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Virtual and Smart Cultural Tourism (VSCT Partnership)

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Virtual and Smart Cultural Tourism (VSCT Partnership)

Context

In recent years, digitalisation has become a central priority for the EU and its member states, particularly within cultural heritage and tourism sectors. This shift has led to innovation-focused funding policies and a rise in virtual and smart cultural tourism, trends further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital tools now play a critical role in managing and promoting destinations, enriching travel experiences through immersive virtual environments. These technologies enable visitors to step into ancient cities and relive historical eras, supporting the digital transition, market innovation, sustainable heritage development, business growth and social well-being.

Year established: 2021

Regions (lead and partner)

  • Leading regions: Thuringia (DE). Co-leading region(s): Galicia (ES)
  • Partner region(s): Saxony (DE), Lower Austria (AT), Cyprus (CY), Paris (FR), Greater Amsterdam (NL), Basilicata (IT)

Mission

This sector is currently marked by small, highly specialised and mostly national market actors, while a European scale innovation entity is missing. In January 2021, Time Machine Organisation joined forces with Thuringia (DE), Lower Austria (AT), Cyprus (CY), Paris (FR), Saxony (DE), Greater Amsterdam (NL), and Galicia (ES) to address this gap by leveraging digital innovation, technologies and media to enhance cultural heritage in Europe, with a particular focus on an international scale. These members of our partnership were mandated by DG REGIO to run a one-year pilot action and develop innovative investment projects to leverage digital and sustainable tourism. The VSCT Partnership is a cooperation of regions whose key smart specialisation priorities and activities are linked to tourism and creative industry, and who need responsive strategies to better align innovation activities and value chains.

Objectives

The VSCT partnership aims to implement effective solutions for bringing innovations to the market and better cope with bottlenecks faced by regions in the areas of digital and sustainable cultural tourism as well as digital heritage. It has three main objectives: The cross-regional knowledge exchange, case studies on technologies and application, and the establishment of support structures.

Main activities

These structures aim to facilitate access for companies, cultural institutions, and universities to funding and investors, as well as to promote the interregional marketing of services and software products in cultural tourism. Within the first two years, 1.1 million EUR in project funding has been raised as seed funding; complemented by almost 300,000 EUR in contributions from the partnership’s members. These resources are currently being used to set up a Europe-wide teaching and technology platform for heritage institutions and to provide consultancy service supporting EU funding access and project development, particularly for stakeholders.

Organisations involved

Austria

  • Lower Austria | Represented by Thomas Aigner (Time Machine Organisation & ICARUS) (AT)

Cyprus

  • Cyprus | Represented by Marinos Ioannides (Cyprus University of Technology – CUT) (CY)

France

  • Paris, France | Represented by Valerie Gouet-Brunet (National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information – IGN) (FR)

Italy

  • Basilicata, Italy | Represented by Rafaele Vitulli (Materahub) (IT)

Germany

  • Thuringia, Germany (lead) | Represented by Sander Muenster (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) & Herbert Vogler (Digitalagentur Thüringen) (DE)
  • Saxony, Germany | Represented by Georg Fertig (U. Halle / Computer Genealogy Assoc. / Leipzig Time Machine) & Thomas Köhler (TU Dresden) (DE)

Spain

  • Galicia, Spain (co-lead) | Represented by Juan Castro (CRUSOE, Conference of Rectors of the Universities of the European South West) (ES)

The Netherlands

  • Greater Amsterdam, Netherlands | Represented by Julia Noordegraaf (University of Amsterdam) (NL)

Shared smart specialisation areas

VSCT Partnership is a cooperation of regions whose key smart specialisation priorities and activities are linked to innovation, heritage, culture, tourism and digital creative industries, and who need responsive strategies to better align innovation activities and value chains.

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