Page 19 - Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

ICTs are transforming knowledge and the way potential tourists plan, organize and manage
travel, including the interactions within the destination and sharing of experiences. Increasingly,
demanding tourists seek best value for their money, more personalized services and experiences
tailored to their tastes and needs; they value the most environmentally friendly options and demand
to be permanently connected and to be able to make use of new technologies throughout the
entire life cycle of the trip.

Turning destinations into smart destinations has an impact on management models in various areas
such as those related to transparency, digital transformation, mobility, sustainability and economic
development, among others. Tourist destinations integrate multiple interlocutors, public as well as
private, who interact with one another and with tourists. Tourism is also a cross-cutting domain, and
it is sometimes difficult to separate tourists and citizens. Consequently, actions designed to improve
the tourism model will benefit the management of other sectors and areas of the destination
and its various stakeholders. For instance, improvements in safety, communications, health care,
transportation, telecommunications, accessibility, the food sector, hotels, restaurants, sports and
cultural facilities and activities, leisure. In particular, it is important to mention the significant role
that technology plays in managing tourism flows and the impact of visitors on resources (e.g., water
and waste). With regards to cities, where congestion issues have emerged pre-pandemic, and will
remerge post-pandemic, building smart destinations is critical to measuring flows and promoting
the redistribution to less visited areas.

For example, the Spanish Secretariat of State for Tourism has developed and published several
standards to improve the management and tools for Smart Tourist Destinations, to create a
consistent framework for developing Smart Tourist Destinations (STDs) aligned with the process of
creating smart cities. These public standards allow all interested destinations to further standardize
some aspects of the STD:

• UNE 178501 – "Smart Tourist Destination Management System. Requirements": This
standard specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving
a Smart Tourist Destination management system that adequately considers governance,
innovation, the use of technologies, universal accessibility, and sustainability at the destination.
It covers all types of Tourist Destinations, regardless of their conception (e.g., vacation, urban,
natural), size (municipal or supra-municipal) and the nature of their Management Entity.

• UNE 178502 – "Indicators and Tools for Smart Tourist Destinations": This standard specifies a
set of indicators and tools associated with governance and the axes of a smart tourist destination
(governance, innovation, technology, universal accessibility, sustainability), to be applied in
the management of smart tourist destinations, so that they can be used efficiently for decision
making by the destination's management body and by those responsible for the processes or
activities affected and, consequently, contribute to the improvement of the destinations.

• UNE 178503 – "Smart Tourist Destinations. Semantics applied to tourism": This standard
defines a semantic base that makes it possible to represent the relevant information that makes
up the tourist destination (tourist destination, tourist resources within the destination, travel

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 9