Smartcity Resilience

United 4 Smart
Sustainable
Cities
Smart tourism:
A path to more secure and
resilient destinations
Empowered lives.
Resilient nations.
For more information,

please contact: [email protected] United Nations
Economic Commission for Africa
Website: itu.int/go/u4SSC United Nations
Educational, Scientiﬁc and
Cultural Organization
Published in Switzerland
Geneva, 2022
Photo credits: @Shutterstock, Pixabay
Smart tourism: A path
to more secure and
resilient destinations
Acknowledgements
The development of this deliverable was led and coordinated by Alberto Bernal Garcia (Indra/
Minsait) together with Sergio Koop Quesada (Indra/Minsait), Manuel Bosch Gayo (Indra/Minsait),
John Mora (Globaldit) and Enrique Lancis (Globaldit). This deliverable was developed in the
Working Group 4 on Tourism, Health and Resilience Management from the perspective of a Smart
City Platform of the U4SSC Thematic Group on City Platforms.
The authors would like to thank Ramón Ferri Tormo (Oficina de Ciudad Inteligente, City of Valencia),
Leader of the U4SSC Thematic Group on City Platforms and Sandra Carvao and Lorena Villar (World
Tourism Organization (UNWTO)) for their comments.
The authors wish to thank all experts participating in Working Group 4 for their inputs to the
discussion, as well as the feedback and review provided during the development of this deliverable.
The authors wish to thank the U4SSC management team: Nasser Al Marzouqi (U4SSC Chairman),
Katrina Naut, Abdurahman M. Al Hassan, Paolo Gemma, Tania Marcos and Giampiero Bambagioni
(U4SSC Vice-chairmen) for their assistance and contributions.
The authors also extend their gratitude to the contributing organizations along with their
representatives: Oliver Hillel from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Lucy Winchester
and Vera Kiss from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Simone
Borelli from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Cristina Bueti, Yining Zhao, Mythili Menon
and Victoria Papp (ITU), Iryna Usava from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
James Murombedzi from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Guilherme
Canela from the Regional Bureau for Sciences in Latin America and the Caribbean of the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Martina Otto and Sharon Gil
from United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Matthew Ulterino from the United Nations
Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI), Motsomi Maletjane from the United Nations
Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), Andre Dzikus, Tania Lim, Jean Yves and
Robert Lewis-Lettington from the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat),
Gulnara Roll from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), Mark Draeck,
Katarina Barunica Spoljaric and Nicholas Dehod from the United Nations Industrial Development
Organization (UNIDO), William Kennedy from the United Nations Office for Partnerships (UNOP),
Soumaya Ben Dhaou and Judy Backhouse from the United Nations University – Operating Unit
on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV), Sylvia Hordosch from the United Nations
Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), Alexander Baklanov
from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and Sandra Carvao from the World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO).
ii Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent
the views of their respective organizations or U4SSC members. In line with the U4SSC principles,
this report does not promote the adoption and use of smart city technology. Rather, it advocates
for policies encouraging responsible use of ICTs (information and communication technologies)
that contribute to the economic, environmental and social sustainability of cities, as well as the
advancement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
ISBN: 978-92-61-36851-7
This work is licensed to the public through a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share

Alike 3.0 IGO license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO).
For more information, please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo/
© CBD, ECLAC, FAO, ITU, UNDP, UNECA, UNECE, UNESCO, UNEP, UNEP-FI, UNFCCC, UN-Habitat,
UNIDO, UNOP, UNU-EGOV, UN-Women, WMO and UNWTO.
Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations iii

