Going beyond the traditional destination competitiveness – reflections on a smart destination in the current research

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the literature on tourism destination competitiveness from different aspects, focusing on comparative and competitive advantages. Also, the paper highlights the importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in tourism destinations and their increasing impact on the achievement of destination competitiveness. Thanks to the wider application of ICTs in tourism, tourists nowadays are well informed and have access to global market which creates a new dynamic environment by creating a smart demand. Since smartness emphasizes on ICT-based tools, including smartness integration for value co-creation, it can increase and enhance destination competitiveness. In this regard, special emphasis is placed on exploring the core components of smartness and smart tourism destination.

KEYWORDS:

• Destination competitiveness
• ICT
• smart technologies
• smart destination
• smart destination competitiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.