Smart tourism destinations really make sustainable cities: Benidorm as a case study

Abstract

Purpose: Tourism sustainability is a challenge for 21st-century destinations – this paper aims to analyse smart destinations' sustainability through a case study of Benidorm, the first world destination to be certified under the UNE 178501 standard as smart tourism destination (STD). Design/methodology/approach: The methodological component has been divided into developing a framework for measuring sustainability through economic, social and environmental open data. Moreover, studying the plan's contribution “Benidorm, Destino Turístico Inteligente y Sostenible” to the city's sustainability through a time series analysis. Findings: The main contribution shows that Benidorm's transformation into an STD leads to more sustainable cities. Thus, the conversion of Benidorm into an STD has a sustained effect in the medium and long term, contributing to the sustainability of the city. Research limitations/implications: An open question as a limitation is the subjectivity of the distribution of the relative weight of each indicator. However, statistical analyses are developed to explore the relationship between indicators and global sustainability. Practical implications: The debate to contextualise this paper is bridging the gap between sustainability and tourism intelligence, giving an original framework for measuring destination sustainability that provides a reasonable starting point for comparing tourism sustainability in different destinations. Social implications: Tourists in the 21st century prefer environmentally friendly tourism. Marketing campaigns based on destination sustainability must be based on data rather than mere slogans. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the originality of this paper provides a flexible framework for measuring sustainability from open data sources, being one of the first empirical analyses to study the effects on the sustainability of converting a mature destination into an STD.