Executive Summary
Digital advances are transforming how the world connects and impacts how data is shared
between ecosystems, affecting behavioural patterns, and encouraging innovation and sustainable,
responsible growth strategies. Societies are becoming increasingly connected and interdependent
with digital technology, changing how we interact with people and places. The sheer size of global
tourism and its impact on many other sectors puts it at the forefront of environmental, social and
economic development agenda. Tourism is one of the sectors to digitize business processes on a
global scale, by providing a number of tourist services online. Notably, flight and hotel bookings
led the path for tourist services being available online. This transition to the online arena has now
become an integral part of the tourist experience provided by any given destination. Digitization
is expected to continue enhancing the travel experience on its trajectory toward the global goals.
With the onset of the COVID pandemic, the ecosystem of digital services has expanded within the
tourism sector to include into facilitated check-in into hotels, generation of QR codes for restaurants,
along with enhanced virtual reality (VR) experience for specific destinations during the lockdown
etc.
The tourism sector when properly managed, serves a key driver of economic growth, employment
and social and cultural development. Harnessing innovation and digital technology provide tourism
opportunities to improve inclusiveness, local community empowerment and efficient resource
management, amongst other objectives. Smart tourism is a proven tool for measuring and
managing tourism, promoting evidence-based decision making on key issues such as infrastructure,
carrying capacity, housing, transport and mobility, management of natural and cultural resources
and community engagement in tourism.
Technologies along with digital platforms are disrupting the way that tourism is run from end to end,
impacting the way destinations facilitate tourism, develop products, gather data, access markets
and attract visitors. However, with technological advancements come risks such as cyberattacks,
resource scarcity stress on biodiversity, cultural heritage, and local communities that can have an
increasing impact on the tourism sector in the upcoming years. Tourism industry should be planned
and managed in an integrated manner for residents and visitors alike, leaving no one behind. In
this regard, this Report is oriented towards demonstrating how technologies and the process
of digitization are powerful tools for moving towards a tourism industry capable of ensuring its
resilience, competitiveness, and sustainability in any scenario.
Furthermore, this document on Smart Tourism will provide practical recommendations for
establishing a destination framework which will support cities in developing smart tourism
destination platforms. It also highlights practical solutions and use cases for smart tourism.
iv Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

Contents
List of figures �� vi
List of abbreviations�� vii
1 Digital transformation, a vital partner for safe and resilient tourism��1

1.1 Steps and technologies for dealing with crises��2
2 The smart tourism destination framework��4

2.1 The context for smart tourist destinations��4
2.2 From smart cities to smart tourist destinations��4
2.3 The Spanish Smart Tourist Destinations framework��6
2.4 Standards and norms for smart destinations��8
3 Smart tourism destination platform�� 12

3.1 Value proposal��13
3.2 Functional overview��16
3.3 Comprehensive tourism management system��19
4 Solutions and use cases�� 21

4.1 Tourism spatial management��22
4.2 Promotion and interaction channels��26
4.3 Local service supply and demand management��31
4.4 Tourism intelligence��36
5 Success cases�� 42
5.1 Cáceres smart heritage��42
5.2 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – “Blue Intelligence”��44
5.3 Vatican museums��48
5.4 Decarbonizing tourism – the case of Valencia��50
5.5 La Nucía smart sports destination��52
5.6 Rota smart tourism destination��54
6 Conclusion�� 58
7 Bibliography�� 59
Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations v

List of figures
Figures
Figure 1: Tourist destination managed by a Digital Platform ��13
Figure 2: Smart Tourism Strategy for SEGITTUR��15
Figure 3: Smart Tourist Destination digital transformation path��15
Figure 4: Pillars of Smart Tourist Destination��16
Figure 5: Stakeholder governance��17
Figure 6: Smart Tourism Platforms for Smart Destinations��18
Figure 7: Smart Tourism Platform detailed by stakeholders and solutions��19
Figure 8: Solutions and Use cases (1)��21
Figure 9: Solutions and Use cases (2)��21
Figure 10: Smart Destination Manager��43
Figure 11: Scorecard – Citizen CRM��46
Figure 12: Rotamunicipality IoT City Platform��57
vi Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

List of abbreviations
U4SSC United for Smart Sustainable Cities

ITU International Telecommunication Union
UN United Nations
ISO International Organization for Standardization
CTN Technical Committee for Standardization
AENOR Spanish Association for Standardization and Certification
UNE Spanish Association for Standardization
CBD Convention on Biological Diversity
ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNEP-FI United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change
UN-Habitat United Nations Human Settlements Programme
UNECE United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organization
UNOP United Nations Office for Partnerships
UNU-EGOV United Nations University – Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance
UN-Women United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
UNWTO United Nation World Tourism Organization
WMO World Meteorological Organization
WHO World Health Organization
AI Artificial Intelligence
VR Virtual Reality
AR Augmented Reality
IoT Internet of Things
WTTC World Travel &Tourism Council
GDP Gross Domestic Product
QoL quality of life
DMO Destination Management/Marketing Organizations
ICTs Information and communication technologies
SDO Standards Developing Organization
SSC Smart Sustainable Cities
SDG Sustainable Development Goal
ITS Intelligent Transport Systems
SEGITTUR State Mercantile Society for the Management of Innovation and Tourism Technologies
Red DTI Smart Tourism Destination Network
STD Smart Tourist Destination
HDIC Digital, smart, connected hotel
PAS Publicly Available Specification
SMEs Small and Medium sized Enterprises
PoI Point of Interest
Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations vii

