Business models and ICT supporting the development of local agrofood and tourism systems

Business models and ICTs for developing local agro-food and tourism systems

MARCO DELLA GALA - [email protected] AND COUNTRYSIDE RESEARCH INSTITUTE – UNIVERSITY OF GOLUCESTERSHIRECCRI - SEMINAR SERIES 09/02/2017

80% national Production80% world

Production

Where the research has been conceived

Marco Della Gala – CCRI Seminar Series 09-02-2017

Cosenza °

University of Calabria Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering

Calabria covers a total area of 15,222 km2 (with over 740 km of coastline) and 2 million inhabitants live in CalabriaThe region is classified 96% as rural area. There are almost 138 000 farms with an average size of 4 hectares (42% of the farms are below 1 hectare) In the 2012 agriculture accounted for 4.2% of the regional VA (1.2 billion euro). The weight of agriculture in the regional VA is twice the national average (Castellotti & Lo Vecchio, 2014)tourism is relevant, but, although the region is rich with regard to nature, culture, and history, the offered services are not very competitive.

BUT….Calabria is classified as a less developed regionGDP per capita in Calabria is much lower than the Italian average. In 2014, it was €16,177, far below the Italian (€ 26,548) and European (€ 27,400) averages.The employment rate is far lower (39.3%) than the national (55.7%) and European (64.8%) averages. Calabria is the region with the lowest level of employment rate in Italy.Also, the unemployment rate increased considerably in recent years, from 12% in 2008 to 23.4% in 2014, far above National (from 6.1% to 12.7%) and European trends (from 7.2% to 10.2%).

The adoption of new business models based on the collaborative networks paradigm and

the use of appropriate ICTs could contribute to the sustainable development of territories like

Calabria

Collaborative Networks in the agro-food and tourism sectors

Collaborative Networks paradigm (CNs) focus on the sharing of information resources, technologies, responsibilities, goals and values between the different networking partners. In a Collaborative Network the different actors operate acting as a single entity, aware that the advantage of the whole CN is the precondition for the realization of an individual advantage. (Camarinha-Matos & Afsarmanesh, 2005)

In the Agro-Food sector AAFNs represent a new business models in terms of value proposition, distribution channels, customer relationships, arrangement of activities and resources, partner network, cost structure and revenue model.

In the tourism sector, local tour operators have started to organize themselves spontaneously in tourist offices, or tourist districts in order to provide a unified offer able to compete with the big tourism operators (Erkus-Otzurk & Eraydın, 2010; Robinson et al., 2013).

Business models and ICTs for developing local agro-food and tourism systems– CCRI Seminar Series 09-02-2017

economic actors (farmers, processors, service providers and consumers).

Stage/Activity

Information and materials flow

Agro-Food System (AFS) as Network & Alternative Agro-Food Networks (AAFNs)AFS may be modeled by a complex network of economic actors (farmers, processors, service providers and consumers) performing a set of integrated activities:

AAFNs: a Collaborative Network characterized by:• minimization of the physical distances between

producer and consumer (geographical proximity),

• minimization of the n. of intermediary in the food supply chain and by a re-connection or close communication among producers and consumers (social proximity).

• new forms of relationship and governance of the actors’ network

• re-distribution of value for primary producers• economy of scope: new premium quality food

production, conversion to organic and low external input farming practices, multi-functional farm enterprises, place-based production and marketing initiatives, new modes of food provision


AAFNs: Organizational Forms (1)Direct (on farm) sale (DoFS): direct selling that facilitates closer producer–consumer one to one relations

While consumers are travelling to the rural countryside to purchase agro-food, they may learn the original cultural, geographical and economic context linked to the food

Pick your own (PYO): consumers gather products by their own directly from the field. PYO lets consumers confidently make connections and associations with the place/space of production and, the values of the people involved and the production methods employed.

