Umbriatourism - the Umbria Region tourism portal facilitates development of sector SMEs
About this good practice
Umbriatourism is the Umbria Region’s official tourism portal, created and managed by Sviluppumbria, and is the main communication channel to domestic and international markets. In order to overcome digitalisation gaps and lack of expertise in the region’s tourism ecosystem, Umbriatourism has developed a strategic DMS (Destination Management System) allowing all stakeholders to interact, manage information, promote and plan a holiday and book services.
Offers of lodging, restaurants, tour guides, winery visits and other experiences are uploaded by tourism SMEs and by producers of local foods and crafts; bookings and orders can be made through the portal. Umbriatourism trains SMEs, publishes their offers which are promoted through the portal, and acts as first response to incoming inquiries.
The DMS enables SMEs to overcome economic and cultural barriers to digitalisation, as they receive technical support to increase their digital know-how. Moreover, the DMS provides SMEs with strategic information about market outlook and numbers, availability of public funds, alerts on upcoming calls targeted to the sector.
Benefits:
To SMEs: capacity building, free access to an interested public, and ongoing two-way communication with the PA.
To visitors: see and book multiple offers available in a single portal.
To the Region: support for an important economic sector (with many micro- and rural SMEs) and enriched content on its official portal.
Resources needed
Umbriatourism is run by three staff and external consultants for technical, marketing and editorial activities.
It is financed from the regional budget.
Building the site initially cost approximately 200,000€ financed by Regional funds (ERDF)
Evidence of success
Since 2018, the number of SMEs registered in the DMS has grown to almost 2,000. The portal currently hosts 3,300 offers and craft products, for all kinds of lodging, restaurants, guided visits, local food outdoors experiences and complete holiday packages. Umbriatourism receives more than 2 mln unique visitors per year.
Potential for learning or transfer
The expertise developed by Umbriatourism can be transferred to other official portals of local/regional institutions.
In many cases, institutional portals have Content Management systems but are in the process of developing the DMS component.
The development of the DMS to publish SME offers requires not only adequate technological infrastructure of the institution, but also the training of personnel to manage the exchange of information with all stakeholders, especially of SMEs with low digital competence.
The information framework developed to share news and updates with tourism-sector SMEs could be shared with other official tourism portals, to promote synergy between tourism site activities and local business development activities aimed at stakeholders in the sector.
The Umbriatourism team has assisted the Municipality of Palermo at its request to adopt the technological structure of the portal. Umbriatourism is also connected to the Italian Tourist Board portal, Italia.it
