New grant alert: Space for Tourism. Grant funding is available for the development of space-based services enabled by innovative digital solutions to support tourism and travel industry in their transition to the new normal.

Fund Name: Space for Tourism

Project Length: Dependent on proposal

Project Value: 50%

Deadline: 31st March 2023

KEY FOCUS AREAS

Examples of focus areas relevant to the AO are potential space technologies to accelerate good practices towards sustainable development that will help the tourism sector reach the Agenda 2030, such as:

USE OF DIGITAL AND CONNECTIVITY SOLUTIONS TO HELP THE SECTOR EMBRACE NEW BUSINESS MODELS REQUIRED IN POST – COVID 19, FOCUSING ON:

• Shift towards unmanned transportation, increased use of automation and robots
• Support rural tourism by promoting remote experiences
• Provide always-on/ everywhere connectivity to travellers
• Support traveller’s experience sharing and active engagement with rural communities

SEAMLESS TRAVEL:

Technology and services to ensure transparency and traceability according to relevant protocols (including border controls) and enable efficient implementation of new regulations.

SAFE TRAVEL:

Applications and services to help tourism sector become more resilient to natural/man-made disasters and health issues. Catering for new customers’ behaviours, the sector needs to embrace new solutions and business models to promote the safety of the destination. This is expected to be largely supported by seamless (always-on) connectivity and digitalisation. Always-on connectivity will re-ensure travellers of assistance for unforeseen circumstances; digital solutions will be required to provide factual evidence of safety of local destinations including social distancing; fast response tools and services have to be further developed in order to respond to various types of emergencies (including medical). New solutions are also required to monitor spread of new diseases at various scales – from regional/ cities to touristic resort settings.

GUIDE INVESTMENTS AND MEASURING IMPACT

• Public and private investments need to support the tourism sector and keep on innovating and transforming. Major investments will be needed to make structural and physical changes to address health requirements and respond to changed travel behaviours.
• Measure the net impact of tourism – focusing on rural tourism (tourism as a catalyst to sustainably and responsibly support rural community’s upliftment) as well as investments and planning, including tourism seasonality, trends monitoring, managing and mitigating risks.

VALUE OF SPACE

Satellite Earth Observation (SatEO)  

SatEO data (both SAR and optical) can be used to monitor and plan infrastructure (e.g. buildings, road network, parking lots, airports) as well as identifying visitors’ patterns. SatEO can also be used to monitor land cover changes over time (e.g. in both rural and city level, wild habitats, forest, land, water, etc.).

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (SatNav) 

SatNav is essential to track and trace tourists and search and rescue teams. SatNav can also enable visitor flow-monitoring and location-based services to geo-localise points of interest in the tourist maps and to enable geo-fencing and time-fencing features. In addition, GNSS receivers and sensors can be installed in the tourist sites to be used as complementary ground surface deformation measurement points to EO data.

Satellite Communications (SatCom) 

SatCom is essential to ensure communications for any of the above data services enabled whenever the terrestrial communications are absent or not reliable. In particular, hybrid 5G space/ terrestrial communication networks may be required to support digital solutions e.g. in the field of mobile immersive applications.

It is mandatory to develop solutions based on at least one space asset. If relevant, other technologies such as Augmented/ Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning, can be integrated in the end-to-end solution.

WHAT WE OFFER

We offer funding and support to companies, both for business case assessment and for the development of new, space-based services addressing the tourism sector. Our offer includes:

• Technical & commercial guidance;
• Access to our network and partners;
• Use of the ESA brand for your service;
• Zero-equity funding.

This thematic Call is issued under the ARTES BASS and 5G Programme lines.

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

Motivation, business experience and domain expertise are all important features. We want to hear about your ideas that involve utilisation of either space technology or space data.

We welcome any ideas from businesses of any size, such as start-ups and SMEs to develop their ideas for new business applications. Newcomers and organisations, we’ve worked with before are both welcome!

Find out more: https://business.esa.int/funding/intended-tender/space-for-tourism