Newsletter
SMARTOURISM is a visual service for weather and Touristic Comfort indices forecasts using Artificial Intelligence techniques with minimal requirement of meteorological in-situ data.
Funded by the Intelligent Specialization program of the Region of Crete and carried out by the Coastal & Marine Research Lab (CMRL, https://crl.iacm.forth.gr/en/) of FORTH, which accurately predicts climatic variables and multiple comfort indices, created towards summertime beach holidays, to assist in day-to-day tourist activities scheduling, holiday planning and destination selection for tourists, as well as touristic season scheduling.
The innovation lies in being able to predict, variables that are chaotic and usually depend on expensive and complex flow models, based on a combination of accurate measurements of our MS and robust AI techniques.
The visual service is shown here, which in addition to temperature, humidity, rain, cloud coverage, wind speed and direction, UV forecasts, it also provides forecasts for 2 tourist comfort indices based on climate. TCI (Tourist Climate Index) scales how comfortable tourists feel and provides a daily guidance to pursuit or avoid beach activities according to comfort levels. HCI (Holiday Climate Index: Beach specification) assesses the human comfort level, including a wide range of summertime activities, based on the climatic conditions. The latter takes into account climatic preferences, not only about beach related activities strongly relying on temperature (like the TCI), but for a wider range of tourists' interests. HCI and its yearly/long term behavior is a very useful tool for vacation planning (destination and time period) since its environmental variables weighting system is based on real life responses by tourists.
The visualization, as shown, is also color-coded for its easier comprehension without requiring scientific knowledge.
Additionally, it provides a local Sea State forecast, utilizing the wind
prediction from the MS, based on the JOHNSWAP method. The platform supporting the visual service is also compatible with the advanced forecasting systems like the COASTAL CRETE of CMRL (funded from Copernicus marine services). COASTAL CRETE is an operational
high-resolution forecasting service for Crete freely available to users. It is
currently under integration in the EE’s Digital Twin of the Ocean (DITTO), which is
created by the Horizon/Green deal project ILIAD to which CMRL is a prime
partner, as the DITTO of Crete Island.
The CMRL is a member of MONGOOS network, MEDSLIK-II developers consortium, and the European (ERIHS) and national (HELLAS-CH) infrastructure on Cultural Heritage. The Lab provides open access, real time services of operational forecasting of weather conditions, touristic indices, sea state (wave, currents, other essential ocean variables, marine pollution) around Crete.
