Singaporetourismaccelerator

About the Accelerator

The Singapore Tourism Accelerator is a highly-selective, equity-free programme for the world’s most promising technology startups or scaleups that can power the travel and tourism industry. This programme is organised by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) as part of their Tcube initiative and is designed by its appointed corporate innovation partner, Dalberg (formerly known as Ravel Innovation), a global social impact advisory firm, and its recruitment partner The Next Web (TNW). We are looking for scaleable tech innovations with tailored value propositions to develop and adapt for future-proofing the travel and tourism industry and help tourism companies thrive amidst the opportunities and challenges of a post pandemic economy. Whether you already have some traction in the industry, or are looking to apply your solution to the industry for the first time, we want to hear from you.

For more information about the accelerator go to this website.

Pilot with Leading Businesses

The top companies will be selected based on their ability to help solve challenge areas with Industry Partners across the tourism sector. The programme's main focus is on the successful scoping and execution of a pilot agreed upon during the programme. Once selected, each team will be guided through an introduction to the programme and given details on how to work closely with their respective Industry Partner to design, launch, scale and measure the success of actual pilot projects, before embarking on a 3-4 months pilot during the rest of the programme. The programme will feature opportunities to get to know and work with important players in the Singapore Tourism and Hospitality sector as well as the startup ecosystem.

What can you expect?

The selected companies will gain unparalleled access to work with some of Asia’s and the world’s most important industry players. They will undergo introductory workshops before connecting with interested industry partners in an exclusive speed networking session to discuss potential collaboration opportunities. This will be followed by 3 - 4 months of pilot implementation with selected industry partners as well as a showcase to a range of interested travel and tourism businesses and investors at the end of the programme.

Target Pilot Partner Profile

Innovative startups and pre-scaleups are encouraged to apply, that have existing customers, a proven product or service, or have raised at least a seed round that are ready to scale.
B2B or B2B2C focused. We are looking for companies that will be able to pilot solutions directly with travel and tourism businesses.
Technology company. We are looking for companies that have technology/ innovation that can power the tourism and hospitality industry.
Based anywhere in the world, but open to relocation to Singapore during the pilot duration of the programme.
Open-minded and collaborative in adapting their solutions to an original pilot with a tourism business
- Interested to enter or scale in Southeast Asia
- Interested to incorporate in Singapore
Ready to scale

Commitment

Two members of the company, at least one co-founder and a pilot project lead should commit to the full duration of the programme.
100% attendance is expected for key program milestones.
You are expected to develop a product-pilot fit - either for a new solution from existing technologies or for an adapted solution with existing market validation to be tailored and scaled with the corporate partner.
The Pilot Implementation phase takes place across 3 - 4 months that will require leadership focus, resource deployment from the startup/scaleup ending with an Tourism Industry/Investor Showcase.

#1: Manpower Management

Manpower Allocation: How might we manage, schedule, and deploy different types of labour based on changing conditions effectively to optimise operations?
- Hotels aspire to provide 24/7 service towards their guests and are therefore looking to optimize on:
  - Management of Schedules and Shifts: Tech solution that helps to plan and and manage different schedules and shifts within a hotel environment, ie housekeeping, reception, concierges, F&B etc.
  - Rapidly identifying suitable staff for rostering: Support in identifying staff with similar skillsets to take on roles in different functions based on periods of high demand in the hotel
- Attractions/ Integrated Resorts: In outdoor tourism attractions where operations are highly weather-dependent, attractions providers are looking to optimise weather-based manpower rostering: rostering solutions/ software that helps organisations to determine manpower requirements and distribute existing staff according to weather conditions in real-time (e.g. less staff required outdoors during rainy days)
Staff Productivity: How might tech help front-facing service staff be more productive while retaining the human touch?
- Amidst manpower shortages within the tourism sector, organisations would like to enhance worker productivity while retaining the human touch and ensuring small variance in service delivered, through tech solutions enabling seamless and efficient hybrid guest servicing e.g. AR/ holograms
Staff Training: How might we leverage tech solutions to supplement the training needs and experience for diverse staff profiles within the tourism workforce?
- Tourism businesses seeking to increase efficiency amongst their workforce amidst labour shortages would like to optimise through tech:
  Staff readiness to work across functions: Rapid upskilling staff to work across functions (e.g. F&B staff supporting reception during periods of high demand within the hotel)
- Engagement of younger generation to train them for service delivery through tech solutions enabling immersive and interactive training e.g. AR/VR, gamification
  Elderly digital literacy: efficiently reskilling/ upskilling elderly staff members in the digital tools and systems used in house for service delivery
Elderly employee safety and efficiency: How might we leverage tech to increase efficiency and safety of elderlies employed across the tourism sector?
- Organizations across the tourism sector are looking to better tap on their silver workforce amidst manpower crunches and are therefore looking to improve:
  - Elderly employee safety: Tech solution able to help reduce the rate of accidents amongst staff belonging to ageing population
  - Efficiency of elderly staff: tech solutions including adaptive technologies/ wearables to aid elderly staff to carry out tasks more productively

