Over the past decade, cities have realized that in addition to improving the services and quality of life they provide to their citizens, they must also enhance the services for tourists who visit them. Considering the speed of technological advancement and the development of smart cities, smart tourism services are one of the fastest-growing segments as the return on investment can be easily measured.
Tourism is now very important for the economic development of cities and countries, and this sector is undergoing significant changes as tourist habits evolve, requiring an innovative travel experience tailored to their affinities and preferences. Therefore, there are fewer visitors who will be satisfied with just a regular visit to a destination with a tour guide showing them around the city, taking them to a museum, and where they spend most of the day lying on the beach.
Important Ingredients Expectations, desires, and needs of tourist visitors, from families looking for hotels, students camping, sailors, young people attending concerts, to individuals coming to see and visit historical and cultural landmarks, are becoming increasingly diverse and harder to satisfy. However, there is a common denominator among all these groups: the use of digital services to obtain information of interest, plan their trips, book accommodations, contact other tourists regarding satisfaction, use traffic maps, rate restaurants, share their experiences with others, etc. Most digital tourism services aim to provide the requested information to tourists in real-time and an immediate sense of satisfaction. More and more cities want to position themselves and be recognized as smart tourist destinations.
Now that we have established that times are changing and that there are fewer ‘traditional’ tourists and that the potential for tourism has significantly increased, we will look at some new trends and essential components in establishing smart tourism in a city or smart tourist destination. Some of the key factors in establishing a smart tourist destination are ICT infrastructure and data (scale and quality). Indeed, without these, it will be difficult to provide services that we can call smart to tourists. What we also see as a trend and an essential item in the development of smart tourism services is ‘open data,’ which then allows startups and other stakeholders to create new innovative services for tourists. The EU has recognized this and, through ‘Horizon 2020’ and CIP, co-finances projects aimed at improving interoperability and the use of developed applications in multiple tourist destinations.