1 Digital transformation, a vital partner for safe and resilient tourism
Globalization continues to deliver important benefits to citizens, public administrations and

companies; however, it is also bringing in new threats that require innovative and efficient solutions
at the local, national and international levels, to provide a collective response from society for
dealing with current risks and anticipating future crises.
From geopolitical and economic tensions to health and environmental threats, the risk environment
is constantly evolving with new uncertainties that are continually transforming the global ecosystem.
Despite this scenario, physical and digital connectivity, paired with a growing middle class and
improved access to travel, have been a tremendous boost to tourism. In addition, one of the major
drivers of tourism growth has also been the decreasing cost of travel particularly air travel.
This sector has provided enormous economic and social benefits to destinations throughout this
period, creating millions of jobs, protecting natural and cultural treasures, increasing prosperity,
reducing poverty, and improving education and health.
Tourism is a major driver of economic growth and development, providing direct and indirect
livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people. Prior to the pandemic, in 2019, tourism contributed
directly to 4 per cent of world GDP, representing USD 3.5 trillion (United Nations, 2022). For many
developing countries, including Least Developed Countries (LDC), Small Island Developing States
(SIDS) and countries in Africa, tourism is a major source of employment, foreign currency earnings
and tax revenues. In SIDS, tourism represents more than 30 per cent of exports, and in some,
reaches as much as 80 per cent of their exports.
Given the multifaceted nature of tourism and related consumption, the sector has strong backward
linkages and corollary economic impact on many other sectors, making it a powerful engine of
economic growth, poverty eradication, reducing inequalities through inclusive job creation, and
community and rural development. In many countries, micro, small, medium, enterprises (MSMEs)
are a significant component of the sector, where women and young people tend to concentrate.
Prior to the pandemic, 1.5 billion international tourists travelled the world and more than 8 billion
travelled within their own countries. Over recent years, tourism has been affected by several crises
such as 9/11, the 2009 global economic crisis or SARS. To varying degrees these crises have
affected global or regional tourism. And yet, over the last few decades, no other crisis has impacted
the sector as has COVID-19. In 2020, international tourist arrivals declined by 73 per cent, falling
to the levels of 30 years earlier. The second-worst setback for tourism happened in 2009, when
tourism flows declined by 4 per cent (United Nations, 2022).
In addition, emerging risks such as cyberattacks, resource scarcity and the destruction of biodiversity
will have an increasing impact on the sector in the coming years. Key variables include the ability
to overcome crises in terms of recovery time, as well as the reduction of lost visitors and the
regeneration of revenue streams (UNWTO, 2019). While this certainly sounds promising, tourism as
a sector needs to be better prepared in times of crisis in order to protect people and destinations.
Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 1

Technology and digitization are powerful tools for moving towards a tourism industry capable of
ensuring its resilience in any scenario (UNWTO, 2019).
1.1 Steps and technologies for dealing with crises
The sector's ability to cope with crises is critical to the economic development and sustainability of
tourist destinations. Tourism is critical for the economy overall, with the COVID-19 global pandemic,
there was a 70 per cent loss in GDP due to the tourism decline alone.1 Ensuring this resilience in
the face of threats requires collaboration between the private sector, and municipal, regional and
national authorities to define and implement the necessary measures and instruments conducive to
preparing for, as well as managing and recovering from, the crisis, while building visitor confidence
and enhancing the reputation of tourist destinations. Of particular importance has been the
coordination with national authorities between health and tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first step lies in identifying and understanding the threats to building a resilient tourism approach
to operate and thrive in this dynamic, diverse and global environment. Crisis preparedness should
be geared towards generating resilience strategies with the participation of all sectors, including
tourism, where the capacity of people and infrastructure to face possible threats is analysed, and
developing monitoring and prediction tools based on analytical models and digital twins that
allow early anticipation of the arrival of the crisis, simulate its effects and recreate de-escalation
decision scenarios.
Effective and rapid crisis response management requires solutions, services and systems that help
to respond in an agile and coordinated manner to the needs of the population, including visitors,
to optimize the mobilization of resources in a dynamic manner according to the circumstances
of each territory and city. Technologies such as blockchain, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI)
ensure secure supply chains, distribute resources and care for patients and affected people in a
safe manner.
The sector also needs information tools that communicate the reality transparently and in a timely
fashion to reassure citizens and tourists, using various digital channels (such as apps and bots) and
ensuring the veracity of messages in the face of cybersecurity attacks. It is also essential to have
teleworking tools to assist the function of professionals in the sector, in addition to educational
platforms, entertainment and tourist, and cultural content that will help relieve the confinement and
generate a desire to travel again, once normality is restored post COVID-19, using Virtual Reality
(VR) and advanced digital portals.
1
UNWTO, “The Economic Contribution of Tourism and the Impact of COVID-19”, https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/10.18111/
9789284423200
2 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

