Smart cities and destination management: Impacts and opportunities for tourism competitiveness

Abstract

In the latest years, the smart city theme has been widely discussed in both city planning and academic studies from various perspectives, i.e. technology, sustainability, management and tourism. This is mainly due to the urgency of rethinking the city because of the rapid population growth and the urbanization increase. These challenges are triggering many cities to find smarter management ways. Nonetheless, only a limited number of studies investigated systematically the smart cities phenomenon and its impact on tourism. In this research, we try to understand the smart city concept considering the strategic role of technologies as opportunities in the smart tourist destination, trying to fill the literature research gaps by identifying how cities have to manage urban planning to be labelled as “smart”, what can be the applications of smart strategies to tourism, what resources/capabilities smart cities need to possess to catch opportunities and face challenges coming from the tourism market, how the smart city planning and its tourist applications can enhance destinations competitiveness. The empirical analysis tests four successful smart cities: Milan, Singapore, London and Johannesburg. The final part includes some reflections on the integration of tourism development with city planning and its effects on urban smartness.