Box schemes (BSs): farmers’ cooperatives and local consumption groups ensure a regular procurement of seasonal food grown up and harvested in the local community

Producers regularly deliver agro-food to a network of consumers on a subscription basis where customers sign up in advance to get what the scheme makes available (content of the box is imposed and variable).As the content of the box is imposed and variable, consumers have to cook according to what they get each week recovering skills and knowledge on seasonality and local variety of vegetables


AAFNs: Organizational Forms (2)Collective farm shops (CFSs): farmers act together to set up and jointly manage a shop (in a town or a suburban/urban area) where they can sell their local products. Products are sold (usually every day) by some of the farmers themselves, or by a qualified and trusted third organization.• shared agreement to regulate the behavior of individual producers, the store management

and the joining of new participants (producers learn from each other how to manage a distribution structure that encompasses that of the individual producer)

• no direct contact among consumers and food producer

• the intermediary pays close attention to food provenance and methods of production (opportunities to consumers to know where food came from and how it was produced)

Farmers’ markets (FMs): markets (generally placed in urban areas with periodic frequency), where a group of farmers meets and each producer directly sells his own agro-food products to single customers. Products are ‘local’ (usually produced within 50 km from the market place) and manufacturers are directly involved in sales• higher social interaction, • learning opportunities: for consumers (knowing vendors and their food production practices)

and for producers (e.g. consumers’ demand, or other producers marketing practice).


Community-supported agriculture (CSA). An alliance of consumers and local farmers: the former agree to buy seasonal food from the latter are responsible for periodical delivery at consumers’ home:consumers as shareholders, purchasing a share of agricultural production by paying in advance (on the base of overall estimated production costs)

consumers negotiate the process of production (e.g., the content of the box over the growing season, the choice of crop varieties, etc.) with the farmer(s) and the system of distribution, and take part in decisions which they are ordinarily excluded from. This negotiation process enable a knowledge sharing process between consumers and producers

community members share risks with the manufacturer for a possible crop failure.

AAFNs: Organizational Forms (3)

Collective buying groups (CBGs): organized consumers that choose to commonly buy directly from selected producers. Consumers are not only purchasers of goods, but also an active participants of the AAFN (acquiring and sharing information, and defining quality criteria for products to purchase). They share their ‘shopping lists’ to create a unique cumulative order submitted to each producer who is charged to deliver ordered products to a unique pick up site.


Users first select a garden size based on the number of people they’d like to feed and the kind of products to cultivate in the garden (vegetables, fruit+vegetables, rice+ fruit+vegetables,…)

www.leverduredelmioorto.it/

Le Verdure Del Mio Orto (‘The Vegetables from my Garden’) “lets anyone build an organic garden right from their web browser.”

Many other AAFN forms are possible

Collaboration Levels of producers and consumers clusters in AAFNs forms

Camarinha-Matos & Afsarmanesh (2006)


Alternative Agro-Food Networks (AAFNs) under a learning perspective

Every AAFNs forms (Direct on Farm Sales, Farmers Markets, Box Schema, CSA) provide a

learning space where a variety of information and knowledge related to agriculture, the

environment, food production, traditions, healthy eating and consumer values may be exchanged

during the face-to-face interactions between consumers and producers (Fonte, 2008). Appropriate learning relationships among people acting in agro-food cultural settings may: revitalize local/traditional knowledge; encourage sustainable land management; increase mutual understanding among value chain stakeholders; engender trust and collaboration within an agro-ecological community; educate consumers about where their food comes from, including the environmental and social

conditions of its production.


Situated Learning & AAFNsSituated learning places a learner in a setting where the process of gaining

knowledge is contextualized in an experiential participation framework and learning

is a social process that is situated in a specific context and embedded within a

particular social and physical environment. (Lave & Wenger, 1991);

AAFNs facilitate a range of situated learning opportunities for both consumers

and producers. In a AAFN, while producers and consumers are involved in agro-food

activities they are engaged in social relations and actively participate in continuous

experience-based learning processes that is placed in the AAFN’s context


Mobiquitous Services may augment SLOs for actor adhering to AAFNs in terms of:

Permanency;

Accessibility; Interactivity;

Situatedness;

Adaptability.

