Open Tourism Hackdays
- Hackathon
29–30 November 2019, 09:00 @ Laboratorium Luzern, Sternmattstrasse 3, 6005 Luzern
Organised by Opendata.ch, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts
On 29 and 30 November 2019 the first edition of the Open Data Hackdays took place at the Laboratorium in Lucerne, «Episode 01: Tourism». It was organised by students of the Master’s programme in Applied Information and Data Science at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, led by Tanja Schär, with Opendata.ch at their side and the Innotour project Tourist Office Lab as partner, which brought in the questions of the tourist offices. The City of Lucerne supported the event.
Some 90 data scientists, developers, designers and tourism professionals picked ten of 21 challenges and had about 30 hours. Eleven results emerged: an individual travel guide for Thurgau Tourism («Thur-Guide»), forecasts of the requests to the tourist offices of Arosa and Lenzerheide, an algorithm that sorts the e-mails of Engadin St. Moritz’s guest service, a dashboard to check the visitor’s tax in Heidiland, a dashboard concept for GastroSuisse, ideas for the Lucerne Guest Card, an analysis of the city’s public WiFi, extrapolations of pedestrian counts, a tag manager setup for VisitLovers, and the fountains of Nidwalden and the WC-Guide on Wikidata and OpenStreetMap.
On Saturday afternoon Martin Barth of the World Tourism Forum Lucerne spoke about working across sectors, then the teams presented to more than a hundred guests. The first episode became a series: the Shape my City Hackdays 2020 and the Tourism Hackdays 2021 followed.
Photos
Photo: Tanja Schär, HSLU/Patrick Kälin, Nikki Böhler
Documentation and recordings
Challenges
- Individualized Travel Guide – Thurgau Bodensee Tourismus
A tool that helps tourist office staff compose individualised trips for guests in a tourism area, recommending the most eventful and most beautiful route.
→ Result: Individualized travel guide
Challenge description
MVP: A tool that helps tourist office staff compose individualised trips for guests in a tourism area and recommends the most eventful, most beautiful route.
Datasets: Timetables (ships, trains), opening hours (restaurants, museums, trails), guest data.
Remarks: Changing the timetables is out of scope. The timetables of the Lake Constance ships are not coordinated, which means long waits for guests and laborious manual planning at the tourist office.
- Data Quality Comparison – Engadin Tourismus AG, Heidiland Tourismus AG
Compare the opening hours of mountain railways published on Google MyBusiness with the effective ones, and build a crawler that pulls them from the various platforms.
Challenge description
MVP: First, an application that compares the opening hours of mountain railways on Google MyBusiness with the effective ones; second, a crawler that pulls the opening hours from the various platforms.
Datasets: Excel file with the effective opening hours of the mountain railways.
- Instagram Content Post Automation – Region Solothurn Tourismus
Re-use available content and automate posting it; the pictures are crawled through the Instagram APIs.
Challenge description
MVP: Re-use available content and automate posting it.
Datasets: Pictures crawled through the Instagram APIs (visitsolothurn, solothurn-city).
Remarks: Code is available – can you put it together? Smaller tourism organisations such as Solothurn or Bad Zurzach have very limited resources for social media.
- Email Management System – Engadin Tourismus AG
An algorithm that categorises incoming e-mails by their content, possibly integrated as an Outlook add-in.
Flavio WillimannGeorg Oberer→ Result: Email Management System
Challenge description
MVP: An algorithm that categorises incoming e-mails by their content, possibly integrated as an Outlook add-in.
Datasets: The content of over 5000 e-mails in two sets, one already categorised, one not.
Remarks: A complement would be answering simple standard questions automatically or generating e-mail templates.
- Resources Forecasting for Tourist Offices – Arosa Tourismus, Lenzerheide Marketing und Support AG
Ein tagesscharfes Prognosetool für die Personalplanung der Tourismusbüros, aus Schalterkontakten, E-Mails und Telefonaten gegen Wetter, Ferien und Feiertage.
Ronald Maurhofer
Daniel BarcoSibylle HaasLars TönzEliane AlbisserRamon SchildknechtAndré EggliKenny Floria
Peter Janes→ Result: Forecasting for tourist offices Arosa & Lenzerheide
Challenge description
MVP: A time-saving and cost-efficient forecasting tool with daily precision, for better staff planning, lower staff costs and flexible working hours at the tourist offices.
