism
Charter Mapping Group Continues Its Work: Updated Category Tree and New Attribute Tree Released
Established in January 2025, the Charter Mapping Group continues its work on standardizing the tourism data model. The main objective of the group is that different systems are aligned when it comes to e.g. points of interests. Questions like “should a Garni be a Bed & Breakfast or a Hotel” to make it understandable for international guests? Should we add DiscGolf or ParaglidingLandingSite as a point of interest? Internationally compatible tree structure from schema.org the Charter Group expanded tree of points of interests. The points of interests exist in reality and are therefore considered as “things” by schema.org.
The outcomes of the work include an updated version of the Things Tree. In addition an Attribute Tree tree was created based on existing characteristics. Attributes of a point of interest are details that are interesting for its visitors. Examples of attributes are:
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Accessibility: Is POI accessible by car, by bike, by pedestrians, by disabled people
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Weather: is a POI suitable for a visit during rainy weather
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Both trees have been expanded to support consistent mapping and description of tourism data.
Both trees are now published on the website in two formats: XLSX and JSON, to meet the needs of both human users and machine-based integrations. The files are available on our website.
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The Charter Mapping Group will continue its work beyond the end of the Resilient Tourism project, thanks to the kind contributions from participating regions and RTA, as well as the strong motivation and commitment of the Charter signatories.
Data Donation Study Expanded to the US Market – Results Presented and Discussed during a workshop
The expansion of the Data Donation Study to the U.S. market has been completed, including data collection, analysis, and initial dissemination of the results. The study aimed to understand whether tourists in different regions differ in their willingness to share location data and what incentives influence their decisions.
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The findings show that U.S. travellers are generally more willing to share their location data. At the same time, the results confirm that there is no single universal incentive. Preferences vary depending on context, perceived value, and trust, highlighting the importance of tailoring data donation strategies to specific markets.
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The results were presented during the workshop “AI & Visitor Management in Tourism” held in March 2026. The workshop provided an opportunity to share the findings and discuss them with tourism practitioners and destination managers. These discussions generated valuable insights, including that an essential incentive to share data is security. Live data to prevent getting caught up in an unauthorized demonstration or a gathering of aggressive football fans could be very useful in an increasingly uncertain world.
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The results of the study will also be presented in September at the International Tourism and Business Conference (ICTB 2026), organized by the University of Edinburgh, contributing to the international discussion on data donation and visitor management.
Use Case 2 Completed: Data-Driven Insights from the UCI 2025 Mountain Bike World Championships
Use Case 2, conducted by HSLU together with HES-SO and UCI, has been successfully completed. The objective was to analyse the impact of the UCI 2025 Mountain Bike World Championships in Valais using a data-driven approach that complements traditional event impact studies.
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By combining Swisscom Tourism and Heatmap APIs with Mastercard Geo Insight, we analysed visitor flows, crowds, and spending behaviour. The comparison with the same period in 2024 allowed us to identify the net event effect. Overall visitor numbers increased by around 2.25%, with particularly strong gains in several host regions, confirming measurable spill-over effects of the multi-location event.
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One key finding is the stability of the visitor profile, with only a slight increase in international guests. At the same time, spending patterns shifted towards the experience economy, with higher expenditure in gastronomy, nightlife, and retail, while accommodation-related spending declined.
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The use case demonstrated that combining mobility and transaction data provides a granular and validated view of event impacts. This approach complements traditional survey-based analyses and offers actionable insights for future event planning and destination management.
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More detailed statistics and an interactive dashboard with data visualizations are available on the project website.
SP2
​Service Design, Business Processes and Business Models
In SP2 Business Models, we have continued to advance a number of projects and have completed some of them.
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The framework for hospitality business model development is now available. We continue to invite interested parties to contribute to its further development or to provide us with feedback on the report. The relevant documents can be downloaded here. A detailed presentation and discussion of this project took place recently at a meeting of the Hotel Inside Club in Zug.
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Together with HSLU, we developed potential approaches for designing a tracking system during a workshop; this workshop is primarily intended to further develop the findings of our corresponding report on visitor tracking. Our study has shown us which features visitor tracking should include in order to increase users’ willingness to be tracked. However, questions remain regarding a viable business model. We will continue to work on this.
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Efforts are currently underway in Valais to launch a pilot project on hotels that include travel via public transportation. This has proven to be exceptionally challenging. The problem essentially lies in the fact that hotels are very skeptical about a per-night surcharge intended to enable all their guests to travel by public transport; however, this is the framing of the current initiative.
For this reason, we are revising a preliminary report on this topic—which was incorporated into SP3 at the very beginning—so that we can, if necessary, approach the issue from a different angle. Furthermore, measuring success is also proving challenging, as it is currently unclear where and in what form intercepts with participants are even possible.
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In addition, we are in the process of finalizing various reports and plan to publish them in the coming months. This will also involve a corresponding communication campaign, which we are currently coordinating with our colleagues at the Flagship.
SP3
Modelling the Resilience of Tourism Systems
The collaboration between Flagship sub-projects 1 (NaDIT) and 3 highlights a critical emerging challenge for tourism: visibility in the age of AI-driven discovery. As generative AI tools increasingly replace traditional search, the rules of digital visibility are fundamentally changing. Instead of ranking lists, AI agents now select and recommend only a handful of options, making it essential for tourism actors to be clearly understood and “readable” by machines. Our playbook “Be Visible to AI” shows that this shift requires moving beyond traditional SEO towards Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), where structured, high-quality, and semantically consistent data becomes a key strategic asset.
Building on NaDIT’s work on data infrastructures, insights from Flagship partners HotellerieSuisse and discover.swiss and Sub-project 3’s expertise in digital transformation, the collaboration focuses on how tourism stakeholders can actively shape their AI visibility. A central insight is that structured data (e.g. Schema.org, JSON-LD) acts as a “digital identity layer” that allows AI systems to correctly interpret and recommend tourism offers. Without this, even high-quality services risk remaining invisible in AI-generated results. This joint initiative therefore positions AI visibility not as a technical issue alone, but as a strategic capability for destinations and businesses, linking data governance, digital ecosystems, and competitiveness in the future tourism landscape.
SP4
Coordination, Orchestration and Communication
Fourth Podcast Season: We are excited to announce that our fourth Resilient Tourism Podcast season is beginning, focusing on the changing world of hospitality and tourism and what the future holds. This series will offer insightful conversations, expert viewpoints, and examples of leading practices from every corner of the industry. We're welcoming professionals to join us as guests - if you're interested, simply reach out by email message and our team will get in touch with you quickly.
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The Smart Region Touristique project, supported by Innotour and led by Nyon Région Tourisme, Lausanne Tourisme, HCommunity/Blent, and EHL Hospitality Business School, is approaching its conclusion. This initiative has been instrumental in advancing regional, data-driven innovation in Nyon and Lausanne. The outcomes of this project are intended to inform and guide future initiatives and programs. For further information, please consult the platform at hcommunity.io.
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Vaud Coaching Program – Fourth and Final Edition Launch: The Vaud Coaching Program has commenced its fourth and final edition, selecting five exemplary projects to enhance their digital maturity and foster resilience within the tourism ecosystem of the canton. This year’s cohort comprises Guideconcept, Helveticantur, Parc naturel du Jorat, Auberge de Montheron, and Office des Vins Vaudois (Caves ouvertes vaudoises). These projects encompass a range of objectives, including digital marketing, modernization, data flow analysis, and data collection - reflecting the diverse and strategic nature of the program. For additional details, please refer to this article.