Finally, the return to normalcy will require the generation of transparency and trust such that tourists
are driven to return to visit a given destination. The contribution of technology is also very important
here, as it provides personalized knowledge of travelers and their demands to provide them with
an experience that incorporates the safety and security of feeling cared for and safe during their
trip and stay at the destination.
Technology companies share the mission of contributing with their digital solutions for Smart
Tourism to make travelers want to return to their destinations as soon as possible. This can only be
achieved by bringing the capacity of these digital solutions and with the accompanying experience
to enhance tourist destinations to design resilient tourism plans and build strategic infrastructure
and systems in the areas of safety, health, mobility, the environment and, of course, tourism and
commerce.

2 The smart tourism destination framework
2.1 The context for smart tourist destinations
In an increasingly globalized and competitive tourism marketplace, destinations develop innovative

strategies to create sustainable, creative and unforgettable experiences for tourists, improve the
quality of life (QoL) of the population, and earn competitive advantages such as strong positioning
over time. This is done through Destination Management/Marketing Organizations (DMO), where
private and public stakeholders engage in the management and promotion of tourism products and
the destination. It is important to note that in addition to public/private stakeholder engagement,
DMO can also have various governance structures including fully public or fully private (UNWTO,
2019). Thereby, the coordination and commitment of all stakeholders, the strategic vision, and the
implementation of innovative initiatives considering the changes in the market are essential to the
development of the destinations.
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have completely modified the dynamics of
all industries – including tourism – in terms of processes, products and adaptation to clients’ new
demands. Destinations must ensure that their tourism models evolve to more sustainable and
innovative models, adopting technologies to make tourism activity a positive contributor to the
quality of life of residents and to protect nature and culture. Destinations must become more
sustainable and, during and post COVID-19 times, safer and more resilient, and to do so they will
need technology.
Thus, the Smart Tourist Destinations framework is key to building the “tourism of the future”: a new
sense of tourism that is sustainable and safe, inclusive and resilient, celebrates local cultures and
identities, provides economic and social benefits, helps preserve the environment, and uses ICTs
and renewable technologies at the core of tourist destination planning.
2.2 From smart cities to smart tourist destinations
The domain of smart cities has been explored in the international arena by the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), which serves as the United Nations specialized agency for
information and communication technologies (ICTs) and as an international standards developing
organization (SDO). Following the analysis of more than 100 definitions relating to smart city
terminology, ITU, together with UNECE, developed the following definition for smart sustainable
cities (SSC):
“A smart sustainable city is an innovative city that uses information and communication technologies
(ICTs) and other means to improve quality of life, efficiency of urban operation and services, and
competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets the needs of present and future generations with
respect to economic, social, environmental as well as cultural aspects”.