Datasets: Labels: counter contacts, e-mails and phone calls; predictors: weather, school and public holidays. Opening hours or events can be added.
Remarks: Data from 2016 to August 2019. Two teams worked on it, one for Arosa and one for Lenzerheide.
- Davos Day Trip Experience – Destination Davos Klosters
A web or mobile application around the experience of short-term travelling to Davos Klosters.
Challenge description
MVP: A web or mobile application, in the language and platform of your choice, around the experience of short-term travelling to Davos Klosters.
Datasets: Points of interest, weather, hiking trails, maps and routing APIs and other travel-related data.
Remarks: Any publicly available third-party services, APIs, open source projects and libraries are welcome.
- Who is Our Guest? – St.Gallen-Bodensee Tourismus
Mehr über die Besucherinnen der eigenen Webseite erfahren, um Marketingmassnahmen massschneidern zu können.
Challenge description
MVP: Learn more about the visitors of the own website in order to tailor marketing measures – for example through a contest or a survey disguised as an activity planner.
Datasets: Web form, Google Analytics, the CRM tool Wilken.
Remarks: Profiling through newsletters and city tour forms already exists, Google Analytics is in use.
- Open Sourcing Water Fountains, Literally! – MY-D Foundation
Die über 100 Brunnen aus der Maturaarbeit «Nidwaldner Brunnen» von Jana von Holzen öffnen: Bilder auf Wikimedia Commons, Daten in Wikidata und OpenStreetMap.
Maisa MelezanovicChristopher HilfingJohannes WildermuthCarlo Del RossiDaniel Sigrist
Stefan F. Keller→ Result: Open sourcing water fountains, literally!
Challenge description
MVP: High-school graduate Jana von Holzen assembled more than 100 water fountains in her Maturaarbeit «Nidwaldner Brunnen». This data should become open: the pictures on Wikimedia Commons, the fountains in Wikidata and OpenStreetMap.
Datasets: Water fountain data including pictures.
Remarks: The information becomes publicly available, including for projects like water-fountains.org. Four students of HSR were prepared to tackle the challenge, more were welcome.
- Guest Card Lucerne – Luzern Tourismus AG
Ein Konzept, wie sich Datengewinnung und Datennutzung der Gästekarte Luzern ausbauen lassen.
Bastian GschwendtnerDominik GablerMichael WechslerNatascha BenczeMarco SutterTania Hardy→ Result: Guest Card Lucerne
Challenge description
MVP: A concept for expanding the data generation and data use of the Guest Card Lucerne – which guest information could be gained, processed and used, and how.
Datasets: None; conceptual documents available.
Remarks: Basic data such as demographics, number of nights or other services is stored centrally and anonymised seven days after departure (GDPR).
- Tag-Manager Implementation – VisitLovers
Ein Tracking-Setup für die Webseite VisitLovers.ch über einen Tag-Manager, dokumentiert und für Dritte nachnutzbar.
Marcel UlrichGranit SermaxhajJan BachAnzhelika AlexandrakiSilvan Burnand→ Result: Tag Manager implementation
Challenge description
MVP: A tracking setup on the website of VisitLovers.ch via a tag manager to measure, analyse and rate customer behaviour for marketing.
Datasets: The website.
Remarks: The approach is to be documented and made available to third parties such as other start-ups.
- Kurtaxen – Determine All Overnight Stays – Heidiland Tourismus AG
Eine genauere Methode, die Kurtaxen in der Ferienregion Heidiland zu kontrollieren, aus Anmeldeformularen, Abwasser-, Strom- und Bevölkerungsdaten.
Florian DussLuis LimontaAxel KandelAyse YildizGiuliano ArdesiGeorg ObererAnastasiia Chebatarova→ Result: Visitor's Tax: Determine all overnight stays
Challenge description
MVP: Owners of holiday homes in Heidiland pay the visitor’s tax either per stay or as a flat fee. A more precise method is needed to check the visitor’s tax of all accommodation.
