The Smart Tourist Spanish Destination Program. Carmen DE-PABLOS-HEREDERO, Miguel BLANCO-CALLEJO
Author: Carmen DE-PABLOS-HEREDERO, Miguel BLANCO-CALLEJO
Affiliation: Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
Abstract
Smart Tourist Destinations (STD) are innovative tourist destinations highly enabled by technolog- ical infrastructures, aimed to assure the sustainable development of tourism, allowing full acces- sibility, and making easier for visitors to interact with elements in destination. Literature review evidence shows how these destinations apart from increasing the quality of tourists’ experiences at destinations, improve the quality of life among residents. In the last decade, a great investment has been done in the creation and maintenance of STD. Spain is the second world power in tour- ism, and it has recently put into action the STD Program. This program is oriented to develop a management model of tourism that includes different dimensions: governance, innovation, tech- nology, sustainability, and accessibility oriented to create and preserve STD. It is supported by a method concerned with providing recommendations, action plans and a system to monitor final outcomes. In this paper, the Spanish STD Program is described, and a case of success is presented, focusing on the main benefits of the method such as the fact that it is a powerful tool to prioritize some innovative actions, the achievement of greater competitiveness because of a rational use of tourism resources, the improvement in the quality of stay of visitors and the increase in terms of residents’ quality of life. Long term positive impacts in the environmental areas are also analysed from a sustainable perspective.
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