On March 15 & 16, Dr. Fried & Partner held the Think Tank in Austria at Salz21, as in the previous year, in cooperation with the Travel Industry Club in Germany. The topic of the 2023 trade fair was “Home of Innovation” and was focused on people, technology and the future.
Success factors and challenges when founding a travel industry accelerator
As part of the first think tank of the initiative to establish a travel industry accelerator, moderated by Dr. Markus Heller, the experts discussed success factors and challenges of accelerators with a focus on tourism together with the audience.
In his keynote speech, Harald Hafner (President of the Travel Industry Club Austria) gave an insight into the requirements for accelerators that are already being implemented from the perspective of start-ups and emphasized the importance of an international orientation of relevant offerings. At the same time, he emphasized the search for development opportunities and innovative applications of the institutions that represent the network around the accelerator. With regard to the investors, he emphasized the attractiveness of the Accelerator against the background of the international perspective with a focus on the tourism and leisure industry.
In the stimulating discussion that followed, Markus Salzmann (founder of Next Floor) provided insights into the two successful batches that have already been carried out and Harald Hafner added from his experience with the start-up nights organized by the Travel Industry Club in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The topics of impact investment, internationality and interdisciplinarity of the start-ups and the accelerator and the linking of the various stakeholders as well as the adaptation to the respective requirements of the established tourism industry and the start-ups were raised by the audience.
Dr. Fried und Partner, together with Harald Hafner on behalf of the Travel Industry Club Austria and Markus Salzmann from Next Floor, is now looking forward to incorporating the inspiration from the think tank into the upcoming accelerators and thus creating a home of innovation in tourism in line with the motto of Salz21.
True pricing as an aspect of sustainability in tourism
During the Think Tank Sustainability in Tourism, moderated by Dr. Markus Heller, the True Pricing initiative was examined from a socio-political, analytical and practical perspective.
Markus Tressel (President of the Travel Industry Club Germany and former member of parliament for the Green Party) focused on the political framework and awareness of sustainability on the consumer side.
Dr. Heller then gave an initial insight into the results of the LIFT Climate Project, which aims to calculate the true costs of a package tour in Germany, including transport and accommodation, and thus make environmental damage quantifiable as a cost. This concrete presentation of the true costs is also intended to raise awareness among consumers.
The event was rounded off by the presentation of inoqo, a company founded and presented by Markus Linder, which analyses a wide range of different data in order to record the various environmental impacts of food, such as water and land consumption, the carbon footprint, health aspects and the overall climate impact. In this way, individual foods can be identified based on their overall climate impact and also with regard to the individual parameters. In future, hotels will also be able to use solutions of this kind to identify the climate impact of various dishes and buffet offerings.