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_Smart On a crisp winter morning
in southeastern France, the

Ski “Andersons” are about to arrive

at their weekend destination:
Europe’s first “smart ski area,”
Areas otherwise known as Chamrousse

ski resort.

A couple of days before, Mrs. Anderson downloaded
a mobile app and created a family group so everyone can
Artificial Intelligence, monitor each other and stay connected during their visit. She
also purchased digital lift tickets, completed skier profiles to
The Internet of Things, reserve rental equipment, and even reserved a parking space
at the resort.
& Big Data The minute the family arrives, the resort’s GPS parking

sensors pick up their location and the app guides them to
their parking spot. A shuttle takes them to their personal
B Y S A M A N T H A R U F O
lockers, which already have rental equipment sized just for
them and a wrist band paired by Bluetooth to their skis and
ski area app. A virtual assistant welcomes them to the resort
and highlights the trails they might want to ski that day. The
app connects to their Smart Augmented Reality Helmet,
which guides them to the trails they want, and even includes
a virtual treasure hunt. If they get into trouble, they can send
a geo-tagged help request through the helmet directly to the
ski patrol.
Mr. Anderson is excited to virtually compete with skiers
in his location as well as in South Korea in an International
Amateur Competition. At the end of the day, the family
uses the surprise discount in the lodge that they received for
finding multiple virtual treasures on the slopes.
The experience at Chamrousse is setting new bench-
marks on what guests may expect from their visit to a ski
resort. How long before such effortless, seamless consumer
experiences become the norm? Sooner than you may think.

Smart Ski Area Logistics

For Chamrousse, it does in fact take a global community
of humans and artificial intelligence (AI) to offer this level
of guest service and technology. An experience like the
Andersons is made possible thanks to a partnership with the
ski area, sensiNact (also known as BUTLER Smart Gateway),
and the World Wise-IoT project.
sensiNact is a cloud-based platform dedicated to The
Internet of Things (IoT) and is used in smart city and smart
home applications. The IoT is a giant network of connect-
ed “things” (physical devices, home appliances, and other