Mediterranean Observer
Today, the Commission published a Communication presenting the building blocks for a common European tourism data space. This data space will allow tourism businesses and public authorities to share a broad range of data to inform the development of innovative tourism services, improve the sustainability of the tourism ecosystem and strengthen its economic competitiveness.
Tourism is a complex, fast-paced industrial ecosystem that produces and consumes a tremendous amount of data. The common European Tourism Data Space will:
- Facilitate data-sharing from diverse sources, such as business, local authorities, and academia, bringing together public and other relevant parties to shape the key features of the data space. For example, data on hotels’ energy consumption can help monitor the environmental impact of tourism on a given destination.
- Promote data access by a wide range of users, including business intermediaries, destination managers, tourism service providers, and others. For example, a start-up offering AI-driven tourism services will be able to use more relevant data. A travel agent will have a better overview of offers across cities, regions and borders. A local authority will have more information on tourism flows. This will help businesses, in particular smaller ones, as well as local authorities to create, improve and personalise services and support decision-making related to the sustainability of their tourism offer.
- Foster a consistent, trustworthy and efficient framework for the governance of this common European tourism data space, based on respect of existing EU and national legislation on data as well as common standards set at EU level. It will ensure a data governance model developed by all stakeholders in the tourism ecosystem: Member States, local and regional authorities, and the private sector as well as the EU institutions, supported by EU funding.
- Offer interoperability across data domains as well as sectoral data spaces, such as the common European data spaces for mobility; energy; environment; health; smart communities; cultural heritage, and other sectors with clear connections to the tourism experience.
