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The emergence of SDs may open new and more innovative future perspectives for DMSs as the core of destination management. The concept of SD emerged from that of smart cities, which extensively use ICTs to coordinate relevant activities and services aiming to interconnect citizens and organisations, in order to tackle the challenges inherent to the growing complexity and competitiveness or urban areas (Zhu, Zhang, & Li, 2014). Komninos, Pallot and Schaffers (2013) claim that, in order to achieve smartness, a city must make its ecosystem: (i) instrumented, measuring the city’s services and activities in order to improve their management (e.g. through sensors scattered around the city providing metrics); (ii) interconnected, linking residents, organisations and technologies through an ICT network both wired and wireless; (iii) intelligent, by using predictive applications with the ability to generate more accurate, timely and personalised services and decisions to both service managers and citizens.

Moreover, according to Caragliu, Bo and Nijkamp (2011), smart cities should be able to provide high quality of life standards as well as sustainable growth to their resident communities through investment in human capital, proper levels of government participation, and infrastructure supporting the adequate spread of information through the city. Cohen (2012) has proposed a smart city wheel (Figure 1.5) suggesting that they ought to improve indicators at six levels, namely: (i) governance; (ii) environment; (iii) economy; (iv) people (e.g. inclusive policies, creativity, innovative education); (v) mobility; and (vi) living (e.g. safety, health services).

Figure 1.5 - The Smart City Wheel

Source: Cohen (2012).

Smart cities have inspired SDs to apply smartness to the enrichment of visitors’ experiences to subsequently provide more quality of life to host communities (Gretzel, Zhong, Koo, Boes, Buhalis, & Inversini, 2016). According to Gretzel, Sigala, Xiang and Koo (2015), smart tourism is a direct extension of e-tourism but it differs from it by connecting the physical world of everyday life to the digital, as postulated by the Internet of Things (IoT) concept.

It seems noteworthy that most of the early research on SDs focuses on the use of ICT applications to enhance the visitors’ experiences, while paying little attention to their role vis-à-vis destination management. However, even the research work which has coined this concept recognises that SDs should be based on and take advantages of: (i) technology- embedded environments; (ii) responsive processes at micro and macro levels; (iii) end-user devices available in multiple touchpoints; (iv) engaged stakeholders that use a centralised platform dynamically as a neural system (Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2014). Hence, Buhalis and Amaranggana (2014) recognise that Smart Tourism Destinations (SDs) require interconnectedness stakeholders through a technological system on which information related to tourism activities could be exchanged instantly. Such platforms would also help assembling tourism experiences and improve the effectiveness of resources management

across the destination (Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2014). Regarding the centralised system of the SD, Zhu et al. (2014) consider that they should provide open data, allowing destination-based stakeholders to openly access and adopt new applications developed by the SD for free or at a reasonable cost, so as to avoid monopolies vis-à-vis the use of specific ICTs and benefit the whole local economy. Although these authors do not suggest a nomenclature for such technological system, its similarities with some crucial elements inherent to DMSs, such as those provided through their intranet, extranets, as well as by their dynamic packaging capabilities, seem evident. In addition, when positing that the use of a centralised system would “enhance the tourism experience and improve the effectiveness of resource management” (Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2014, p. 557), the authors are aligning the goals of that same system with those of DMSs. In an additional study, Buhalis and Amaranggana (2015) stressed the importance of SDs’ ICTs in enabling the creation of personalised content and experiences by visitors, which also corresponds to the capabilities often attributed to DMSs.

Some more recent body of research on SDs tends to pay more attention to the role of SDs regarding the destinations’ management and governance (Boes, Buhalis, & Inversini, 2015; Gretzel et al., 2016; Ivars-Baidal et al., 2019). Under this perspective, Gretzel et al. (2016) argue that the sole adoption of ICTs typically implemented in SDs in a given destination will not be enough to turn it into a SD. According to these authors, SD managers should provide an inclusive ecosystem for all destination-based actors in order to take full advantage of the adopted ICTs (Gretzel et al., 2016). Among the main components that compose a successful SD, Boes et al. (2015) highlight the need for an effective leadership of the destination able to convince destination-based stakeholders that short-term individual benefits are sometimes harmful for the long-term sustainability of SDs. Gretzel et al. (2016) also refer to dynamic leadership of the DMO as a prerequisite to the further cooperation among stakeholders required by SDs. The relevance of leadership as a condition for coordination and cooperation of players at the destination level has obvious reminiscences in the prerequisites for successful DMS adoption mentioned in previous research (Ndou & Petti, 2007; Petti & Solazzo, 2007; Sigala, 2013).

Ivars, Solsona, and Giner (2016) have also highlighted the implications of SDs to destination management when proposing a model comprising three levels in which SDs should operate in order to succeed (Figure 1.6). The first level - strategic-relational -, demands public- private cooperation in order to guarantee the sustainability of the destination as well as an open and collaborative environment of innovation (Ivars et al., 2016). The second level -

instrumental - refers to the need for digital connectivity to configure a destination information system that is essential to support decision-making (Ivars et al., 2016). Lastly, the third level - applied - comprises the development of specific smart solutions aiming to enhance the efficiency of the communication and relationship flows between stakeholders and the improvement of the visitors’ experience (Ivars et al., 2016). Baggio and Del Chiappa (2014) argue that destination managers should realise that the relationships between destinations’ stakeholders occur at both the real and virtual levels. Hence, the authors consider that the destinations’ virtual world must be integrated in the daily communication of destination- based players through ICT networks that foster the destination’s digital ecosystem (Baggio & Del Chiappa, 2014), such as DMSs.

Also adopting a destination management perspective, Ivars-Baidal et al.’s (2019) scientific work appears to have been the first explicitly referring to DMSs in a SD context, beginning by arguing that the “direct link between ICTs and destination management was first made during the development of the first Destination Management Systems” (p. 1583). The authors posit that the efficiency of SDs will not rely exclusively on technology but also on appropriate governance at all levels of the SD. While referring to required openness of SDs ICT systems, Ivars-Baidal et al. (2019) suggest that “a new horizon for DMS has been created in which open data (…) and the application of big data analysis techniques (…) are particularly interesting” (p. 1586), thus considering DMSs as the central information systems of SDs.

Femenia and Ivars-Baidal (2018) also posit that SDs are expected to develop a central intelligence platform or system able to collect, store and analyse big data generated by different destination stakeholders, as well as to generate useful business insights deriving from the use that visitors make of the system’s UGC and social media tools. According to these authors, a DMS is the most suitable type of ICT application to perform this central role in the SD’s management.

Ali and Horan (2014) further argue that DMSs may have a major role fostering internal coordination and collaboration efforts aiming to achieve an integral sustainable development of the destination. Indeed, when addressing their relevance to SDs, these authors posit that “DMSs can offer creative products such as providing a webspace where the community and the visitor can interact, offering an avenue for the community to consult on proposed tourism plans and projects, supply sensitisation information to visitors for better interpretation of the destination and encouraging more sustainable behaviours and attitudes” (Ali & Horan, 2014, p. 13).

Figure 1.6 - Systemic SD model proposed by Ivars et al. (2016)

Source: Ivars-Baidal et al. (2019)

1.4 Thesis’ methodology