Datasets:
- more than 30,000 visitor’s tax registrations since January 2010 (arrival, departure, guests per home)
- 1623 registered holiday homes with area, rooms and beds
- daily wastewater data of the last three years in Flumserberg and the neighbouring area
- monthly electricity data for Flumserberg, January 2017 to September 2019
- monthly population figures for Flumserberg since February 2017
- Pedestrian Volumes – Urban Mobility Research
Hochrechnungsfaktoren aus Kurzzeitzählungen von Fussgängerinnen, samt einem Werkzeug zur Dateneingabe.
→ Result: Pedestrian volumes
Challenge description
MVP: Extrapolation factors from short pedestrian counts, with a data entry tool.
Datasets: Several years of automatic pedestrian counts (24/7) in Zurich and Basel-Stadt, all open.
Remarks: How can daily or yearly pedestrian volumes be derived from two-hour counts, and can a tool make that easy? The same would apply to cycling data.
- People in Public Spaces – Urban Mobility Research
Analyse von Besucherinnen und Touristen im öffentlichen Raum aus Webcam-Bildern und Videomaterial.
Challenge description
MVP: Analysis of visitors and tourists staying in and walking through public spaces, from video and still images.
Datasets: Public webcam images of Sechseläutenplatz Zurich and Jesuiten- and Theaterplatz Lucerne; video footage of several afternoons at Schwanenplatz Lucerne.
Remarks: How many people stay for how long, depending on the weather; counting and managing pedestrian flows, e.g. at traffic lights.
- Dashboard Concept GastroSuisse – GastroSuisse
Ein Konzept, wie sich Daten des Gastgewerbes auf der Webseite von GastroSuisse als interaktives Dashboard mit Benchmarks darstellen lassen.
→ Result: Dashboard Concept for GastroSuisse
Challenge description
MVP: A concept for structuring and showing data of the hotel and restaurant industry on the GastroSuisse website as an interactive dashboard, with a public area and a closed one where members compare themselves with national and cantonal benchmarks.
Datasets: Annual member survey (turnover, costs, taxes, profit, cost structure), economic and labour market data.
Remarks: Mainly about ideas: design, functions, structure and customer guidance.
- Measure Impact of the Fair-Preis-Initiative – GastroSuisse
Die Wirkung der Fair-Preis-Initiative aus Wirtschaftsdaten und Studien berechnen und für Stimmende sichtbar machen.
Challenge description
MVP: Calculate the impact of the Fair-Preis-Initiative from economic data and studies and present it attractively to voters (app, video, graphic, website).
Datasets: Price differences between Switzerland and the EU, price comparisons, VAT data, economic data and studies.
- Outdoor Tours – a Recommender System – Outdooractive AG
Ein Empfehlungssystem für Outdoor-Touren.
Challenge description
MVP: An algorithm that suggests alternative tours when a tour tends to be overcrowded.
Datasets: Tour data (opentourism.net).
Remarks: Recommendations should rest on social and economic sustainability and on identifying overcrowded tours and places.
- An Alternative to Google's Local Guides – Outdooractive AG
Eine Alternative zu Google Local Guides.
Challenge description
MVP: A concept with one or more scenarios as an alternative to Google Local Guides.
Remarks:
- principles of open source and open data must be considered
- identify possible data sources and their benefits
- consider data quality and accessibility
- Chat Advisor – Zürich Tourismus
Ein interaktives Auskunftssystem über Chat-Eingaben, das Fragen zu Betrieben, Öffnungszeiten und Anlässen beantwortet.
Challenge description
MVP: An interactive information system using chat input.
Datasets: Open data of the City of Zurich on tourism (zt.zuerich.com/en/open-data).
Remarks: The solution must answer basic questions about establishments, opening hours, events and the like.
- WLAN City Lucerne – Stadt Luzern
Das Verhalten der Nutzerinnen des städtischen WLAN besser verstehen und daraus einen besseren Dienst für die Gäste bauen.
Carmela WeyAlexander KuscheJulian ZihlmannPatrick SommerLaura HutterClaudio GiancaterinoSilvan WehrliAdeline BornaticoMichael WechslerAndreas Dorta→ Result: WLAN City Lucerne
Challenge description
MVP: Better understand the behaviour of the users of the public WiFi and build a better service for the guests.
Datasets: Open data of the City of Lucerne with the WiFi logins.