KIS

F2FI Context

LCD

Sour

ce Acc

essib

ility Content Orientation

Source Knowledge Domain

Main components:•Face-to-Face interaction (F2FI) situated context, •Knowledge and Information Source (KIS), •Learning Content Domain (LCD).

M-Service

Situated Learning Opportunities (SLOs) model in AAFN


Mobiquitous learning (also called context-aware ubiquitous learning, u-learning, or pervasive and mobile learning) has been recognized as being a promising paradigm

for situated learning

It is defined as learning process where pervasive and mobile computing “takes part in an experience of immersion as a mediator between the learner’s mental (e.g., needs, preferences, prior knowledge), physical (e.g., objects, other learners close

by) and virtual (e.g., content accessible with mobile devices, artefacts) contexts” ( Laine, Teemu Henrikki and Joy, Mike. 2009)

A review of m-apps for AAFNs Research Question: to what extent existing mobile applications are supporting consumers engaged in AAFNs in increasing their situated learning opportunities?

Purpose: this question is intended to find out how apps have been harnessed to support consumers in existing AAFN organizations. The results of this question can be used to discover and combine ways of employing innovative app-based M-services to assist consumers in AAFNs.

How: A review of available mobile applications was conducted between March and May 2015 by accessing from Italy on the two main digital distribution platforms for mobile devices (application stores): App Store (IOS), and Google Play (Android), both of them counting more than 1,000,000 apps.


Methodology: Inclusion and exclusion criteria

The shopping, travel & local info and lifestyle categories were searched . In addition, search terms relating to AAFNs were employed to identify any remaining relevant apps,

Selection criteria:

app description is written in English and/or in Italian;

some AAFN forms is featured within the app preview (keywords, description, or screenshots);

app preview (or associated website, if available) claims that the app could be used to get informational services, or to manage transactions in some AAFN forms;

app exhibits some mobiquitous features

126 selected apps


# app per AAFNs’ Form

N. APPSAAFN FORM

DoFS FM BS/CSA CBG CK

1 AAFN FORM 92

42 X 38 X 10 x

0 X

2 X

2 AAFN FORMS 29

17 X X 3 X X 4 X X 1 X X

4 X X

3 AAFN FORMS 53 X X X 2 X X X

TOTAL 126 67 65 24 7 2


Methodology: app functions classification All the reviewed app have been analysed taking into account both the information flow direction and the function scope of each app function:

Social oriented Social reporting Social push Social searching

Decision support oriented

Decision support reporting Decision support push

Decision support searching

Task automation

reporting informational interactional

Data Source: apps description in the store apps preview and in associated web sites (if available) + most apps were downloaded and their information flow was analyzed


Methodology: multidimensional analysis space (I level): each app function was mapped into a function analysis space:

People

KnowledgeContext

(II level): each app was mapped into a similar analysis space, according to functions it provides (an app may provide many functions of a same type, but with different dimensional values)

PeopleAgro-food productsOperationOrganization CultureEnviroment

IdentityLocationtime

• Categorization dimension value: (knowledge-based, partially knowledge-based, no knowledge-based);• Contextualization dimension value: (context-driven, partially context-driven, no context-driven);• KIS width dimension value: (no AAFN community, partially AAFN community oriented, AAFN community

oriented organizationally oriented, organizationally & personally oriented, personally oriented);


Social oriented # 46 apps (36% of the 126 reviewed) provide social reporting functionalities; # 35 apps (28%) provide social reporting & social searching functionalities; # 1 app (L'orto in tasca) provides social reporting, social searching & social pushing functionalities.


Social oriented functionalities (KIS width dimension )

#20 apps (14%) are (partially) AAFN community oriented, i.e. they make available social reporting and searching on an internal social channel these apps are more orient to support virtual Connections Between AAFNs members.

