Abstract
Abstract This study aims to demonstrate that technological innovation in tourism represents a paradigm shift in law and is also changing the competition between tourist destinations. Technological innovation in the tourism sector is increasing the volume of data processing and calls for greater and more consistent (detailed) legal protection to combat dangers to private life, such as exclusion from ‘digital life’. The topics covered by the study include data processing in hospitality contracts, the enrichment of guest profiles, newsletter marketing, guest passes or discount cards in travel package contracts, and the question of whether data processing is necessary for fulfilling smart tourism contracts. The theoretical framework is based on contract and data protection law principles relating to purpose, data avoidance and transparency, the privacy rule by design and by default. The methodological approach is based on a careful balancing and weighing of the legal goods and values, and an assessment of the normative parameters. This research is responding to the need to develop appropriate policies on transformative innovations and is addressing different concerns relating to the adoption and diffusion of technological trends in tourism.
Highlights
The technological and marketing aspects of smart tourism destinations have been extensively examined over previous years (Kontogianni & Alepis, 2020)
Research on privacy and security has in the past been a topic of increasing interest for tourism research (Femenia-Serra et al, 2019). This is because tourists as data subjects are the target of smart tourism activities (Gretzel, Reino, et al, 2015): Whereas e-tourism focuses on digital connections such as linking consumers with businesses, smart tourism links the physical world with the digital one by taking advantage of social media, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT; Buhalis, 2020)
The aim of this paper is to focus on well-known aspects of tourism contracts and tourism experiences to demonstrate to what extent and how the principles of personal data and privacy protection law are applied or could be applied within the tourism industry
Summary
The technological and marketing aspects of smart tourism destinations have been extensively examined over previous years (Kontogianni & Alepis, 2020). The potential consequences for the image and sustainability of (physical and digital) tourism destinations will be evaluated This is, a major issue in the current digital tourism ecosystem (Buhalis & Law, 2008). The first section describes chosen examples of technologically empowered tourism experiences in tourism destinations as cases in which the personal data protection and privacy issues could be suspended. I show that the legal protection of privacy and data protection evaluation is a balancing element in the relationship between customers and tourism destinations, offering the latter an overvalue and producing negative effects on tourists and a contractual imbalance in the relationship. Some future reflections are formulated on the difficulties that affect the reformulation of personal data handling in favor of both tourists and tourism destinations
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