Tourism Smart Specialization And Sustainable Development

This Special Issue addresses relations between tourism activities, smart specialization strategies, and sustainable development at different territorial levels, including the local, regional, national, and international. Framed by appropriate conceptual frameworks to define the contemporary dynamics of innovation in tourism, case studies supported by advanced quantitative methods and developed in rural and urban areas of Asia, Europe, and Africa are presented and discussed. The concept of smart specialization inspires the formulation of regional innovation policies and strategies, emphasizing the importance of endogenous resources and existing territorial capabilities. By exploring the diversity and variety of each economy to develop inter-sectoral relations, this approach aims at promoting the creation of spillover effects of innovation processes supported by adequate key enabling technologies, potentially leading to the sustainable development of places, regions, and countries. As an activity that mobilizes contributions from different economic sectors, tourism may play a central role in such strategies. As described and discussed in this Special Issue, aspects related to the creative sectors of economies, information and communication technologies, traditional products and lifestyles, food production, or diverse cultural values can be mobilized to generate innovative and sustainable solutions for tourism development.

This Special Issue addresses relations between tourism activities, smart specialization strategies, and sustainable development at different territorial levels, including the local, regional, national, and international. Framed by appropriate conceptual frameworks to define the contemporary dynamics of innovation in tourism, case studies supported by advanced quantitative methods and developed in rural and urban areas of Asia, Europe, and Africa are presented and discussed. The concept of smart specialization inspires the formulation of regional innovation policies and strategies, emphasizing the importance of endogenous resources and existing territorial capabilities. By exploring the diversity and variety of each economy to develop inter-sectoral relations, this approach aims at promoting the creation of spillover effects of innovation processes supported by adequate key enabling technologies, potentially leading to the sustainable development of places, regions, and countries. As an activity that mobilizes contributions from different economic sectors, tourism may play a central role in such strategies. As described and discussed in this Special Issue, aspects related to the creative sectors of economies, information and communication technologies, traditional products and lifestyles, food production, or diverse cultural values can be mobilized to generate innovative and sustainable solutions for tourism development.

This book explores the latest developments in the field of smart tourism, focusing in particular on the important cultural and sustainability synergies that have emerged during the digital era. The aim is to elucidate how ICTs can promote innovation and creativity in the tourism and leisure sector in ways that take into account cultural and social responsibilities, foster sustainable tourism management, and enhance cultural tourism, cultural heritage, and sustainable development. The book is based on the proceedings of the Fifth International Conference of the International Association of Cultural and Digital Tourism (IACuDiT), attended by academics and industry practitioners from cultural, heritage, communication, and innovational tourism backgrounds, and is edited in collaboration with IACuDiT. It will have broad appeal to professionals from academia, industry, government, and other organizations who wish to learn about novel perspectives in the fields of tourism, travel, hospitality, culture and heritage, leisure, and sports within the context of a knowledge society and smart economy in which sustainability is becoming ever more important.

This critical review of sustainable tourism, from its beginnings in the late 1980s to the present, examines the pressing challenges posed by the effects of global warming and the persistence of deep poverty and social unrest in many regions. David Weaver explores the convergence of mass and ‘alternative’ tourism as a dominant theme. Originally perceived as two incompatible forms of tourism, they are positioned in this book through enlightened mass tourism as unified components of a single global ‘tourisystem’ with the power to achieve sustainable tourism.

Welfare rise, spatial mobility, and global information and communication channels (in particular, social media) have prompted the emergence of a specific booming and rapidly growing mobility industry all over the world, namely tourism. The tourist sector (including recreation and leisure activities) has turned into a complex contemporaneous socio-economic and geographic phenomenon, with a multiplicity of travel motives (e.g., entertainment, culture, relaxed life style, wellness, nature, etc.) and with a wide variety of impacts (e.g., urban- and regional-economic effects, crowding phenomena, environmental decay, etc.). Time has now come to offer a synthesis of the analytical apparatus in tourism research, with particular attention for system-wide, socio-economic and environmental dimensions of this important global industry. Tourism has in the past been a largely neglected field in regional science research. And therefore, it is laudable that João Romão has taken the decision to compose a systematically designed and well crafted monograph on the socio-economic, environmental and spatial dimensions of modern tourism. It offers a wealth of analytical insights and quantitative research tools for advanced tourism studies. It also fills an important gap in the current regional science literature. Peter Nijkamp, Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam

Sustainable Tourism is vital reading for anyone seeking to understand the complexities associated with sustainable tourism development, and how government and industry have responded to the challenges the concept poses. The major areas addressed in this edited volume are: * perspectives and issues associated with the concept of sustainable tourism development * accreditation, education and interpretation, including specific examples such as Green Globe 21, the European Blue Flag Campaign and the WWF's PAN Parks Programme * sustainable tourism case studies of tourist destination regions, natural areas and tourism enterprises drawn from Africa, Australia, the South Pacific, North America, South-east Asia and the Caribbean An impressive international editorial team has combined to present in this text not only a variety of perspectives on sustainable tourism development, but also significant insights into barriers, challenges and current industry and government responses to it in various parts of the globe. 'Sustainable Tourism' will be a welcome addition to the libraries of tourism industry professionals, individuals involved in the management of natural areas; tourism policy makers; tourism academics; and students with an interest in the future sustainability of tourism and the industry that supports it.

This book combines research on technology-driven and social-driven innovation in tourism destinations and the multifaceted concept of sustainability, providing an integrative understanding of the nexus between smartness and sustainability within destinations. It engages theoretically and empirically with the research question of how, and to what extent, smart technologies drive tourism innovation focussed on sustainability. Although innovation and technology are widely considered the way to sustainable tourism growth, further studies need to size the role of technology and critically address modalities, challenges, opportunities and pitfalls of technology deployment in rebalancing tourism disequilibria within local systems. Local, national, and supranational policymakers’ attention to technology investments, the widening technological frontiers, and the enthusiasm for new technological opportunities to build, manage, and market destinations suggest the relevance of this research agenda. This book provides scholars, postgraduate students, and practitioners with conceptual and empirical insights into smart solutions and innovative destination models for multi-stakeholder engagement to manage and address tourism impacts and imbalances. The book outlines scenarios of sustainability-oriented innovation, encompassing and intertwining technological, social, human, and cultural co-drivers as the necessary conditions for smart technologies to enhance sustainable destinations effectively and improve human wellbeing and societal development.