Reflections on Tourism Actors perception of Spanish Smart Tourism Destinations

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to debate the IT concept from the perception different agents of the tourism sector have about it and to see to what extent there is agreement or disagreement in the definition of the concept itself, its influence on the competitive improvement of destinations and future trends. In short, it intends to analyze the potential, but also to understand the risks and main challenges that the incorporation of IT can cause over current destinations. The work procedure involves asking experts in the tourism sector and in the academic world about the different thematic areas on IT and ITD: the definition of the concept and the welfare of its evolution in the immediate future, the characteristics and components of an ITD system, the role of the technological components in an ITD, the linking of IT with sustainability, the limits and risks of IT display, and the determinants and conditionings that destinations have for the development of IT strategies. The collected information has been obtained from the opinion of around thirty experts, with the purpose of gathering different points of view through the Delphi method: the academic specialists (belonging to national and international universities), those affected (from the case of study of the tourist municipalities of the province of Barcelona) and the facilitators (companies and organizations involved in the use of technologies to promote IT).