Cortina d’Ampezzo’s quest for Olympic gold-level CX
You won’t find me crunching my way through the snow in Cortina d’Ampezzo, but I can imagine what it must be like this week.
Crowds upon crowds upon crowds.
That constant feeling you’re getting lost.
The frustration and worry that you might miss out on the 2026 Olympics event you came all this way to see.
While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) focuses on using data to offer personalized content about the games, that’s just one part of being an attendee.
You’re also schlepping back and forth to your accommodations (which may change from one day to the next), lining up to get a meal or simply looking for a public restroom.
This is not really the IOC’s responsibility, but it’s core to the overall experience, and can have a big influence on whether people will come back to the cities where the games have been held.
Smile, it’s CX at the Olympic Games!
Cortina Marketing Se.Am., the local destination marketing organization (DMO), clearly understands this. It has contracted Covisian, a business process outsourcing (BPO) firm based in New York, to help support visitors before, during and after their stay.
The company is providing the DMO with Smile.CX, which it describes as “a technological and methodological application framework” that will take the form of two virtual assistants. One will live on Cortina Marketing Se.Am’s website, and the other will be available through WhatsApp.
Here’s the value prop at a glance:
Through natural, multilingual interactions, visitors can easily discover restaurants, hotels and local events, organize excursions and mobility, and receive timely support, even during peak seasons.
Smile.CX may not sound groundbreaking, but it reflects what many visitors to Italy will expect when they arrive for the Olympic Games.
Attending vs. ambling around aimlessly
Just you constantly hear how AI will help employees do higher-level work, Smile.CX will ideally ensure Olympic attendees don’t waste hours on their phones trying to make reservations or use a clunky translator app to ask someone for directions.
While Smile.CX is being built on the DMO’s existing data, Covisian said it will also use the Olympics as an opportunity for data-gathering and analysis. This is another good CX move: taking feedback and customer activity to inform long-term strategies, especially since the Olympics may well represent peak visits to the area.
It strikes me, however, that this is an opportunity for further integration. Why toggle back and forth between Olympics.com and the DMO site when the ideal experience would be a single, consolidated view of sports and attendee content?
The IOC would benefit just as much from deepening its understanding of what attendees want and expect outside of watching athletes compete. Fans might not reward them with a medal, but it increases the odds they’ll book a trip to the French Alps in 2030.
