The Challenge
Meylah is a U.S.-based cloud service provider and Microsoft Gold Partner bringing smart tourism solutions to local economies, benefitting merchants and tourists alike. As travelers have readily adopted the rapid technological advancement of the 21st century, ease of planning and instant connectivity has become the expectation. But minimal or nonexistent online presence from merchants and outdated technological infrastructure threatened the revenue potential of the lucrative tourism industry.
The Solution
The idea was sparked at Microsoft Inspire 2017, and Meylah utilized Microsoft’s IoT Solution Accelerator Program to bring smart tourism to local businesses and economies that might otherwise lack the resources to keep up with the increasingly digital world of travel business:
- Aimed to put “the tourist at the center of the experience,” according to co-founder and CMO Chaitra Vedullapalli;
- As a collaboration between Meylah, Microsoft, HPE, Bosch, and several other companies, implemented fully and IoT-enabled infrastructure, including smart Wi-Fi, an itinerary builder, parking meters, smart cameras, retail endpoints, kiosks, and more in the Grays Harbor region of Washington state; and
- Merchants are provided access to marketing data, tools, and real-time insights through Microsoft Power BI.
The Results
Meylah recognized that smart tourism is the next evolution that will bring this wave of revenue and business opportunities to even less developed cities, and is seeing their success come to life:
- Solved digital access challenges for both merchants and tourists;
- Drove economic prosperity and job creation in a local community, and can be replicated in other popular destinations; and
- Meylah is now in discussions with 14 other popular destination organizations in several countries, including heritage cities in India.
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