Case Study: Upper Austrian Tourist Board improves tourism experiences with Smaply

Researching tourism experiences in Upper Austria

Upper Austrian Tourist Board, Austria’s provincial tourism organization, wanted to better understand and improve the guest experience across its winter sports offer in Dachstein Salzkammergut and along the Danube cycle path. It worked with Smaply and used the ExperienceFellow mobile ethnography app to capture real customer journeys from pre-service planning through the stay itself and after the trip.

Smaply helped the team recruit participants, collect touchpoints, and visualize journeys through GPS-based mapping, surveys, and follow-up discussions with guests. The research uncovered issues such as incorrect brochure information, guests moving beyond the destination’s borders, and difficulty judging cycling distances, while also highlighting important moments like food and culinary experiences; the projects gathered 15 journeys and around 20 journeys with up to 25 touchpoints per participant on the Danube project, leading to concrete product improvements with local stakeholders.

Upper Austrian Tourist Board

Andreas Winkelhofer

Chief executive officer