Tourism Technology and Innovation Roadmap

This is a previous strategy. For the latest updates on our tourism strategy, visit Destination 2045: Queensland’s Tourism Future.

Towards Tourism 2032: New ways of working

The Tourism Technology and Innovation Roadmap supports more tourism businesses to adopt technologies and be more innovative in their tourism experience, service delivery and business sustainability.

By 2032, Queensland will have a high-functioning tourism network operating as an effective partnership model built on evolved technology strategies that harness:

  • data
  • platforms
  • partnerships.

Together, these will enhance service delivery and inform decision-making while applying a consumer-centric approach to further improve Queensland’s competitive advantage.

Tourism Innovation Forum: Advancing Queensland’s Potential

The Tourism Innovation Forum: Advancing Queensland’s Potential, was held on Thursday 25 July 2024 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The Future-focused event showcased tech wonderment, best practices, and new ways of working. Tourism operators had the opportunity to connect with innovators and the latest technology in the tourism industry.

Queensland tourism industry innovation challenge event

Held on Tuesday 14 May 2024, the Queensland tourism industry innovation challenge event delivered innovative solutions to two different challenges experienced by the Queensland tourism industry:

  1. How can we enhance experiences at any stage/s of the travel consumer journey?
  2. How can we unlock workforce capabilities for Queensland’s tourism sector?

After careful deliberation, two proposals stood out: Localis and Cinefly. Each earned prestigious grant funding of up to $100,000 jointly funded by the Department of Tourism and Sport and the Private Sector Pathways Program facilitated by Advance Queensland to bring their visionary projects to life.

Reduce barriers and grow knowledge

The Tourism Technology and Innovation Roadmap aims to help tourism businesses adopt technology and innovative practices by reducing barriers and increasing knowledge.

Barriers include:

  • Lack of understanding and/or experience – in available options or the questions to consider when choosing fit-for-purpose solutions. Lack of understanding of the benefits / return on investment.
  • Confidence and risk aversion – ‘wait and see' approach. Concerns with potential business impacts by getting it ‘wrong’ (cost and time)
  • Financial limitations – implementation costs are often high. Limited financial capacity to direct to innovation.
  • Resource impacts - learning and development requirements for staff. Training on new systems may impact service delivery.
  • Capacity and business pressures – no capacity to plan for innovation. Owners focussed on working in the business, not on the business.
    Integration – older ‘legacy’ systems in place may be incompatible with newer technologies.

How we plan to drive Queensland's tourism industry

Benefits

  • Connect tourism with innovation
  • Build tourism business capability
  • Attract investment in new tourism technology

Connect tourism with innovation

  1. Develop and support a tourism innovation and technology ecosystem that:
    • connects the tourism industry with innovators
    • enables the sharing of innovation experiences and learnings and provides opportunities for collaboration on innovation activities
    • focuses on a ‘customer/visitor first’ approach to tourism
    • boosts Queensland’s innovation capabilities to meet changing visitor needs.
  2. Enable ecosystem mechanisms. For example:
    • Meet the change makers
    • Connect RTO’s with innovation hubs
    • Establish monthly meetups
    • Annual tourism tech event
  3. Identify and promote connectivity solutions. For example:
    • Innovation hubs
    • Demonstration site
    • Working spaces
  4. Showcase innovative Queensland business solutions at key events such as:
    • Tropical Innovation Festival
    • Forward Fest
    • Something Fest
    • AI Summit
    • DestinationQ

Build tourism businesses capability

  1. Undertake business capability mapping to:
    • Identify and inform the tourism industry of existing innovation and technology resources and upskilling programs.
    • Identify gaps in existing resources in the context of building tourism and events businesses' understanding and capabilities in innovation and technology.
  2. Grow tourism businesses rates of technology adoption and adaptation through:
    • micro-credentialing for tourism businesses in partnership with TAFE Qld, Qld Future Skills Partnership initiatives delivered through the Queensland Digital Strategy.
  3. Support the development of immersive and transformational experiences and marketing through tech wonderment to which provides consumers with more compelling visitor experiences and drives conversion.

Attract investment in new tourism technology

  1. Facilitate transferable technology from other industries to tourism innovation and experiences.
  2. Educate small tourism operators on:
    • investment options for product and experience development
    • the return on investment and other benefits of enhancing their business practices and experiences through technology solutions.