Tourism MaaS – The case for regional cities

Abstract

Mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) has predominantly been focused on urban commuter transport. Now attention is shifting towards tourism applications. MaaS could address many current challenges in transport and tourism, enabling visitors to spend less time planning their travel, and more time enjoying their visit. It also provides an avenue for businesses to reach out to potential visitors and customers. This paper explores opportunities and challenges for regional MaaS development, with a multi-county review of selected tourism applications of MaaS, including Finland, Japan, and Taiwan. Then, a regional applicability study was conducted in three Queensland (Australia) regional centres of varying forms – Townsville, Rockhampton-Yeppoon, and Gladstone. Stakeholder interviews and a workshop were conducted, followed by a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis across four dimensions: i) stakeholder collaboration, ii) technology, iii) operating environment, and iv) service and market. The results suggest that a multimodal tourism-based MaaS offering has better potential in a place with a diverse economy and a growing tourist offer. Respondents indicated that a successful MaaS requires close integration of various modes, and also non-transport value-adding services (e.g., events, accommodation or attractions). Significant challenges remain in intermodal integration, long term transport funding, and cooperation between various businesses and transport operators.