About

Summary

Acorn worked with GOPA on this Tourism Digital Transformation and Product Development and Innovation project for GIZ, which aimed to assist micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through support to Jordan's sector support organisations.  Acorn's role was to deliver the digital aspects of the project which included identifying what capacity building, research and skills the sector support organisations needed to better serve their members, and then to deliver these across Jordan.  This was followed up with focus on global and local digital platforms (such as Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, as well as Jordan-based systems such as ViaVii) to deliver training and solutions for businesses that utilise these platforms.

Our Approach

This project approached the digitisation of the tourism sector in Jordan from two directions:

• Identifying and providing digitisation solutions for sector support organisations themselves, so they can function more effectively and efficiently, and improve the services they offer members.
• Identifying and providing digital solutions for micro, medium and small enterprises (MSMEs) through the sector support organisations, so they can function more effectively and efficiently.  By offering these services to members, the sector support organisations can improve their membership offer, and potentially generate additional income. 

The study was significantly consultative-based, with close liaison with several of the sector support organisations, including the Jordan Inbound Tour Operators Association, Jordan Hotels Association, and Jordan Trail Association.  In addition to these, one-to-one, focus group and online surveys were carried out with the MSME members of these, and other, associations to better understand their needs.

Over 30 digital-based concepts were identified and these were then prioritised based on the feedback from the sector, to identify six that were implemented over the duration of the project.

Outcome

Relevant and useful digitisation concepts were identified that could be delivered to the MSMEs through the sector support organisations to make an immediate and significant impact, in particular as many businesses were suffering from the impacts of COVID-19.

The sustainability of the digital concepts, which included manuals and toolkits for businesses, was assured through the training of the sector support organisations and the provision of tools that they could provide to members who needed them in the future.