Roman Egger and feratel launch “feratelAIplus Compass”

Artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing tourism: new decision-making logics, altered guest expectations, and shifting digital role models. To provide guidance in this area, Professor Roman Egger and feratel media technologies AG are launching the monthly webinar series "feratelAIplus Compass." The goal is to enable tourism organizations to classify and evaluate AI and make strategic decisions, deliberately without product demos or short-term tool recommendations.

Egger, who spent over 20 years as a professor of tourism innovation at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences and is now at MODUL University Vienna, contributes strategic AI expertise from research and teaching. feratel, as the technology partner in tourism, provides essential system expertise in destination management, guest cards, apps, registration systems, and much more, as well as data from hundreds of destinations. "AI needs to move from the lab to practical application. The compass helps tourism decision-makers distinguish between what is feasible and wishful thinking," explains Egger.

Strategic partnership for tourism

Both partners share a common goal: to use AI strategically and responsibly. Egger provides conceptual depth, while feratelAIplus combines this with productive systems and product solutions, as well as market experience. The collaboration extends beyond webinars, as Egger's AI expertise is directly integrated into product development.

feratelAIplus: AI already in production

With feratelAIplus, feratel, Onlim, pixelpoint & dataCycle, and Intermaps are combining their strengths in data intelligence, conversational AI, and system integration. Already in use are AI-based voicebots that automatically answer frequently asked questions, are available around the clock in multiple languages, and are being gradually expanded into comprehensive tourism voice assistants for bookings, events, routes & tours, points of interest, FAQs, ski resort information, and more.

AI services are already being used productively and automatically in the destination management system Deskline: They translate texts, create image descriptions, and support content maintenance. The calculation of market development forecasts in the Performance Monitor is also individually tailored to each DMO with AI support. This is based on a central, quality-assured data pool containing information on accommodations, events, weather, mobility, prices, lifts and slopes, routes and tours, and much more.

“For AI to function reliably in tourism, structured data and innovative technologies are needed to translate this information into understandable answers,” is the claim made by Egger and feratel. This is precisely where their collaboration begins: AI should not experiment, but work, and above all, noticeably relieve the burden on tourism professionals.

feratel, headquartered in Innsbruck, is a leading provider of digital tourism solutions, ranging from the Deskline destination management system to guest cards and registration systems, as well as panoramic cameras and business intelligence tools. The umbrella brand feratelAIplus strategically expands this portfolio to include AI.