BayernCloud final report
The BayernCloud project was funded by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy (StMWi) with the aim of developing and implementing the prototype of an open digital data infrastructure for the Bavarian tourism sector. The Research Institute of the Free State of Bavaria for Software-intensive Systems (fortiss) carried out the project in concert with project partners at the University of Kempten (project manager), Outdooractive AG, hubermedia GmbH and Allgäu GmbH from 2018 to 2021 with support from BAYERN TOURISMUS Marketing GmbH (BayTM). The tourism reference architecture and further stabilization as a practical application is viewed as a major success.
The reference architecture, as a kind of blueprint for building a digital platform ecosystem, as well as a service description for the BayernCloud Tourism digital platform, serve as a basis for the upcoming activities in the newly-created Center of Competence for Digitalization in Tourism in Waldkirchen in the county of Freyung-Grafenau. Markus Garnitz, the head of the competence center, emphasizes the importance of the results with regard to the task of the competence center: to develop and apply digital concepts that successfully and sustainably strengthen tourism in Bavaria. In concrete terms, this means the implementation and support of the digital platform BayernCloud Tourismus, for which an implementation partner is currently being determined. For this purpose, the continuation of the project results will take place under the management of BayTM, and the coordination with all Bavarian tourism associations will also be coordinated from there.
Under the leadership of the center of competence, BayernCloud will be used to manage and make all necessary data for tourism marketing and destination management available. Tourism service providers can utilize this information as a basis for further applications and business models. One of the initial applications is the new Bavarian Day Trip Ticker, which guests can use to learn about possible day trip destinations and how busy they are and to get the inspiration for alternative destinations.
With its report fortiss provided an excellent foundation for the practical application, which offers a detailed description of the project activities and results, as well as recommendations for how the findings can be utilized for the organizational structure of an industry-wide, connected data infrastructure and for the technical development of BayernCloud as a future data hub for the Bavarian tourism industry.
BayernCloud Tourism will be built as a federated cloud infrastructure and thus follows the basic principles of the European project GAIA-X in its conception. Dian Balta, head of the fortiss competence field Open Data and Information Management emphasizes at this point: "The future of the cloud is decentralized! It is incumbent upon us to ensure digital sovereignty by complementing business models and processes and technological building blocks with relevant competencies." Thus, data assets will continue to be contributed and used by different participants, with BayernCloud playing the role of a data hub. The initial hurdles in filling them with data will be kept low.
