Abstract
The key issue of this current study is related to shaping the attractiveness of heritage destinations, highlighting the significance of reuse and upgrading their historical buildings to achieve a high level of competitiveness and distinctiveness through a smart approach. Some of these cultural assets and events tend to be monotonous, and not so attractive for various categories of tourists, which negatively affects investment opportunities, tourism development, and social and economic resources. Furthermore, previous works have criticized the lack of evidence to support that the structure contains critical attributes and measurement items linked to the competitiveness of smart heritage destinations. As a result, this study aims to design and develop a composite index for evaluating these destinations and their buildings, which includes nine dimensions (attributes) and a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) of intelligent performance and competitiveness, reflecting the combination and noticing the distinct perspective between them. A mixed-methods approach was used between qualitative and quantitative methods to perform content validation on the proposed index. Furthermore, a pilot study was implemented for tourism heritage destinations to improve the quality and efficiency of the proposed index. Then, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to analyze the data to develop the proposed index and measure its validity and reliability. Finally, the proposed composite index was finalized with 139 KPIs and applied to a case study (Salah El-Din Citadel). After that, we validated its utility in providing a quantitative evaluation of this heritage destination, identifying critical intervention priorities, and determining dimensions that need to be restructured. Additionally, it highlighted recommendations for future improvements to strengthen these heritage destinations to become smart heritage destinations capable of competition in the tourism sector.
Highlights
This study proposes to provide the field of cultural tourism with a new tool, by working with artificial indicators to strengthen the performance efficiency and competitiveness of heritage destinations, based on a case study carried out in Cairo (Egypt)
This includes methods for evaluating intelligent buildings (IBs), models of smart tourism destinations (STDs), models of tourism destination competitiveness (TDC), previous tourism-related studies in heritage sites, and guidelines for some essential smart heritage projects, in order to serve as a source for formulating key performance indicators (KPIs) for the proposed composite index
Few previous studies have thoroughly searched this important topic to date, the composite index designed in the current research, from a theoretical perspective, has revealed the nine basic dimensions of the competitiveness of a smart heritage destination
Summary
This study proposes to provide the field of cultural tourism with a new tool, by working with artificial indicators to strengthen the performance efficiency and competitiveness of heritage destinations, based on a case study carried out in Cairo (Egypt). Heritage tourism is a sort of special interest tourism. It is defined as visits by visitors from outside the host community who are drawn to the local architecture, historic landscapes, and artistic or lifestyle performances [2]. Communities can look to their past, comprehend the present, and plan for the future by using heritage assets and cultural values related to them as reference points [3]. Heritage tourism is one of the most significant tributaries of tourism development [4]
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