Smart rural – peripheral destinations, urban solutions?

Before the corona pandemic, Finnish tourism exports were growing rapidly, which is largely explained by the increase in the number of foreign individual tourists. Finland's tourism assets for international travellers are remote destinations, nature, and nature experiences. The importance of these has increased during the corona pandemic. However, in sparsely populated areas, accessing nature attractions without your own car is difficult. For international travellers in particular, finding alternative modes of transport and travel chains connecting different modes of transport can be impossible in the current situation. Relevant information on, for example, travel modes, timetables and services at the destination is fragmented across a number of different websites and services.
In a tourist destination like Finland, creating a coherent and smart travel experience requires a holistic view of mobility, services and destinations across sectoral, regional and administrative boundaries. In FIT ME! - Foreign Individual Travellers’ hospitality and Mobility Ecosystem -project we aim to develop the scattered services of transport and tourism industries towards travellers’ digital mobility ecosystem in Finland. This requires service platforms that enable the connecting of existing digital services to each other and the addition of new features to them. In national level, evolving ecosystem and co-created shared services based on new technological solutions demand especially improvement of service supply and smart solutions in rural areas. The aim of this presentation is to outline what smart tourism is in rural areas and what is needed for its development in these areas.