The X Nordic Travel Contest (XNTC) is a 2-year innovation process. From mapping of challenges to developing, testing and promoting new and industry-ready solutions, the project aims to strengthen the sustainability and competitiveness of Nordic tourism industry and beyond.
XNTC is here to:
In more practical terms, the XNTC initiated design sprints, solution camps, and open calls to create solutions which targeted the challenges of the Nordic tourism industry. The strongest, most promising solutions, were supported, tested and retested with the tourism industry to assess the cross-Nordic market potential.
Since 2018, Nordic Innovation has been running the special initiative Tourism in the Nordics which aims to facilitate Nordic cooperation on innovation in the tourism industry, and contribute to a more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable region.
In 2019, the Nordic Ministers for Cooperation (MR-SAM) launched a process for Vision 2030. A key issue in the reform process was Nordic collaboration on tourism, with the objective of increasing competitiveness, innovation and sustainability within the sector. The Ministers proposed that tourism should be prioritized within the framework of Nordic collaboration. This was followed up with a Nordic Tourism Policy Analysis Report to the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2019.
The XNordic Travel Contest project is founded in the Tourism in the Nordics initiative and considers other activities under the initiative, as well as other Nordic tourism projects and policies.
Follow the progress of the XNordic Travel Contest on this project site, see more about the Tourism in Nordic Initiative and XNTC on Nordic Innovation and see the full press release about the project launch here.
The curious and the innovative – hopefully you! In more concrete terms…
SPRING–SUMMER 2023: XNTC invited the industry to share their problems: What are the real and solvable problems that Nordic tourism industry needs to address for a more sustainable and competitive future of the sector. This phase involved:
One Academic Panel of 6 members to contextualise, challenge and qualify insights and findings of workshops and interviews.
FALL–WINTER 2023: XNTC was loaded with challenges from the Nordic tourism & hospitality industry, and the programme shifted focus to sourcing solutions through open innovation activities, including:
Mapping of 400+ Nordic tourism, travel & hospitality startups to gain overview of the status of innovative solution already available in the tourism landscape and using this to identify key trends and opportunities for further matchmaking.
SPRING–FALL 2024: With new solutions identified, XNTC entered a phase of unfolding solutions in customised development and test tracks. Methods applied in this phase included anything and everything from sprints to matchmaking, different kinds of product, market and partnership tests, ongoing mentoring, industry awareness activities, and new market introductions.
Solutions tested could generally be put into three different categories:
Ultimately, most of the successful development and test tracks fell within the categories of New Ideas and Ventures.
FALL 2024 – SPRING 2025: It became clear throughout that process that building awareness and openness 1) towards new solutions, and 2) towards tourism as a possible market, and 3) of the potential and benefits of cross-Nordic collaboration for innovation and market access, was much more important than initially expected.
The final phase of XNTC stretched into early spring of 2025 with three key focus areas:
© 2023 XNordic Travel Contest.
