The future regional structure which will bring together Île de La Réunion Tourisme and the Réunion Tourism Federation will include a tourism innovation laboratory, as there are in mainland France : The Réunion Tourism Lab. The first “Reunion Tourism Innovathon”, an emulation competition having selected, February 23, three promising projects, foreshadows this innovative approach in itself.
The IRT and the Reunion Tourism Federation share the diagnosis of a need for renewal and anticipation of Reunion tourism. Already entered into this logic, tourism in mainland France has been inspired by Tech methods to encourage new ideas and bring out projects via “laboratories”. The Welcome City Lab in Paris was the first to see the light of day, ten years ago. Since, around ten tourism innovation platforms of the same type have spread throughout France. With her, le design thinking, this co-creativity technique combining analysis and intuition, integrating the customer experience and decompartmentalizing thinking by opening it to all horizons, entered the field of tourism. Wishing to follow this experience, the Federation and the IRT called on the Open Tourism Lab, Nîmes platform, to guide reflection between private and public partners on the future of tourism in Reunion. Result ? A displayed ambition : “Reunion Island is reinventing tropical island tourism for the 21st century. » A decision : the Réunion Region’s innovation support system opens up to tourism. And a first action foreshadowing the Réunion Tourisme Lab : an innovathon dedicated to tourism.
An intense creative experience
The Réunion Tourism Innovathon is a competition over a short period, mobilizing collective intelligence to help entrepreneurs and project leaders design innovative solutions adapted to the realities of Reunion Island. For this first edition, two themes, broken down into challenges, framed the approach : “Reunion identity in the customer experience” and “Mobility and management of tourist flows”. Thirty-seven candidates were considered and ten teams were initially selected. The selected candidates had to challenge themselves to convince the Innovathon jury to select them for the next stage. This took place at MOCA from February 21 to 23, where six teams had an intense creative experience to test, reinforce or develop their project alongside designers and coaches in tourism innovation, entrepreneurship experts. Besides a small amount of money, the three winners above all benefited from highly effective support, which will continue. The Tourism Innovathon should become a regular event. Tourism thus provides new proof that “Reunion is an open-air laboratory”, as Géraldine Huet states, head of the monitoring department, innovation and foresight of the Réunion Tourism Federation, organizer of the event.