#2 Sustainability Management

End-to-end management of sustainability data: How might we track and consolidate our organisational sustainability data accurately from end-to-end (from environmental footprint to our progress on sustainability initiatives)?
- Organizations across the tourism sector are looking to understand their sustainability performance from end-to-end, and as such would like to optimise:
  - Sustainability initiative tracking: Understanding and monitoring performance and progress of various sustainability initiatives (e.g. circularity, food waste, energy and water consumption, etc.) implemented
  - End-to-end sustainability management: Solution tracking internal compliances, carbon footprints and external reporting from end-to-end
  - Manual reporting: Tech solution to replace the currently manual processes involved in reporting across different platforms (and their formats) required for various sustainability standards (e.g. Building and Construction Authority requirements, ISO etc.
- Topics were specifically brought up by Integrated Resorts and smaller transport providers within the tourism sector but are industry agnostic.

#3 Crowd Management

Real-time crowd understanding: How might we understand crowd movements and compositions across key venues of interest in real-time to optimise manpower and business activity?
- Integrated Resorts (IRs) looking to streamline operations would like to better understand and monitor the crowd activity across their different key venues through tech solution(s) able to integrate data across different sensors/ sources at venues in real-time, to gain:
  - Visibility of movement (visitor flow and volume) between various places within the Integrated Resorts (e.g. casino to hotel to theme park to retail) to locate choke points
  - Visitor / crowd visibility (flow and volume) within a specific location e.g. different attractions, casinos, MICE, theme parks
- MICE operators looking to streamline operations would like to better understand and monitor crowd compositions across their exhibit halls/ meeting rooms/ event venues, through gaining:
  - Visitor/ crowd visibility: Tech solution enabling understanding of the crowd flow and volume within specific locations e.g. in different exhibit halls
Crowd control in busy periods: How might we control crowds in peak periods while engaging our visitors?
- During peak periods, attractions providers would like to efficiently manage the flow of customers whilst keeping their attractions interactive / interesting to maintain customer engagement, including directing guests to less sought-after attractions
Real-time information provision to reduce overcrowding: How might we provide real-time information to disperse customers/ guests particularly during peak periods?
- Airports/ Hotels/ Cruise/ IRs looking to reduce congestion during peak periods at key choke points such as check-in areas and security points would like to leverage tech solutions to share live information of wait times and redirect incoming crowds to vacant spaces efficiently.
- Carpark wayfinding for MICE operators: MICE venues with car parking lots that currently lack an efficient way of providing live information on the availability of lots especially during large scale events would like to leverage tech for a simple wayfinding solution that guides visitors to the nearest available lots, in order to reduce fuel and time spent
Queue management (Non-physical queues): How might we improve the in-the-queue experience of non-physical queues to enhance customer satisfaction?
- Tourism businesses particularly tour operators and hotels would like to manage non-physical queues (i.e.call centres) through tech solutions enabling:
  - Human / personal touch e.g. personalisation by name;
  - Queue prioritization: giving priority according to queue entrance time, interactiveness of conversations, transfers, subject matter
Queue management (Physical queues): How might we leverage tech to manage queues efficiently on-site at key choke points to avoid frustrating experiences and redirect value-added time and money spent?
- Hotels (including those within integrated resorts) would like to streamline and manage queues during peak periods (e.g. breakfast queue) at their F&B outlets
- Attractions providers (including those within integrated resorts) would like to manage long queues on-site in front of popular attraction exhibits/ segments e.g. park rides particularly during peak/ busy periods (holidays), redemption counters
- Cruise operators would like to optimise queue management at points of arrival and departure through tech

