Customers: Bavarian Forest National Park, Nordkette cable car Innsbruck
Partners: Protect our Winters Austria, Innsbruck Tourism
CiMo Partner: Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH
Involved EDIHs: Crowd in Motion, DinO
Challenge
Climate change, new travel habits, a shortage of skilled workers, and ecological challenges are changing how we vacation in the mountains – and not just in winter. At the same time, digital technologies, smart data solutions, and sustainable innovations offer new opportunities for making tourism in sensitive regions sustainable.
To address these challenges in a practical and regionally tailored way, two tourism destinations engaged with the EDIHs CiMO and DInO aiming to identify innovative digital solutions.
The Bavarian Forest National Park offers diverse natural landscapes and wide range of opportunities for outdoor activities, hiking, wildlife observation and environmental education. The park plays a key role in promoting regional tourism while balancing conservation efforts and visitor interests. They are facing challenges related to changing visitor behavior, climate conditions and sustainable digital solutions.
The Nordkette cable car Innsbruck is a key tourism infrastructure connecting the city centre with the surrounding alpine landscape. The Nordkette plays a central role in year-round tourism, offering access to hiking, skiing and panoramic viewpoints. They are dealing with weather-independent and personalized experiences with digital solutions.
The idea campaign was conducted in collaboration with Protect Our Winters Austria association and Innbsruck Tourism.
The Protect Our Winters Austria association seeks to raise broad awareness of sustainable mobility and general climate protection through a wide variety of projects and campaigns. They engaged in the campaign to raise public awareness of the issue of resilient and sustainable tourism
and to promote it overall.
und diesen insgesamt zu fördern.
Innsbruck Tourism is the official destination management organization for the Innsbruck region. There aim was to support the Nordkette cable car Innsbruck’s engagement to obtain a collection of ideas that will help make the tourist offering more resilient: more sustainable, more digital.
Methods
The idea campaign “Mountain Visions 2030 – Sustainable. Digital. Year-round. International. ” was set up on the open innovation idea crowdsourcing platform “IdeaSpace”.
The areas to which ideas could be submitted and the promoted subquestions were tailored to the two regions.
Nordkette Cable Cars Innsbruck was seeking ideas to enhance the year-round mountain experience through new services, digital tools, and interactive technologies – aiming to better manage weather-related challenges, personalize guest experiences, and create memorable “wow” moments for both local and international visitors.
The Bavarian Forest National Park holiday region was seeking ideas to make the destination more attractive year-round for diverse visitor groups by offering new digital services, personalized guest communication tools, and smart solutions that highlight its sustainable identity and enhance its resilience.
The contest was promoted on different online and offline communication channels via the networks of the participating EDIHs and the destinations. The target groups were regular and potential guests, tourists, students, as well as the growing IdeaSpace community of over 2400 members.
Out of 60 innovative submissions 3 ideas per region have been selected by an interdisciplinary 15-headed expert jury in a digital evaluation process comprising three rounds. One idea per region was selected by the crowd as community winner.
The winning concepts, selected by the expert jury, and the community-voted favorite were honored at in the framework of an “Open Innovation Talk Award and Business Speednetworking” online on August 6, 2025.
Winners
🏅 Bavarian Forest National Park holiday region:
- Columbus – Stefan Riedel
- Solar-Hotspots – Frank Dobbert
- Bergwald.Bildet – Jessica Skowron
🏅 Innsbruck Nordkette Cable Cars:
- Waldblick 360° – Stefan Fischer
- Outdoor Office Pods – Frank Dobbert
- The Return App – Frank Dobbert
🏆 Community Winners
- „Bergblick – the interactive hiking guide“ (jo_vetter)
- „Visitor flow management – heatmaps for dynamic pricing“ (Thomas Gsenger)
Next steps will be developed in cooperation with our EDIH partner DInO. Implementation workshops will follow, and two of the winning ideas will be part of a university challenge “Real Projects” at Deggendorf Institute of Technology with over 150 students involved.
Furthermore, one of the community winners “Bergblick” has already been implemented by the Bavarian Forest National Park as a digital visitor guide based on the concept idea.
Results and Impact
Digitalization of Services
Most of the submitted ideas include digital/technical components. They sparked internal discussions about a modern visitor experience that meets the expectations of an increasingly digital society. Some of the ideas have already been translated into concrete projects such as interactive guides or digital compass for accessible travel.
Advancing Digital Maturity
The contest promoted a culture of digital innovation within the companies by confronting them with new technologies and mindsets.
Employees learned about topics such as smart data, and digital customer communication by browsing through the submitted ideas. This engagement supported the development of digital skills and increases the company’s digital maturity. The process significantly enhanced cooperation between destinations and EDIHs, requiring them to work together closely to evaluate the innovation and implementation potential of proposed ideas. Through the involvement of experts from tech, tourism and academic sector new interdisciplinary networks were established to drive collaboration on digital initiatives and innovations.
Boosting Innovation Capacity:
By integrating external ideas and collaborating with jury experts from different fields, the participating clients significantly enhanced their innovation potential.
Leveraging open innovation platforms and partnerships with external stakeholders accelerates access to digital solutions and opens up new possibilities in areas such as data management, guest communication, and year-round tourism offerings. The regions positioned themselves as potential pilot region for digital innovation in Alpine regions.
Perceived social/economic impact
The Mountain Visions 2030 idea competition has created meaningful momentum for both social inclusion and economic resilience in alpine tourism. By opening the innovation process to broader audiences – including young people, local residents, creatives, and academic partners – the initiative significantly expanded the diversity of perspectives involved in shaping future tourism. 60 idea submissions, and active university engagement (e.g. staff and student participation from Deggendorf Institute of Technology or University of Applied Science Salzburg) demonstrate this inclusive outreach.
The competition successfully addressed the need for tourism concepts that are accessible and attractive to wider target groups. Many submitted ideas focused on family-friendly, senior-accessible, and year-round offerings – shifting the focus beyond traditional winter sports.
The initiative encouraged the development of future-proof tourism services that are less dependent on snow and high seasons. Winning ideas included concepts such as outdoor office pods and a platform for barrier-free travel – both of which can generate new revenue streams, and attract new target groups (digital nomads, families, people with disabilities). The competition laid the groundwork for cross-sector partnerships between tourism operators, technology providers, and regional stakeholders – supporting long-term economic resilience.
With early-stage discussions already initiated between idea providers and potential implementation partners at the Winners Event, the Mountain Vision 2030 idea contest is expected to have a lasting structural impact on the way mountain regions think about sustainable and inclusive tourism development, while also adopting new perspectives on digital and innovative solutions to drive this transformation.