Data Leadership to Support Digitalisation: Veneto's Tourism Observatory

Hannah Babineau and Stefan Marchioro presented their collaborative project that leverages data for establishing data-driven strategies.

They discussed the strategy as it was adopted in the Veneto region in northern Italy.

Stefan began with a thorough introduction to Veneto’s Tourism Strategy, a framework from 2018-2020. The tourism strategy initiated from stakeholders needs to have access to data and tourism trends. It was noted that whilst official data on arrivals and overnights are essential, access to a broader range of data and hence analyses are required to understand more complex phenomenons.

They discussed the strategy as it was adopted in the Veneto region in northern Italy.

Stefan began with a thorough introduction to Veneto’s Tourism Strategy, a framework from 2018-2020. The tourism strategy initiated from stakeholders needs to have access to data and tourism trends. It was noted that whilst official data on arrivals and overnights are essential, access to a broader range of data and hence analyses are required to understand more complex phenomenons.

Hannah Babineau and Stefan Marchioro presented their collaborative project that leverages data for establishing data-driven strategies. They discussed the strategy as it was adopted in the Veneto region in northern Italy.

Stefan began with a thorough introduction to Veneto’s Tourism Strategy, a framework from 2018-2020. The tourism strategy initiated from stakeholders needs to have access to data and tourism trends. It was noted that whilst official data on arrivals and overnights are essential, access to a broader range of data and hence analyses are required to understand more complex phenomenons. Therefore, Veneto’s Tourism strategy initiated from the need to provide and use qualitative and quantitative data.

Stefan further explained that the observatory is based on three pillars: a governance system for a network of providers and consumers of data, the extent of data and a single digital platform, so-called Data Agora.

Data Agora is a dashboard of dynamic data visualisation. It includes official data on arrivals and overnight night stays in the region integrated with the socio-demographic profiles of tourists. In addition, it provides reviews and reputation reports about the destination for several sectors, including hospitality, attractions and businesses, as well as performance evaluations and visitor surveys for industry offerings and consumers. Consequently, Data Agora is powered to generate Quarterly Business Surveys to monitor the industry’s economic performance.

Hannah later introduced ‘Data Appeal’, a data visualisation platform created to understand the destination and its visitors better. The platform provides real-time data and past data, which facilitates comparing changes, improvements, seasonality and the impact of Covid-19 in many sectors from hospitality and food and beverages to attractions in the region. She demonstrated features of the platform for the Veneto region.

The platform is designed to provide both micro and macro data visualisations. Users of Data Appeal can zoom in and out to find information from a holistic or specific point of view. The platform offers real-time data on seasonal and sentiment trends, revealing the impact of trends and consumer demands on prices and the market. The economic outlook feature of the platform uses data from the past to forecast changes in demand and economy for destinations.

The platform provides location-based data that compares destinations’ performance and an overview of trending and most spoken destinations. In addition, it is a tool for destinations to benchmark against each other.

Hannah referred to the visitor insights section on the platform as a remarkable tool. The visitors’ data feature offers information about demographic profiles of domestic and international visitors to the region. It includes visitor typologies, including data such as family types and couples, which can be a great source of information for marketing campaigns.

Hannah explains that access to such data also reveals the most popular points of interest in the market. It reflects on the interests of visitors for experiences, places to stay and eat. The visitors’ review section outlines the most used platforms where visitors review tourism relevant activities and provide feedback. It also highlights visitors sentiments about the topics from online reviews and content. Such data leads to a greater understanding of visitor satisfaction and interests.

The indexes feature of the platform presents data for particular indicators at the country level. As an example, the Covid safety index provides information on the availability of sanitisers, where masks are required for destinations to compare themselves against competitors at destinations and the country level. Data on hashtags and the use of keywords provides insights into how the destination is perceived online.

Key Takeaways

1. Data Appeal is a data visualisation platform that provides micro and macro insights for the Veneto region.

2. The data visualisation platform provides information for marketing campaigns.

3. Access to real-time and past data allow destinations to compare trends and forecast potential changes in the market and consumer demand.

4. The data visualisation aids destinations in better understanding visitor satisfaction and interests.

5. Designates indexes help destinations benchmark themselves against other destinations and regions.

Published on:
December 2021
About the contributor

Hannah Babineau

Hannah is the International Marketing and Partnerships Manager at The Data Appeal Company, headquartered in Florence, Italy. She joined the team in 2018 after previously working in the finance and events industries. Hannah is also a Co-Organizer of HICON - The Hospitality Innovation Conference, Data Appeal’s annual event.

Stefan Marchioro

Stefan Marchioro has been involved in tourism since 1990 as director of the Tourist Board of Padua & Terme Euganee. He is currently Head of Territorial Projects and Governance of Tourism at the Veneto Region.