#4 Waste Management

Waste segregation: How can we better (i.e. more efficiently and accurately) segregate waste while meeting physical space constraints, so that we can reduce costs/ resources to manage waste?
- Organisations across the tourism space would like to optimise through tech:
  - Back of house waste segregation: leveraging tech solutions (e.g. AI/ ML) to for a waste sorting and separation system in a resource-efficient manner
    - Specifically, integrated resorts have various operations and divisions (i.e. F&B, hotels, attractions, MICE space) with currently fragmented waste segregation processes and are therefore they are looking to simplify segregation of waste on-site across their various facilities
  - At-source waste segregation: leveraging tech to encourage guests/ visitors to segregate their waste correctly in appropriate bins available (e.g. educational solution for guests to learn about different waste types and how to segregate, gamification)

Waste measurement: How might we leverage tech to optimise the waste measurement process across our venues?
- - Tourism businesses would like to optimise through tech:
  - Accurate and efficient tracking, weighing and identification of waste types, particularly for food waste in commercial venues such as hotel/ integrated resorts’ kitchens especially when bins tend to become full quickly
  - Reduction of odour and maintaining cleanliness during measurement and collection of food waste through a compact solution that can be housed within limited space (e.g. hotel kitchens)

#5 Efficient and effective customer/ guest communication

High-touch multilingual real-time communication: How might tech help to overcome real-time language barriers during service/ experience delivery?
- Hotels aiming to provide consistent service quality across their guests would like to reduce communication barriers between front-facing staff and foreign guests through tech solution(s) supporting real-time multilingual communication
- Attractions providers' staff face challenges in communicating with guests effectively and consistently across various experiences, and are therefore looking to rely on a tech solution that enables real-time language translation across all experiences to break communication barriers
Timely query response: How might we leverage emerging tech like AI to resolve guest/ customer queries (on-site) and provide them with required information in a timely and effective manner?
- Tourism organisations seeking to provide real-time updates to their guests/ visitors are looking to optimise real-time query response through tech (AI) solutions to answer queries in real-time while saving manpower costs
- In particular, hotels looking to provide a seamless experience and 24/7 communication with their guests would like to optimise:
  - Engagement with visitors across stages of the guest journey (i.e. booking, pre-arrival, check-in, upgrades and on-site bookings e.g. restaurants/ spas, check-out at departure, feedback) through technologies including digital/ e-concierge solution, AI like ChatGPT
  - Turnover time between tech/AI solution and hotel staff by effectively understanding when existing tech solutions should handover queries/ notify staff to take action, particularly for hotels currently utilising hybrid modes of communication (i.e. tech/ AI complementing human service) for front desk, reservations
- Cruise operators looking to streamline the visitor communication process and provide timely responses across their visitors' journeys are looking to optimise:
  - Query response during the trip planning process: AI/ tech chatbot able to answer FAQ related to cruises from different cruise lines during pre-arrival trip planning
  - In-queue Q&A: Tech solution to enable real-time response to questions that arise during the queue
Synchronised updates across communication channels: How might we leverage tech to manage and update information across various communication channels (within and between organisations) easily and efficiently?
- Tourism businesses using various communication channels/ platforms to engage their guests would like to optimise the time and effort to update these platforms individually through a tech solution enabling the interoperability of existing communication channels and that allows seamless update of information (marketing promotions, real-time information) in one effort

