Winning proposals to be funded up to 70% for qualifying costs
Singapore, 19 May 2017 – The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is crowdsourcing for innovative solutions to address key issues and opportunities in the hotel and travel agent industries through the Tourism Innovation Challenges organised for Hotels and Travel Agents. The Call-for-Proposal for these two (2) Challenges will run in tandem and is open from 18 May to 28 August 2017.
The Challenges are held in partnership with Singapore Hotel Association (SHA) and the National Association of Travel Agents Singapore (NATAS) respectively, and supported by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*STAR) commercialisation arm - Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd (ETPL), Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), NUS Enterprise, and Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF).
STB Chief Technology Officer Mr Quek Choon Yang shared that, “With manpower constraints and rising consumer demands, our core industries of hotels and travel agents need to look for creative ways to build customer loyalty and improve efficiencies. We are therefore putting out these Tourism Innovation Challenges to elicit smart and innovative technology solutions that can best address issues faced by our hotels and travel agents.”
The Tourism Innovation Challenges aim to continue the momentum of business transformation, technology adoption and manpower optimisation for industries that has been brought about by the launch of STB’s Hotel Industry Transformation Map (ITM) and Travel Agent Roadmap in 2016.
Interested companies can respond with creative and scalable technology solutions tailored to address problem statements developed through the engagement sessions that STB had conducted with hotels and travel agents. These problem statements cover a range of areas which the industry stakeholders hope to improve on, such as understanding customers’ demands, anticipating customers’ behaviour and enhancing experience delivery. The problem statements can be found in Annex A.
The proposed solutions may be rooted in big data and analytics, artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, robotics, material sciences or other relevant technologies. Proposals will be evaluated based on their ingenuity and their ability to best address the problem areas, as well as companies’ track records and competencies. Selected proposals will be funded by STB for up to 70% of qualifying costs, to deliver feasible prototypes for trial and eventual implementation if the trial is deemed successful.
Apart from funding support, STB will also be conducting networking and business matching sessions to connect technology solution providers with hotels and travel agents. These sessions aim to help technology solution providers to better understand the industry’s challenges and to find pilot users to partner in developing their solution prototypes.
The Tourism Innovation Challenges are open to all Singapore-registered technology solutions providers. Interested parties are encouraged to register via email to qiu_lishi@stb.gov.sg for the respective briefing sessions with your company name, name of attendees and designations, and contact details. Companies may also register for both sessions. Registrations will close by 19 May 2017.
· Hotel Innovation Challenge: 22 May 2017, 10 am
· Travel Agent Innovation Challenge: 22 May 2017, 3 pm
For more details, please refer to https://www.stb.gov.sg/trade-events/Pages/Tourism-Innovation-Challenges.aspx.
- End -
About the Singapore Tourism Board
The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is a leading economic development agency in tourism, one of Singapore’s key service sectors. Known for partnership, innovation and excellence, STB champions tourism, making it a key economic driver for Singapore. We aim to differentiate and market Singapore as a must-visit destination offering a concentration of user-centric and enriching experiences through the “YourSingapore” brand. For more information, visit www.stb.gov.sg or www.visitsingapore.com