June was a full month of digital tourism. As a partner in establishing the first Palestinian tourism Innovation Hub (Phoenix) with our partner Jerusalem High Tech Foundry (JHF), we announced June as the month of Digital Tourism. The month included many activities that targeted all the stakeholders in the Palestinian tourism sector, the technology sector and the business sector to critically explore tourism challenges and opportunities and innovative solutions and competitive startups.
- Round table discussion workshops with the tourism sector.
We have conducted two workshops, one in Jerusalem on June 11th and one in Bethlehem on June 25th. Local & international experts and specialists led both workshops; we covered many topics! Tourism Digitalization; Tourism sector practical & comprehensive overview; Latest tourism trends & technologies; Problem reframing. Tourism (local & global) problems & opportunities; Ideation through Design Thinking. It is meant to inspire and seed new competitive tourism ideas.
Jerusalem workshop
Bethlehem workshop
- The open day on digital tourism technology:
We organised Open Technical Day at Palestine technopark as part of the digital tourism month activities. The open day included practical experiences in innovative technologies and a visit to the Jerusalem Hakawi exhibition.
- Digital Tourism Hackathon (June 30th -July 2nd):
For three days (54 hours), we have held the digital tourism Hackathon at Palestine Technopark, where entrepreneurs, technologists/developers, designers, tourism specialists, and business professionals come together to pitch ideas, join teams and launch businesses, all in one weekend. It was a great opportunity to test startup ideas, meet potential co-founders, prototype products/services, help in advancing the tourism & tech entrepreneurial community in Palestine, and launch the next high-growth startups.
The first day: During the first day, Tonny Khashram- Accredited Tourism Consultant for Palestine, presented the outcomes of our workshop in Jerusalem and Bethlehem about “Tourism sector challenges”. In addition to Ice breaking exercises, Pitching ideas, Voting & Startup Selection, and Teams formation.
Second day: during the day, we held different sessions and talked about Business modeling & customer empathy map and How to do the right storytelling about Palestine with Malak Hasan (Ahlan Palestine ) and Samer Sharif ( Tijwal Safar). Moreover, we did team leader's briefs with mentors and hacking.
Third day: On the last day of the Hackathon, we started the day with a Pitching Skills session with Anas AlChalabi - SME Development Expert - SPARK and it was followed by hacking and sending final documents. In the middle of the day, we reached the most exciting part, the Judging deliberations and selection of the winners. We ended the day with Winner's Announcements & Final Ceremony.
Get to know the teams that won the Digital Tourism Hackathon competition: Press here.