#6 Energy Optimisation

How might we balance energy optimisation and guest comfort across tourism and hospitality businesses, particularly hotels and integrated resorts?
- Hotels (including those within integrated resorts) aspire to reduce energy consumption while ensuring guest satisfaction across the guest journey and are thus looking to optimise:
  - Room energy usage through temperature regulation: tech solution that enables temperatures to be adjusted and regulated accordingly upon guest entry/ exit of rooms
  - Lift usage: a smart elevator management solution that is able to schedule lifts according to demand in order to increase efficiency, reduce waiting time and optimise energy usage
  - Guest usage of own devices: tech solution enabling an open platform to encourage guests to BYOD and "hook on" to property services
Unused spaces: How might we leverage the energy optimisation opportunity around unoccupied spaces within tourism and hospitality venues?
- Hotels, MICE venues and integrated resorts would like to tap into the energy optimisation opportunity around unoccupied areas within venues/ buildings e.g. unused rooms and smaller event/ exhibition areas that have been portioned out

#7 Data Management

Data consolidation and visualisation: How might we leverage tech to integrate data (collected across different systems/ sources) in a consolidated view to derive actionable insights?
- Tourism businesses seeking the use of data more effectively to find more opportunities for differentiation and competitive advantage would like to optimise:
  - Market research and customer analytics: tech solution (e.g. big data) enabling efficient collection of market trend data, competitor sales and campaigns information, customer data
  - Trendspotting: tech solution enabling effective predictions about emerging and upcoming trends
- In particular, attractions providers seeking to push out experiences / activities that delight customers would like to optimise:
  - Consolidation and analysis of data: effectively integrating various data points collected e.g. wifi data, heatmap, footfall, CRM, POS
  - Analysis and visualiation of data: understanding patterns and trends across the combined datapoints
Customer intelligence: How might we effectively collect and use guest/ customers' data for profiling and segmentation while complying to local PDPA regulations, to create/ curate more targeted offerings?
- Tourism businesses looking to understand their guests in order to better target their marketing and service offerings would like to optimise:
  - Rapid and accurate customer data collection: tech solution enabling efficient collection of customer data including customer preferences and dislikes, demographics and nationality data, customer journey information (i.e. how do they continue their journeys after visiting), customer search data, social media sentiments, purchase data
  - Analysis of customer data: tech solution enabling analysis of various customer datapoints e.g. buying patterns, preferences and trends, demographics, online behaviour/ sentiments to generate insights that will inform experience curation/ creation
  - Profiling and Segmentation: tech solution/ software that is able to categorise target and potential customers to inform marketing and advertising strategy (e.g. archetyping customers that are "green" who value sustainability and might be willing to pay for sustainability-focused experiences/ services accurately)
  - Predictive modelling: tech solution able to build reliable predictive guest/ customer profiles to anticipate future needs and identify potential issues leading to churn
Data Accuracy (Reducing input error): How can we leverage tech to ensure the accuracy of inputs by guests and internal staff?
- Tourism businesses would like to reduce the occurrence of data input errors by guests and staff (e.g. differentiating effectively between country of origin vs. place of residence, typos) through tech e.g. AI/ML, efficient and intelligent document processing
Data Accuracy (Authentication): How might we leverage tech for authentication of information including consumer credentials, events details to prevent consumer scam and fraud?
- MICE providers seeking to reduce occurrences of scam and fraud across various events including concerts, online tech shows (as consumers buy into fake events) would like leverage tech to verify credentials of consumers and authenticity of events

