This Bachelor's thesis was commissioned by the research unit Smart Services of Häme University of Applied Sciences. The goal of the unit is to develop the use of digitalization in the service business and to produce a network of co-operation within applied research and regional development activities for the needs of the region. Due to this, the open data knowledge is one of the major needs of the research unit.

The purpose of this thesis was to study the potential of open data in the business development of tourism companies. Another aim of the thesis was to act as a guidebook for companies that want to explore the open data in more detail.

The theoretical information was gathered from the publications and internet sources of open data. As the phenomenon is relatively recent, not many previous studies have been published, especially regarding the companies as a user of the open data. To collect research material experts in the field of tourism and open data were interviewed.

The results of the thesis show that tourism enterprises do not yet take advantage of the opportunities offered by digitalization effectively. Data on their own operations is not collected effectively enough and it is not utilized sufficiently. In tourism business, the use of open data is still at a very early stage of development, even though it could be used to gain remarkable benefits. The main single reason found for this is the shortage of resources, because tourism companies are often very small in size, and entrepreneurs have resources only for maintaining their core business activities. In Finland, however, there are all the conditions to utilize open data also in business as open data is available and many kind of support activities have been launched extensively.