Remarks: Overnight guests with the Guest Card Lucerne can use the free network «Free Wi-Fi – LUZERN.COM».
- WC-Guide goes Open Data – Verein Sonnenschauer
Die über 5000 Einträge des WC-Guide, des grössten Verzeichnisses öffentlicher Toiletten der Schweiz, als offene Daten nach Wikidata und OpenStreetMap bringen.
→ Result: WC-Guide goes Open Data
Challenge description
MVP: The WC-Guide is the largest directory of public toilets in Switzerland, with more than 5000 entries. A new progressive web app replaces the iOS and Android apps and is open source; now the data should go to Wikidata and OpenStreetMap as open data.
Datasets: A working set for Lucerne, about 90 toilets, as XML with type, coordinates, name, remarks and properties such as stairs or changing table.
Remarks:
- prepare (script) and import the data into Wikidata
- prepare it for tools such as OSM Conflator or maproulette.org
- concept for synchronising OSM, Wikidata and wc-guide.ch
- keep the data quality, as entries have so far been checked one by one
- <404 – challenge not found> (…yet) – Zürich Tourismus
Eine offene Challenge ohne gesetztes Ziel: aus den offenen Daten der Stadt Zürich ein neues Werkzeug oder Produkt für den Tourismus bauen.
Challenge description
MVP: A new tourism tool or product.
Datasets: Open data of the City of Zurich on tourism.
Remarks: The City of Zurich provides a lot of open data. This challenge has no set goal: use the data to create something new for tourism.
- Accommodation Location Recommendation – Zürich Tourismus
Interessen angeben und eine Rangliste der am besten gelegenen Unterkünfte erhalten – mit den offenen Daten der Stadt Zürich.
Challenge description
Imagine you’re planning your next city trip. You have an idea of what you’re interested in, but you don’t want to commit to a too rigid plan. While looking for suitable accommodation, you want to be as close to your points of interest as possible. But you are not familiar with the city, so you waste time researching.
What if, instead, you just specify your interests and get a ranked list of the best situated accommodations? Creating a tool that does exactly that is the goal of this challenge. The data is provided by the City of Zurich under its open data license.
Programme
Friday, 29 November
- 09:00–09:15
Welcome breakfast
Arrival at the Laboratorium, name badges at the welcome desk.
- 09:15–09:30
Welcome
The student organising committee welcomed the participants and introduced the schedule, the house rules, the hack code of conduct and the Slack channel.
Stephana MüllerOrganisationskomitee, KommunikationTanja SchärLeitung Organisationskomitee - 09:30–10:30
- 10:30–11:30
Team building
Teams of two to eight people formed around the challenges; ten of them were taken up.
- 11:30–12:30
Start hacking
Countdown, and off they went.
- 12:30–13:30
Lunch
- 13:30–19:00
Hacking
Work in the teams; the organising committee checked in with every group regularly.
- 19:00–20:00
Dinner
- 20:00
Hacking continues – open end
Those who wanted to worked through the night; sleeping places were available at HSLU’s Rösslimatte.
Saturday, 30 November
- 08:00–12:00
Breakfast and hacking
- 12:00–14:00
Lunch and final sprint
At 11:30 the countdown to the deadline started.
- 14:00–14:45
Welcoming guests and tourism input
The event opened to friends, supporters and the tourism industry; Martin Barth, CEO of the World Tourism Forum Lucerne, spoke in an interview about working across sectors.
Martin BarthCEO World Tourism Forum Lucerne - 14:45–15:45
- 15:45–16:00
- 16:00–18:00
Apéro and outlook
With a teaser for the next Hackdays: Energy Data Hackdays in March 2020 in Aargau and «Shaping our City» in November 2020.
Read the original announcement
Episode 01: Tourism
powered by Tourist Office Lab and
Master of Science in Applied Information and Data Science
at Lucerne University of Applied Science and Arts
We already have 70 great minds on board.
REGISTER NOW now and don’t miss out on this premiere.
Location: Laboratorium Lucerne
Schedule: Friday, 29th November 2019, from 9am to
Saturday, 30th November 2019 6pm
On November 29-30 the Open Hackdays Lucerne edition will take place at the Laboratorium in Lucerne. This will be the very first episode of a bi-yearly event series presented by students from the Lucerne University of Applied Science seeking their master’s degree in Applied Information and Data Science.
