Innovative smart technology is being utilized to transform Himos, which is located in Jämsä, into a destination offering tourists a range of new experiences. The area will boast Finlands first hotel for boats as well as an energy efficient heating and snowmaking solution. IT will also be applied to provide visitors with a variety of wireless services.
Nowadays ski resorts need more than just great slopes and a good hotel. In future tourist destinations will compete on the basis of the experiences they can offer their customers.
Himos - Southern Finlands most popular ski resort is being developed into a smart destination which will attract a million visitors each year. This high-profile project will use advanced technology and create new types of customer-oriented services and business concepts. The overall investment will total one billion euros.
Resorts like Himos with accommodation for thousands of people and slopes that have to be kept covered with snow consume a lot of energy. Therefore the project to develop Himos is centred around pro-environmental and low-energy solutions.
The areas accommodation capacity will grow many-fold with the construction of a new spa hotel, 300 chalets and hundreds of holiday homes. A Finnish invention, a heating and cooling system based on a latent heat pump (LHP), will keep energy costs under control.
Himos is going to be a pilot project for the LHP system. The new technology will cut energy consumption by as much as half. New technology will also be used for snowmaking, and the costs will be reduced by 2030 percent, says Hannu Pelkonen, Development Director, Jämsä Region Development Company Jämsek.
Part of the resorts energy requirement will be met by windpower. A total of 4-5 wind turbines will be constructed at the site. The turbines were developed by Windside Production Oy, which is located in Central Finland, and won a European environmental award in 2005.
The wind turbines are completely silent, which makes them ideal for this area. There will also be a rotating panoramic restaurant at the top of one of the turbine towers.
Himos is also set to become a centre for waterborne tourism. There are plans to construct Lake Päijännes biggest marina and a hotel or covered storage facility for boats which will be the first of its type in Finland.
Each of the 350 boats using the facility will have its own storage cradle. A crane will lift the boats into the correct storage bay and the crew will be able to take the lift straight to the marina restaurant. Boats that are stored in the facility will be protected from the weather and vandalism, Hannu Pelkonen explains.
Boat owners will be able to access services using their mobile phone. Owners will be able to send a text message to request that their boat is retrieved from storage ready to use, for example. This service is an example of the many wireless solutions which will be in use at Himos in the future.
Effective development of technical and social innovations requires collaboration between companies, research institutes and the public sector. The efforts to develop Himos have been brought together under the SmartHimos project, which was launched by Jämsek, Jyväskylä Innovation Oy and Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences.
The objective is for the services to be tested in a real environment by real users. We want to create services that produce added value for our customers. At the same time external technology companies will be able to test their products and services at Himos. Effective applications and service concepts can be replicated elsewhere later, explains Miikka Raulo, Development Manager, Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences.
In future visitors will be able to get service information tailored to their own profile sent to their mobile phone. They will be able to use their phone to check the weather and snow conditions, or even to find out when the restaurant is open and what entertainment is scheduled. It will also be possible to use phones to pay car parking or ski storage locker fees.
Miikka Raulo points out that even though a lot of technology-based solutions will be in use, the technology itself will be kept behind the scenes.
Visitors dont want to buy technology. They want to buy services that solve problems or enhance their experiences.
Hannu Pelkonens visions for the resort include a type of fantasy world, with forest animals and even goblins, which will appear to come to life with the help of modern technology. Visitors will hear the roar of a bear or see goblins moving around in the forest. And every visitor could get their own personal souvenir DVD.
Photo: Tourists are prepared to pay for meaningful and memorable experiences which contrast with everyday life. Modern technology can help service providers to meet the challenge of tailoring these experiences to match individual needs.
Pia Tervoja