#8 Customer Feedback/Sentiment

Customer route-mapping: How might we understand customer sentiment towards specific zones within venues in order to nudge / shift guest route patterns or inform improvements to our attractions?
- Attractions providers looking to maximise footfall across their venues are looking to accurately understand footfall patterns through a tech solution enabling roadmapping/ tracking within the venue to identify often-used routes and determine cold zones for enhancement to encourage visitorship
On-premise/ live feedback: How can we tap on technology to understand and manage live, on-site guest/ visitor feedback and/or sentiment in a non-intrusive manner while preserving the human touch?
- Tourism and hospitality providers seek to rapidly and accurately collect, measure and analyse visitor/ guest satisfaction, and are therefore looking to optimise active monitoring of live sentiments across various touchpoints of the customer/ guest journey:
  - Post-experience feedback collection and analysis: tech solution able to collect customer feedback beyond written means and analyse areas of non-performance/ where the provider is not meeting expectations for actionable insights
  - Accurate collection and active monitoring of live sentiments: AI / tech solution (e.g. camera/ headsets) capable of face recognition and sentiment analysis at key touchpoints within venues
    - Hotels/ IRs/ Wellness/ Cruise/ MICE: check-in/ arrival, check-out/ departure
    - Attractions: at exhibits (e.g. understanding length of stay, level of interaction at specific exhibits, heatmap/ crowd flows to understand popularity of exhibits)

#9 Inclusivity & Accessibility

Identification of accessibility needs: How might we leverage tech to define/ identify inclusivity and accessibility needs to enable our staff to contribute to experience design?
- Tourism businesses looking to better understand how to enhance accessibility and inclusivity within their venues would like to optimise:
  - Identification of accessibility needs: tech solution enabling recognition of accessibility blindspots, and staff to record accessibility issues faced by visitors/ guests within a scenario/ location
  - Staff contribution to design for accessibility: tech solution enabling staff members to share inputs on how to enhance inclusivity and accessibility across particular touchpoints
Experience creation: How might we leverage tech to create a more inclusive and accessible experience across the visitor journey?
- Tourism businesses looking to tap into the senior tourism market are looking to translate digital experiences for less tech savvy elderly guests/ visitors to enhance accessibility of experiences
- In particular, hotels (including those within integrated resorts) aspiring to provide more inclusive and accessible services are looking to optimise
  - Pre-stay experience: tech solution / interface that simplifies the booking processes for less tech savvy guests
  - In-stay experience through:
    - Catering for visitors with special needs through tech solutions including voice recognition systems (e.g. Alexa)
    - Streamlining check-in channels: intuitive tech solution interface simplifying self-check in process for elderly / special needs visitors and providing additional support required with baggage
    - Creating tech supported experiences for guests with physical challenges to partake in
Wellness providers looking to cater to a wider demographic through providing inclusive experiences would like to optimise:
- Pre-visit experience: increase ease of digital bookings for elderlies
- During-visit experience: tech solution enabling provider to design and implement inclusive/ integrated wellness programming for elderly and visitors with special needs

#10 Automation & Robotics

Automation & Robotics for back-end work experience: How might automation and robotics supplement repetitive, lower-value, manual tasks/ workstreams across the tourism sector?
- Organisations in the tourism space adapting to increasing frequencies of hybrid working modes are looking to optimise and manage payroll processes for staff through tech
- Tourism businesses facing the problem of managing cluttered assets (e.g. luggage trolleys not returned to designated stations in public spaces) within their venues would like to efficiently manage assets’ whereabouts through an autonomous / hybrid solution
- In particular, hotels facing limited access to skilled labour would like to tap on automation and robotics for lower-value, tedious back-end processes such as:
  - Waste collection, segregation and removal on-site (given that food digesters have limitations)
  - Support housekeeping in efficiently cleaning hotel room baths with differently sized cubicles e.g. by deploying robotic toilet cleaners
- Wellness providers looking to provide high quality of service amidst staff shortages would like to streamline incoming reservation requests through a tech software/ solution that helps to automate the scheduling, managing and booking process
Automation & robotics for visitor experience: How can we leverage automation and robotics to create a seamless visitor experience and ensure visitor safety?
- Hotels looking to free up staff time for more meaningful tasks, ensure higher quality of guest interactions, and create a more seamless visitor experience would like to:
  - Automate non-productive work and manual labour required for front desk services including luggage check-in, housekeeping, stewarding, replacing concierge with automatic/ e-concierge (e.g. through facial recognition)
  - Tap on robot servers to deliver and manage room requests to hotel guests, and deliver amenities required within the hotel environment including linens, towels, soaps etc (as used in healthcare sector/ logistics supply chain), which would require the integration of robotics with existing systems like lifts
- Attractions providers looking to provide safe experiences for their visitors in an efficient manner are hoping to optimise manpower required for manning stations via a tech solution able to maintain safety and provide confidence to visitors without human presence during boarding/ disembarking at attractions e.g. from cable cars
- Wellness providers looking to provide and maintain a high quality of service amidst a shortage of skilled staff would like to utilise massage robotics to replace/ supplement the labour of human masseurs
- Amidst staff shortages across the tourism space, the sector as a whole might benefit from reduced reliance on physical labour to clean public toilets through tapping on robotic toilet cleaners

