A meta-narrative analysis of smart tourism destinations: implications for tourism destination management

Conceptualizing the Smart Tourism Mindset: Fostering Utopian Thinking in Smart Tourism Development

“…It significantly departs from approaches that describe smart tourism by outcomes, such as the kind of soft and hard infrastructure needed (Boes, Buhalis, & Inversini, 2016), and evaluate its achievement using infrastructure and development indicators (Foronda-Robles, Galindo-Pérez-de-Azpillaga, & Fernández-Tabales, 2020;Huertas, Moreno, & My, 2019;Ivars-Baidal, Vera-Rebollo et al, 2021) or measures related to competitiveness (Chung, Lee, Ham, & Koo, 2021). Such a departure from inputs and outcomes to values and process is also important from a communication perspective, as smart tourism narratives play an important role in influencing smart tourism discourse and steering the implementation of smart tourism in research and practice (Gelter et al, 2020).…”

“…This relates to the notion of "master developer thinking" that Gretzel et al (2006) identified as critical for destinations faced with rapid technological change. This dimension further includes receptiveness for ideas and a general appreciation for complexity, as noted by Gelter et al (2020). Related to this structural dimension is the understanding that smart tourism also needs an appreciation of liquidity (Bauman, 2013) and thinking in terms of liquid consumption (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2017), organizations (Sharma, 2020) and liquid governance (Krisch, 2017).…”

“…This involves re-thinking tourist experiences (Femenia-Serra, Neuhofer, & Ivars-Baidal, 2019), tourist-business interactions, collaboration and innovation within sophisticated smart tourism ecosystems (Eichelberger, Peters, Pikkemaat, & Chan, 2020;Gretzel, Werthner et al, 2015), all the way to overall destination management and governance (Gretzel, 2018), as well as reframing conceptualizations of technology as a driver and facilitator of tourism (Gretzel et al, 2020). The idea of smart tourism is currently communicated in the form of a powerful narrative of progress that promises the achievement of sustainability, inclusivity, mobility and well-being for tourists and residents alike (Gelter, Lexhagen, & Fuchs, 2020;Gretzel & Collier de Mendonça, 2019;Gretzel & Koo, 2021). Smart tourism principles enable smart destinations, which build on smart digital infrastructure to offer the tourism industry transparent, innovative, creative and learning-focused partnership opportunities that translate into efforts to improve tourist and resident experiences while more efficiently, effectively and sustainably utilizing destination resources (Gelter et al, 2020).…”

“…The idea of smart tourism is currently communicated in the form of a powerful narrative of progress that promises the achievement of sustainability, inclusivity, mobility and well-being for tourists and residents alike (Gelter, Lexhagen, & Fuchs, 2020;Gretzel & Collier de Mendonça, 2019;Gretzel & Koo, 2021). Smart tourism principles enable smart destinations, which build on smart digital infrastructure to offer the tourism industry transparent, innovative, creative and learning-focused partnership opportunities that translate into efforts to improve tourist and resident experiences while more efficiently, effectively and sustainably utilizing destination resources (Gelter et al, 2020). Under the umbrella of a smart destination, new forms of partnerships, innovative data collection and exchange, increased levels of coordination, and greater investments in virtual and physical infrastructure are possible (Gretzel, Sigala, Xiang, & Koo, 2015).…”

The changes of intergovernmental collaboration dynamic in post-disaster destination management: Network analysis

“…Destination management has been widely discussed in tourism research (Beritelli et al, 2007;Gelter et al, 2020;Granville et al, 2016). In light of the rapid increase in the number of disasters that have occurred over the past 30 years (Schulz & Blecken, 2010), it is particularly significant to achieve post-disaster destination management effectively.…”