In this episode, we’re all about tourism. Tourism in Switzerland is an important economic engine and key to many Swiss incomes. Let’s create new solutions that have the potential to disrupt tourism in Switzerland, create mind-blowing happenings and make the industry more transparent, social and sustainable.
Schedule
- Friday, 29.11. · 09.00 Welcome breakfast · 09.15 Introduction · 09.30 Challenge pitching · 10.30 Group building · 11.30 Start hacking · 12.30 Lunch · 19.00 Delicious Dinner · 20.00 Continue hacking – open end · Saturday, 30.11. · 08.00 Individual start hacking with breakfast · 12.00 Lunch · 14.00 Input Talk (to be announced) – open for friends & supporters! · 14.45 Presentation of your creations & open discussion · 16.00 Closing Apéro & teaser 2020
What can you expect?
Our members represent local companies, leading institutions and industry organizations in Switzerland’s tourism field. Together with your skills and the business knowledge of these partners, we will develop new solutions for various challenges. Think about creating an application that improves the experience of your trip and considers picturesque routes rather than the fastest route. Or think about developing a tool that visualizes the challenges of tourism in cities and supports them in solving bottlenecks.
We’ll provide an inspirational location including a refreshing shower and, for the participants who want to work through the night, sleeping possibilities. Of course, there’s also plenty of brainfood, exciting datasets, a motivated crowd and diverse know-how and knowledge from all around the world.
Let’s join forces!
We invite you to take part in this very first episode of the Open Data Hackdays in Lucerne. Let’s meet. Let’s innovate. Let’s explore the potential of open tourism data, share our insights, learn from each other and start creating.
The Open Data Hackdays are open to all interested persons who want to creatively deal with tourism data as software developers, designers, data scientists, analysts or idea carriers.
PS: In order to plan the catering requirements correctly, we kindly ask you to inform us at least 5 days before the event, by the 24th November, in case you (unfortunately) have to cancel your registration for the Hackdays. Places are limited and we really don’t like food waste.
Challenges
Take a peek at the first announced challenges (work in progress, there will be more!):
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a project idea or a team to participate?
No, this is not necessary. At the beginning of the Hackdays different project ideas and challenges will be presented. You can contribute to the project idea that inspires you the most.
Are the Hackdays only for developers?
No, the Hackdays are not only for developers, but also for visualizers & designers, economists, travel enthusiasts, journalists, lateral thinkers, special sauces & doers.
Do I have to stay on site for almost 48 hours?
No, that’s not necessary. It is important that you contribute to the success of your chosen project and discuss with your team when and where you work
What do I need to bring with me?
Most important: don’t forget your laptop. You may also want to bring your notebook, pens and possibly a sleeping bag. However, we will provide you with a basic supply of material, such as papers, flipcharts, post-it, food and drinks.
Is there enough power supply on site? As far as I can see, your location doesn’t look like that right now..
Don’t you worry, we are prepared for the worst. Highspeed WIFI & Powers supply is guaranteed. There won’t be anything that can stop us from tackling these challenges.
Is Kupferkessel food for FREE?
Yes, all meals will be for free on both hackdays. Same for the sleeping possibilities, the hackdays are for free for all participants: CHF 0.-, gratuit.
Can I bring friends or supports? / Can I join without working on a challenge?
Sure you can, but due to respect on our hardworking hacking and designing and thinking community – not before Saturday 2pm. We need to focus on the challenges and earn the apéro 😉
How do you get a creative vibe on location?
We’re happy to cooperate with Iwona from Creative Switzerland who supports us with mind-blowing toolsets: creative-switzerland.com
Who did this amazing visual?
That was Alexandra Wegener, thanks a bunch. http://alexandra.wegener.ch
Further questions?
Feel free to ask! hackdays@opendata.ch
The event is made possible by:
Organising team
Jonas WidmerLocation
Lisa FickelChallenge-Support
Andreas LiebrichDozent, Challenges mit dem Tourist Office Lab
André GolliezProjektinitiator HSLU
Nikki BöhlerOpendata.ch
Oleg LavrovskyOpendata.ch, Plattform und Technik
Rafael EnzlerTourist Office Lab, Wissenstransfer
