A process-based perspective of smart tourism destination governance

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.