The Tourist Information Centre of the Future
In a digital world, are physical tourist information centres still relevant? Together with European and Dutch destination organisations, ETFI and its students explored how these centres can transform to meet the needs of today’s travellers.
Project duration: 2020 – 2022
The challenge
With digital information available everywhere, traditional tourist information centres face serious challenges. Many destinations are asking whether their centres still add value, and what they should look like in the future.
To support their transformation, destinations needed insight into how centres are currently used, designed and run, in light of the latest trends.
Our approach
The projects ran as a yearly research elective in the Master International Leisure, Tourism & Events Management, with one project completed by bachelor students of International Tourism Management. Students worked on real questions from the City Destinations Alliance and the Knowledge Network of Dutch DMOs, supervised by ETFI.
The impact
Three projects were completed: The Tourist Information Centre of the Future (2020), defining key performance indicators to measure the value of tourist information centres (2021), and measuring their emotional and social value (2022).
Together, they give destination organisations practical insights to rethink the role of their information centres, while giving students hands-on experience with real industry questions.
What could we discover together?
Whether you have a research question, a project idea or an interest in collaborating, we'd love to hear from you.
Contact our team!