When people think of tech events, they usually imagine robots, apps, and long talks on artificial intelligence. In Bogota’s Colombia 4.0, they also found hammocks, jungle maps, and tourism stories from the Amazon to the Andes.
At the heart of that mix stood “Turismo 4.0 para todos,” a strategy from MinCIT and Fontur that treats tourism as a digital playground, a climate lab, and a source of income for communities, all at the same time.
Tourism 4.0, from buzzword to tools in people’s hands
The Tourism 4.0 strategy is simple to explain, but ambitious in practice, use data, artificial intelligence, and local knowledge so that each trip brings more benefits and fewer negative impacts.
It moves away from seeing success only as “more visitors.” Instead, it measures how tourism supports welfare, protects ecosystems, and strengthens local culture and businesses.
At Colombia 4.0, MinCIT and Fontur showed first results, including training routes, digital platforms, and mentoring programs that already reached hundreds of tourism actors across the country.
ColombIA, Observatur360, and other digital public goods
Inside Corferias, the Tourism 4.0 stand worked like a small control room for the sector. One of the main stars was ColombIA, the first AI‑based virtual assistant for tourism in Colombia.
ColombIA runs through WhatsApp and supports more than 80 languages. It helps travelers plan routes, find formal providers, and connect with territories in real time, using open data behind the scenes.
Observatur360, the Tourism Innovation Observatory, takes data from destinations, platforms, and public sources and turns it into practical dashboards and reports for the 32 departments.
Together with a Planning and Management Platform and a new digital portal for professional guides, these tools give local authorities and workers a clearer view of who comes, what they seek, and how to improve their stay.
Puerto Nariño’s Living Lab, where the Amazon tests the future
One of the most eye‑catching announcements was the Living Lab of Sustainable Tourism and Bioeconomy in Puerto Nariño, in the Colombian Amazon. It is described as the first living tourism lab in Latin America.
Here, technology does not replace people. It helps connect ancestral knowledge, scientific tourism, and bioeconomy projects, from a trilingual digital guide in Spanish, Ticuna, and English, to food experiences built around the chagra.
The Living Lab was selected as a reference case for COP30 in Brazil. That recognition positions a small Amazonian town as an example of how tourism can support both conservation and income.
For visitors and residents, the lab turns everyday life into a classroom, where data, stories, and flavors are part of the same experiment.
TravelTech entrepreneurs and InnovaT360°
Tourism 4.0 does not rely only on government platforms. Through the InnovaT360° national challenge, MinCIT, Fontur, SEI, and Fundacion Univalle supported TravelTech startups from all over Colombia.
More than 500 proposals entered the process. After training and mentoring, 10 finalists reached Colombia 4.0, with projects that use AI, blockchain, big data, and augmented reality for operations, bookings, or immersive experiences.
Names like 3dvinci Studios, Navegante Sonoro, Simbiotic | triply, Smartbirding Colombia, and Meta Adventures SAS show how innovation can grow in Cundinamarca, Valle del Cauca, Vaupes, or Tolima, not only in Bogota or Medellin.
These startups work with real clients, from birdwatching tours to digital storytelling in volcano routes, proving that TravelTech is not a buzzword, but a growing business niche.
Smart destinations and the “Ruta TravelTech”
To help cities move from isolated projects to long‑term models, MinCIT presented the Guide for Managing Local Innovation Ecosystems and Closing Digital Gaps.
This guide supports territories that want to become Smart Tourist Destinations, a model already in progress in places like Barranquilla, Monteria, Bucaramanga, Villavicencio, Cali, and several medium‑sized cities.
In Bogota, the “Ruta TravelTech” took guests on a very local tour in alliance with TransMilenio. Along the route, experts shared real cases of how technology changed tourism in their regions.
It worked as a moving classroom, mixing everyday transport with talks about data, apps, and community‑based tourism.
Technology as a loudspeaker, not a replacement
At Colombia 4.0, tourism did not try to compete with code or robots. Instead, it used them as loudspeakers for stories, landscapes, and people that were already there.
Tourism 4.0 in Colombia still has a long road ahead, but its early results show a clear path, digital tools that help communities decide, earn, and protect better, without losing the human touch that makes each trip worth remembering.