#26 apps (19%) are no AAFN community oriented [15 reporting&searching + 11 reporting] these apps are more oriented to promote the involvement in the AAFN community of new users

reviewed apps(#126)

apps with social oriented functions

(#46)

(partially) AAFN community oriented apps with reporting and searching

(#20)

no-AAFN community oriented apps with reporting and searching

(#15)

no-AAFN community oriented apps with reporting but without searching

(#11)

apps without social oriented functions

(#80)


Analysis results of (partially) community oriented apps with respect Knowledge and Context dimensions

#18 apps (13%) are (partially) AAFN community oriented and (partially) knowledge-based

Of these 18 apps, 13 are focused on one LCD Category (10 app focus on organization), 3 apps on two LCD categories, and 2 on three LCD categories

15 apps (11%) are (partially) AAFN community oriented, knowledge-based, and (partially) context driven, These 15 apps provide AAFN crowd, categorized, e contextualized reporting/searching functions, thus are more likely able to offer situated learning

.

(partially) AAFN community oriented

apps with social reporting & searching

functions(#20)

(partially) knowledge-based(#18)

(partially) context driven(#15)

no context-driven(#3)

no knowledge-based(#2)

no context-driven (#2)


opportunities to their users

permanency: for all the reviewed social apps, reported messages are archived with author-time stamps, and, in 5 cases, even with location stamps. This could give the chance to AAFN community people to implicitly learn from their past behavior, or the actions of other people in similar positions;

situatedness: (partially) context-driven apps let the related M-service be aware of the current situation of the users that are interacting with it by implicitly detecting their identity, time, and (in certain cases) location. This enables some M-services to give the user a more effective way of managing messages, of accessing contact data, and of communicating with other people that are part of the same context (i.e., in close spatial and temporal proximity and with similar interests),

accessibility: apps with context-aware searching functions are valuable to provide the user with automated or assisted access to contextual updates in social channels.

# 126 app (100% of reviewed apps) provide decision support searching funcionalities;

# 71 app (56%) provide decision support reporting funcionalities

# 33 app (26%) provide decision support pushing funcionalities

# 40 app (32%) provide decision support task automation funcionalities

Decision support functionalities


Decision support Searching

Decision Support Searching(#app 126)

Organizational(#app 99)

Knowledge based(#app 82)

context driven(#app 17)

partially context driven(#app 65)

partially Knowledge based

(#app 17)


Personal&Organizational(#app 27)

Knowledge based(#app 25)

Context driven(#app 4)


partially Knowledge based

(#app 2)


All the apps provide decision support searching feautres that are (partially) knowledge based e (partially) context driven.

They support users in their research activities through the use of knowledge structures (predefined ontologies or taxonomies) and at the same time are able to filter the data and

information made accessible to the user using data related to the context of ' interaction between the application and the user.

Most of them, enable, the users, to search a an AAFN (LCD Category: Organization) near the user (Context item: location) and in some cases they are able to filter the results by comparing the operating schedule of the activities AAFN with that recorded at the time of the research (item

Context: time), or considering user’s preferencies (favorites) (Context item: identity).

They support Situated learning opportunities in particolar before the F2FI (learning before doing)


Decision support reporting #66 apps (52%) provide Decision support reporting, (partially) Knowledge based functionalities add a product/AAFN/recepies to your favorite; send us a photo; add a market date, or an event to your personal calendar; create a shopping list; add your Facebook friends; add a new AAFN or send a messad reporting inaccurate data add a new event

#3 apps (partially) Knowledge based & oriented to personal KIS use the context item Time

#39 apps (partially) Knowledge based , & oriented to organizational KIS are contextualized but just #1 app uses the context items identity & location in supporting the user in the decision support reporting while #38 of them use just the identity


