JeollaNamdo to establish a one-stop "Smart Tourism Platform"

JeollaNamdo has started to build the ‘J-TaaS Jennam Travel as a Service’, which will realize one-stop smart tourism for the first time among the local governments in Korea.

At the construction launch briefing held on April 15, seven experts, including software platform developers and tourism professors, checked and discussed essential elements in the analysis design process of software (SW) and tourism app development.

The Jeonnam Tourism Platform allows integrated reservation/payment of all tourism and transportation information, accommodation facilities, restaurants, and various experience programs in JeollaNamdo with a single mobile click.

Attractive tourism resources are scattered throughout JeollaNamdo, but domestic and foreign tourists have suffered a lot of inconvenience due to the lack of easy access to information, reservation payments, and transportation information, which has served as an obstacle to revitalizing tourism in JeollaNamdo.

To solve this problem, JeollaNamdo decided to build a platform containing all information related to tourism and provide information in five languages: Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese (Both simplified & traditional styles).

The platform will use a method of linking the platforms of the existing OTA Online Travel Agency. The plan is to expand the range of choices by linking private data such as "Yanolja" and "Good Choice," "Smart Order" and "Table Manager" for restaurants, and "Korail" and "Kobus" for transportation.

Through this, each franchise product, such as accommodation products, tickets, experience products, and restaurants selected by users, is included in a separate category shopping basket, but payments are designed to be made on the platform at once.

JeollaNamdo selected the preferred bidder in February through bidding announcement (40 days) and proposal evaluation in January after eight expert advisory meetings, including planning projects and identifying similar projects. After three rounds of in-depth technical negotiations, the finally selected company signed a total of 3.4 billion won.

It plans to launch services for six cities subject to the first project by November this year. The primary project includes five cities such as Mokpo, Yeosu, Suncheon, Gwangyang, Naju, and Muan-gun with Muan Airport. The second construction project will complete the tourism information and reservation/payment system for the remaining 16 counties by June 2023.

“We expect the establishment of a platform to increase the convenience of foreign tourists visiting JeollaNamdo,” said an official of the province. “We will also use the big data accumulated through the platform to establish JeollaNamdo-type tourism policies and promote marketing efficiently to further strengthen the regional tourism competitiveness.”

Reported by Smart City Today