The goal of the eHospitality project was to find out what elements empathic digital tourism service encounters include, and how value is created with and for customers in digitalized services. For example, how can we be hospitable at digital touchpoints and how can digital tools be implemented to support digital encountering, accessibility and sustainability?

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The project answered the following questions by bringing new “high touch” thinking with “high-tech” tools to the actors, by encouraging them to collaborative development and coaching for experiments:

• How do you create added value and meaningful emotional experiences for customers at the interface of physical and digital services? At which touchpoints and service moments technologies create better value for the customer than people and vice versa?
• What could be e-Hospitality (Digital Hospitality), a hospitable and empathetic digital service encounters and experience, in the travel, restaurant and event industry that includes digital, physical and experiential elements?

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In addition, the project aimed to support innovation in digital services and customer experience in the tourism industry in line with the React EU priorities. The Finnish, Lappish eHospitality project was implemented in cooperation with its sister project from Southern Finland, called e-Hospitality - digital hospitality and empathy for digital tourist service encounters in the new normal, which was implemented by LAB and the Turku Universities of Applied Sciences. One of the objectives was to seek synergies and establish a transnational parallel cooperation, which will form an innovation and development ecosystem.