Decision support Pushing only # 29 apps (23%) offer push notification services

#28 apps use di context item to push agli knowlwdge based messages to usersContext item

subsetLCD Category

decision support pushing

Identity Location Time Identity,Location

Identity, time

Location,Time

Identity,Location,Time

People

Agri-Food Product

23

Operations 1 22 Organization 2 1 Culture 2 Environment 1

#23 apps send to loyal consumers messages regarding the presence of

particular offers, or discounts on products to buy

# 1 app sends coupons to users, located in close proximity of the AAFN

# 22 apps notify to users the approaching of the orders’ closing date

# 2 app send push notifications to users when they are near am AAFN


Task automation # 40 apps (32%) offer of task automation features (#30 of these apps offer e-commerce services)

# 38 of them use contextual elements (# 36 identity context item, # 1 identity and location and time, 1 location)

Only one app (American Farmers) uses both the user identity that the time and place of interaction to offer an check-in at the farmers' market and send badges that allow the user to keep track of his habits

21


#21 apps use the same framework

Three River TC Local Foods RHO Market Purple Porch

Penn's Corner Farm Stand Monroe Farm Market

…

Conclusion (situated learning in AAFNs)

None of the reviewed apps exhibits pervasiveness characteristics;

All the reviewed apps exhibit a restricted context awareness capacity and use of contextual data also appears very limited

Even if with different degrees of sophistication, some apps offer situated learning opportunities to its users in particular before the F2FI (learn before doing). They help users to identify and select the AAFN to select the participants in the F2FI, to detecting the time, location and the environment of the F2FI to determine the elements of the Learning Content The identification of main Situated Learning Opportunities (SLOs) in AAFN initiatives, enable to conceive new mobile services, or combine those provided by different applications, to provide more accurate information to the right people, at the right time, and at the right place…


Tourism Destination interactions and the offered tourism services

Murphy, Pritchard e Smith (2000) define a Tourism Destination as :

«an amalgam of individual, products and experience opportunities that combine to form a

total experience of the area visited»The presence of attraction factors (i.e. natural resources and monuments), and social factors (i.e., the language spoken and friendliness of the local people), although a necessary condition, is not enough for turning a territory in a TD (Dunn Ross and Iso- Ahola, 1991; Buckley, 1994).

A key factor for the rise and continuous development of a TD resides in the quality and efficacy of relations among service providers and between them and the destination’s environment.


a tourism operator that ‘extends’ its business boundaries by involving all or some of its suppliers in the product packaging and delivery in order to offer customers possibilities to a more complete tourism experience

need to provide a more complete tourism experience

a temporary alliance of private and public organisations that come together to share skills or core competencies and resources in order to better respond to business opportunities

Business opportunity: Tourism package composition

Regional Tourism Operators

In a Business Ecosystem in tourism sector, members share values, culture and infrastructures and have the potential and the willingness to cooperate in order to pursue the general long-term objectives of territory development and competitiveness.When a business opportunity is identified, a subset of the Tourism Breeding Environment members can be rapidly selected to become part of a short term collaborative networked organisations, CNOs, oriented to catch the opportunity.

Relationship between TBE, TVOs and TEEs

Turist 2.0 Life-cycle

DREAMINGIn this phase, tourists look for inspiration for their vacation.

IN THE PAST, most of the ideas came from photos, stories and memories of friends’ past experiences, or brochures of travel agencies ,or tour operators.

NOWADAYS the dream of holiday is fed by an overabundance of photos, videos, or maps on the web, allowing users to gain virtual previews of the holiday, explore places, identify the location, refer to opinions and recommendations published by travellers who already had an experience and then prospected touristsbegin to ‘dream’ their vacation.

category of ICT services«ispiration portals»

EXPERIENCINGThis phase is mainly related with the in-place tourism activities: the tourist overnight stays in hotels, make excursions, enjoy meals, visit local attractions etc.. The main difference with the past at this stage is the availability of contextualised information offered to the 2.0 tourist through mobile devices as well as the opportunity to share location-based multimedia contents Based on location, user profile (preferences), time, and pre-stored trip information, a user get recommendations about points of interest, plan personalised tours, get informed on open nearby restaurant according to his time, be advised where to eat on the basis of his food preferences, get public transport information, etc.

