Tourism is among the key drivers for socio-economic progress and contributes to employment and economic growth, as well as to empower rural, peripheral or less developed areas. In 2019, more than one in ten enterprises in the European non-financial business economy belonged to the tourism industries. These 2.3 million enterprises employed 12.3 million persons. Tourism plays a significant role in the development of European regions.
Nevertheless, the outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly affected all aspects of life across Europe. Indeed, the pandemic has generated challenges to our socio-economic systems. According to UNWTO, due to the COVID-19 crisis Europe had experienced a 70% decrease in international tourists’ arrivals. In rural and low populated areas local tourism businesses are particularly affected.
Local tourism businesses of rural areas are facing a “double digital divide”. On the supply side, they are still lagging behind in terms of the provision of NGA infrastructure, on the demand side, many rural areas lack the basic skills and knowledge of the potential of digital technology so that even if the ‘digital highways’ are in place, they may remain under- exploited in terms of service provision, business use, or customer take up.
Rural areas and local tourism businesses shouldn’t be left behind. We need to work on both the supply and demand side of digitisation to ensure rural business prosperity, future livelihoods, public services and the community life of many of our rural areas.
Among all the digital narratives, Storydoing has a strong potential to boost the digitization of local tourism businesses.
Storydoing is an innovative technique aiming at creating compelling actions and experiences that put the corporate narrative to the test in everything they do. While storytelling is just telling a story, Storydoing focuses on making sure that the story is lived by turning the businesses’ philosophy and their values into action.