#11 Asset Management

Tracking and monitoring asset movement: How might we better track and manage the rapid movement of a large volume of various asset types (at a granular level) across a high number of venues?
- Organizations across the tourism sector facing the problem of being unable to keep track where they have stored purchased assets / logistics would like to tap on tech solutions enabling smart logging of asset storage locations
- Cruises, Hotels and Integrated Resorts would like to track various types of assets moving within their premises (currently without their knowledge) in an efficient manner through optimising:
  - Asset movement tracking: Tech solution enabling hotels to have records of asset movements at a granular level (e.g. items within each room) as they happen rapidly throughout the hotel
Efficient asset/ inventory stock take: How might we leverage tech to efficiently account for all inventory (especially small items) during our annual stock take?
- Hotels and Integrated Resorts would like to streamline the asset accounting process through a tech solution enabling the efficient accounting for all asset types (especially smaller items like teaspoons / pens) across venues/ facilities
  - Potential solution example used in the military: weighing the assets and doing calculations to determine if number of assets are right

#12 Personalisation

How might we serve the right content, offers and recommendations to our visitors and guests?
- Tourism businesses seeking to personalise their service and increase the human touch would like to optimise marketing, communications and offers through tech solution(s) enabling:
  - Customisation of marketing content based on demographics and source market data, geolocation
  - Tailored offers or discounts e.g. birthday promotions, loyalty promotions
  - Matching customer preferences to available services efficiently
  - Curated recommendations of activities / experiences based on customer needs, interests, preferences and demographic data (e.g. luxury shopping, dietary requirements, wellness programs/ treatments)
  - Curated/ bespoke activities and experiences accessible to diverse audiences through tech e.g. generative AI, IOT, geolocation
  - After-sales processes including refund, confirmation, information provision, feedback and followup for customers in a personalised manner
In particular, hotels seeking to provide a more personalised service to their guests would like to optimise:
- Filtering of data for hyper-personalisation: tech solution that is able to pull customer data including client loyalty status preferences, past visit history seamlessly (e.g. from existing systems like CRM) to provide a persona brief for front-desk staff to greet guests and curate recommendations
- Customer data reconciliation: tech solution enabling customer data to be reconciled/ verified at check-in with sensitive information censored i.e. staff member handling check-in only sees need-to-know information like name
- In-room experience: using customer information to personalise entertainment and experience (e.g. TV casting in room)
- Targeted discounts through PMS
- Data collection to build reliable customer profiles and loyalty program(s)
Attractions providers with retail segments seeking to provide recommendations in an efficient manner are looking to tap on tech to provide an interactive, self-help solution (kiosk) that pushes out suggestions to visitors
Wellness providers would like to increase the human touch during guest interactions through leveraging a tech solution that enables the provision of custom offers to their guests e.g. birthday promos, recommendations for treatments based on customer needs/preferences, demographic data etc.
Cruise operators would like to leverage a tech solution with that enables guests to efficiently select and choose from various cruise options provided (i.e. comparison of available packages, facilities, routes offered) that fit their needs at point of booking

#13 Tech-Augmented Experiences

Tech enabled self-guided experience: How might attractions providers convert experiences into self-guided ones to allow flexibility & customisation in the user journey?
- Attractions providers would like to increase flexibility during customers' visit and allow self-paced and guided experiences through tech. They would like to optimise for example
  - Providing real-time information regarding relevant parts of the attractions at point of arrival
  - Enabling guests to map routes they would like to take in order of preferences efficiently