PLANNING&BOOKINGOnce the tourist identifies the potential destination he proceeds with the detailed planning of the trip. He has to make reservations of transportation, accommodation and any additional services (car rental, excursions, events, etc.) that will complete the tourism package.IN THE PAST: planning and booking activities were generally carried out by TAs and TOs, who had to book transportation, accommodations, and activities or to create complete packages for the customer whose only concern was to pay the broker. NOWADAYS: the availability of web services based on comparison, recommendation systems, and booking services like booking.com, trivago.com, e-dreams.com expedia.com, etc., leads consumers to make self-service reservations,

RECOLLECTINGAfter experiencing the holiday, the tourist comes back home and remembers the experience through photo albums, souvenirs and storytelling. At this phase of the tourism 2.0 lifecycle, the main ICT tools are those based on sharing services, as in the dreaming phase. The meaning of using specialised portals to share photos, videos, stories and opinions on visited places is to collect some snapshot of the vacation in order to recall its memory and to give tips and advices on the experienced TD


Relationship between the tourism destination and the tourists needs along the 2.0 lifecycle

DMO Destination Management Organization


Conclusion The importance of a collaborative and distributed and efficient supply chain management for a TD is related both to the possibility to give sustainable development to the destinations, and to the necessity to answer to the request of personalised tourism offer, in line with the new demand trends.

A characterisation of the organisational forms of collaborative organisations proper of the tourism sector has been proposed.

The research propose the adoption of CN models for a TD highlighting how ICT evolution made much more efficient and timely the way both of being a tourist (introducing the 2.0 tourist life cycle) and to manage, coordinate and control activities of networked organisations.


Publications1. Volpentesta A. P., Ammirato, S., Della Gala M. (2013). Classifying short agrifood supply chains under a knowledge and social learning perspective, Rural

Society Journal, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 217–229, 2013.

2. Ammirato S., Della Gala M., Volpentesta A. P. (2013). Alternative Agrifood Networks as Learning Communities: Some Issues for a Classification Model, in Information Systems, E-learning, and Knowledge Management Research, Lytras M. D. and et al (Eds.), CCIS Vol. 278, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2013, pp. 293-300.

3. Volpentesta A. P., Della Gala M. (2013). Analyzing mobile services in Alternative Agrifood Networks, in “Collaborative Systems for Reindustrialization”, L.M. Camarinha-Matos and R.J. Scherer (Eds.): PRO-VE 2013, IFIP AICT 408, pp. 314–324, 2013.

4. Ammirato S., Felicetti A. M., Della Gala M. (2015). Rethinking tourism destinations: collaborative network models for the tourist 2.0. International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, 6(3), 178-201.

5. Ammirato S., Felicetti A. M., Della Gala M., Aramo-Immonen H., Jussila J. J. (2015). Knowledge Management and Emerging Collaborative Networks in Tourism Business Ecosystems. In ECKM 2015 - the 16th European Conference on Knowledge Management ECKM 2015; Udine Italy.

6. Ammirato S., Felicetti A.M., Della Gala M. (2014). Tourism destination management: a collaborative approach. In Collaborative Systems for Smart Networked Environments, Edited by L.M. Camarinha-Matos and H. Afsarmanesh. 15th IFIP Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

7. Ammirato S., Felicetti A.M., Della Gala M.(2014). Characterizing collaborative organization models in the tourism sector. In Knowledge and Management Models for Sustainable Growth - 9th edition of the International Forum on Knowledge Asset Dynamics. Matera – Italy.

8. Della Gala M. (2015). Business models and ICT services to support the development of agro-food sustainable local systems. Poster presented at the Entrepreneurial Summer Academy - Tradeit – Support for the traditional food sector 22-25 June, Como (IT)

9. Volpentesta A. P., Della Gala M. (2015) “Modelli operativi di filiera e multifiliera per sistemi di servizi innovativi verso l'introduzione di nuove tecnologie e processi ” Technical Report OR2 - A2.3 Progetto DirectFood.