A process-based perspective of smart tourism destination governance

Luisa Errichiello,Roberto Micera

doi:10.54055/ejtr.v29i.2436

Abstract

The tourism management literature has recently shown increasing interest in exploring the potential offered by the smart tourism destination initiative, conceived as the integrated use of ICT solutions for achieving greater efficiency and sustainability, enriching the tourist experience and boosting destination competitiveness. However, innovative technologies risk to be ineffective without adequate governance structures that are required to ensure the effective coordination and integration of tourism firms, government and communities in implementing a holistic smart-oriented development plan for destinations. This paper aims to integrate the recent smart approach with the destination governance theory to develop a governance process framework for smart tourism destinations. The framework explains how the smart approach can inform the planning and implementation of smart development goals, and specifically how smartness principles, tools and methods can be applied to increase the sustainable competitiveness of destinations beyond the mere technology dimension, making explicit the role of collaborative structures, user-driven services, social innovation and local community involvement. At the theoretical level, the paper offers an integrative perspective for designing and implementing effective smart tourism destination governance structures and processes. In practical terms, the framework can be viewed as a flexible tool in the hands of destination managers and policy makers: it shows how to match the design of governance structures and processes with the specific destination context and how to exploit “smart dimensions” for its development by relying on an incremental logic based on subsequent, interdependent stages.

Highlights

Over the last decade the "smart city" paradigm has been proposed as an ideal model for sustainable, efficient and resilient urban system development (e.g. Caragliu et al, 2009; Komnikos et al, 2013; Nam & Pardo, 2011)
A number of meanings and approaches have been associated with the "smart city" label (Hollands, 2008), it is generally agreed that urban smartness requires investments in human and social capital as well as innovative technologies (ICTs) capable of fuelling sustainable economic growth and a good quality of life through higher efficiency levels, new and/or improved services, reduced environmental impact and participatory governance (Caragliu et al, 2009; La Rocca, 2014)
Going beyond the technological perspective prevailing in previous research on smart tourism destinations, Buhalis and Amaranggana (2013) explained how tourism applications can be implemented in destinations in order to enrich tourism experiences and increase the level of destination smartness, and recognized the importance of a more holistic perspective that includes competitiveness, sustainability and inclusiveness as key pillars beyond mere technology

Summary

Introduction

Over the last decade the "smart city" paradigm has been proposed as an ideal model for sustainable, efficient and resilient urban system development (e.g. Caragliu et al, 2009; Komnikos et al, 2013; Nam & Pardo, 2011). In the field of tourism studies, the smart city concept is attracting increasing attention as a lever for achieving higher competitiveness at the destination level (Boes et al, 2015; Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2014; La Rocca, 2014; Wang et al, 2013). Aligned with this approach, the concept of "smart (tourism) destination" (Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2014) has emerged to identify a tourism destination that largely relies on state-of-the-art technologies “to enable demand and supply to co-create value, pleasure, and experiences for the tourist and wealth, profit, and benefits for the organizations and the destination” (Boes et al, 2015). Boes et al (2015) argued that technology is only an enabling factor for tourism smartness and identified other factors, namely leadership, social capital, innovation and human capital that are crucial for the development of a smart tourism destination

Objectives

Conclusion