ACTIVITIES :: eTen :: Projects :: Projects of the Month :: Geocompass

March 2006 Project of the Month: Geocompass

GEOgraphical Community Operation for MaP-based Advanced Services for SMEs

Issues being addressed

Locate yourself on the nature root.

GEOCOMPASS is a GIS map-based geo-navigational Internet service addressed to tourists, visitors, travellers, trekkers and bikers. It contains up-to-date maps providing visual descriptions of the route where tourism services are situated and is ideally designed to promote all sorts of tourism activities and services by offering a map-enhanced web-site. The service provides also paths and information for the European countryside together with search engines, guides, and updated information on local conditions.

Objectives of the project

GIS and technologies behind the service.

GEOCOMPASS's aim is to provide a Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping solution and infrastructure bundled together with a strong brand name and substantial promotion and marketing services to Mountain and Country side Tourism (MCT) communities in Europe. Particular focus is given to tourism SMEs, local and regional authorities, development agencies and local professional organizations.

GEOCOMPASS service is proof that open source technologies can be used to deliver advanced results, integrating both free and proprietary software solutions. It uses standard technologies such as OGC for geographical information as well as XML, CSS and JSP/Java for the integration between geographical systems and the user via a web portal.

Services

A tool for travellers and SMEs.

GEOCOMPASS aims at contributing to the inclusion of tourism businesses in the e-Commerce by reinforcing their competitiveness through the:

Retention of control of data and intellectual property by the local SMEs and local nodes representing them
Provision of cheap access to a large network of dedicated MCT services, with large visibility and exposure across Europe
Development of an IT infrastructure from which SMEs would otherwise be excluded because of their size
Implementation of high level security infrastructures for all participating SMEs.
Enhancement of e-Skills

Achievements

Marketing challenges.

The overall objective of GEOCOMPASS is to explore the commercial exploitation of the GEOCOMPASS service prototype and provide tourism SMEs and local communities with GIS map-based tourism information electronic services. The commerciall service aims to reinforce the competitiveness of European SMEs (small and medium-size enterprises) in remote areas, enable them to build an attractive promotion tool based on accurate GIS mapping information for their region and allow local authorities of areas with mountain and countryside tourism interests to be the leaders in tourism’s community’s development.

GEOCOMPASS will fulfil its objectives through the following three areas of action:

Market validate a map-based tourism information e-Service of common interest, launch it and operate it successfully on a commercial self-sustainable basis while offering its content for free. The businesses participating from the initial phase will benefit from privileged rights and services, while their hosting costs will be zero for the first two years!
Extend, valorise and reinforce recent, successful EU-funded research in the domain of geo-navigational services in tourism
Fine-tune and operate a working prototype of a generic, customisable Web and GIS platform, enabling the creation of local mountain and countryside tourism portals for the promotion of local tourism-related SMEs

Expected benefits by the end of the project

GEOCOMPASS, as an attractive promotion tool based on accurate GIS mapping information for participating regions, will reinforce SME competitiveness in remote areas through the use of e-Services.

More specifically, GEOCOMPASS is expected to:

Offer substantial growth externalities to the mountain and countryside communities
Help both regional public or private organisations to protect local tourism from large dominating companies
Enable SMEs to build an attractive promotion tool based on a innovative technology
Improve the visibility of participating regions
Facilitate SMEs to reach a wider audience and attract attract more customers directly
Provide to SMEs access to best practices of other SMEs located in European regions
Make available a standard methodology and a technological solution for know-how transfer among SMEs and related bodies in different countries
Improve IT skills of SMEs
Equip business members with an interactive web publishing system
Supply SMEs with an easy way to add new information on the site and update existing data by their own

The architecture and business strategy involves a strategic partnership with local communities by offering them control and ownership of their data and maps integrated in the application in interoperable formats and standards that cancel any potential service-provider lock-in.

Achievements

To this end, a constantly updated project info site is available comprising information about the status of the project.

In December 2005, the GEOCOMPASS service was released and since then users can access the GIS service via a central access point. More specifically, visitors of the service can:

Make use of a friendly map-enhanced web-site for grabbing information for all attractions in the participating regions, as well as accommodation, restaurants, transportation and all sorts of tourist activities and services
Browse detailed maps and paths using search engines and find on the map the exact location of the tourism business they are interested in
Employ alternative and effective ways of search in order to save money and time while searching for separate tourist services

The Market Analysis phase that is being implemented aims at assessing issues, such as readiness of SMEs to adopt the proposed business model, which services the GEOCOMPASS Nodes should provide, viability of the proposed financial model, efficiency of the proposed administrative model, strengths and weaknesses of the project’s marketing strategy, as well as efficiency of the validation approach.

The results of the three aspects of the survey will determine what the main focus should be in the actual dissemination and business plan. The objective is that SMEs that join GEOCOMPASS community adopt the marketing activities evaluated and disseminated in the project.

The Consortium working towards the mutual goal

Reference Data

http://www.GEOCOMPASS.net
Contract Type: Market Validation
Start Date: March 2005
End Date: October 2006
Duration: 20 Months