Counteracting hotspot formation with AI

Counteracting hotspot formation with AI
Sauerland tourism and the Diemelsee vacation region measure visitor flows

How can visitor flows be consciously managed and what opportunities for optimization are available to tourism stakeholders? The Diemelsee vacation region and Sauerland Tourism are currently investigating these exciting questions. As part of the "AIR - AI-based Recommender for Sustainable Tourism" funding project, the respective starting points for three selected touring bike offers around Diemelsee are being adjusted at certain times in order to find out how this affects visitor flows.

This is made possible by several measuring points that record the number of visitors in detail and thus generate data sets for evaluation. "This use case gives us the opportunity to use specific tourist offers to find out how visitor flows behave in our region around Diemelsee and how we can further optimize the tourist offer," emphasizes Klaus Hamel from the Diemelsee Tourist Information Office.

"We are delighted to be part of this innovative project, which enables us to direct the flow of visitors to our beautiful vacation region in a targeted manner. By adapting starting points and time periods for touring bike offers, we are using intelligent solutions to promote sustainable tourism while ensuring a high-quality visitor experience. Together with Sauerland Tourism, we are focusing on new ways to make our region even more attractive and worth living in," adds Mayor Volker Becker.

The results of the so-called "use case" will then be used by the joint partners (including a research team from the Institute for Sustainable and Innovative Tourism Development (INIT) at Kempten University of Applied Sciences and the Research and Development Center at Kiel University of Applied Sciences) for their further work. In the future, this could be used to digitally prevent the formation of hotspots in the event of increased visitor numbers at certain locations by providing information on alternatives.

The Sauerland has an important role to play here for tourism in Germany as a whole. After all, "Germany's inspiring outdoor region" was selected as one of two destinations alongside the Ruhrgebiet to provide exemplary data for a scientific analysis. The aim: to equalize visitor flows and counteract the formation of hotspots on the one hand and to strengthen sustainable tourism development on the other.

"Not least the coronavirus pandemic has shown us how important it is to work towards directing the flow of visitors to highly frequented tourist products and locations and shifting them to a wider audience," explains Almuth Hufnagel, Data Manager of the "Tourism Data Intelligence Initiative NRW" at Sauerland Tourism. The implementation period started at the beginning of May and runs until the end of September.

Contact for the press:
Rouven Soyka, Sauerland-Tourismus e. V.
Johannes-Hummel-Weg 1, 57392 Schmallenberg
Tel.: 02974-969830, e-mail: presse@sauerland.com