To further facilitate international dialogue on smart and sustainable cities, the “United for Smart
Sustainable Cities” (U4SSC) initiative was launched by ITU, UNECE and UN-Habitat, and supported
by CBD, ECLAC, FAO, UNDP, UNECA, UNESCO, UNEP, UNEP-FI, UNFCCC, UNIDO, UNOP, U NU-
EGOV, UN-Women and WMO. This UN initiative conducts its operations in line with the Sustainable
Development Goal (SDG) 11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and
sustainable”. The smart city is an interconnected system with various sectors including E-health,
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), Smart Tourism, Smart Education, and Intelligent Sustainable
Buildings etc. This report will further delve into the Smart Tourism sphere within the smart and
sustainable city ecosystem.
The concept of Smart Tourist Destinations evolves from the definition of smart cities. According
to the Mapping Smart Cities in the EU Report by the European Parliament’s Directorate-General
for Internal Policies, of January 2014, the concept of smart cities is founded on the creation and
connection of human capital, social capital, and ICTs in order to generate greater and more
sustainable economic development and better quality of life. Hence, a smart city is enabled by
excellence in the use of technologies, especially ICTs, aimed at improving competitiveness and
ensuring a more sustainable future through a symbiotic union of networks of individuals, companies,
technologies, infrastructures, consumption, energy and spaces.
In Spain, the National Plan for Smart Cities (March 2015), offers a smart city definition as proposed
by the Technical Group of Normalization 178 of AENOR (AEN/CTN 178/SC2/GT1 N 003):
“Smart city is the holistic view of a city that applies ICTs to improve its inhabitants’ quality of life
and accessibility and ensures economic, social, and environmentally sustainable development in
continuous improvement. A smart city enables citizens to interact with it in a multidisciplinary way
and adapts in real time to their needs, efficiently in quality and cost, providing open data, solutions,
and services oriented to citizens as individuals, to resolve the effects of the growth of cities, in public
and private spheres, through the innovative integration of infrastructures with smart management
systems”.
With this definition, different experts from the AEN/CTN 178 started working on the pillars of Smart
Tourist Destinations creating the Smart Tourism Destination subcommittee (AEN/CTN 178/SC5). A
Tourist Destination is Smart when it makes intensive use of the technological infrastructure provided
by the smart city in order to improve the tourism experience of the visitors, personalize it and make
them aware of the tourism products and services available in the destination. It also offers data
produced, directed and processed through the technological infrastructure of the destination so
that DMOs, local institutions, and local tourism business can make decisions and take action based
on such data (Lamsfus et al, 2015).
A Smart Tourist Destination is considered an innovative space based on the territory and a cutting-
edge technological infrastructure, committed to sustainability, with an information system capable
of analysing and understanding events in real-time, thus facilitating the interaction between the
visitor and the environment, and improving the travel experience significantly (López-Ávila et al,
2013).

A Smart Tourist Destination can also be understood as a system linking visitors, citizens and all
local organizations, which allows services to be obtained in real time (Buhalis et al, 2015). Thus, for
a destination to become a Smart Tourist Destination, the integration of four essential concepts is
necessary: human capital, leadership, social capital, and innovation. Advanced ICT infrastructures
such as cloud and other technological innovations, provide the essential infrastructure for the
development of a Smart Tourist Destination. ICT is fundamental; however, it is not enough.
Tourism affects the social and the economic activity across the territory in which it operates;
consequently, it cannot be managed in an isolated or fragmented manner. Smart Tourist Destinations
must be understood in their complexity, as a holistic and interdependent system, comprising distinct
sectors and actors or agents (stakeholders), which are related directly or indirectly, creating a whole
ecosystem in which all actors are interrelated. Key features of a Smart Destination include the
following five pillars: governance, innovation, technology, sustainability and universal accessibility.
2.3 The Spanish Smart Tourist Destinations framework
The Smart Tourist Destination framework has been developed under the leadership of Spanish
Secretariat of State for Tourism through the State Mercantile Society for the Management of
Innovation and Tourism Technologies (SEGITTUR). The framework involves a programme with its
implementation methodology, a set of public Spanish normalization (UNE) standards and the Red
DTI, a network of destinations and solutions providers.
2.3.1 Smart Tourist Destination definition
The Smart Tourist Destination definition proposed by SEGITTUR and accepted by the UNE Smart
cities working group reads as follows:
“A Smart Tourist Destination is an innovative tourist destination, consolidated on a cutting-edge

technological infrastructure, which guarantees the sustainable development of the tourist territory,
which promotes accessibility for all and facilitates the interaction and integration of the visitor with
the environment, increasing the quality of their experience in the destination and improving the
quality of life of the residents.”
(SEGITTUR is the Spanish acronym for the State Mercantile Society for the Management of Innovation
and Tourism Technologies.)2
2
“SEGITTUR is an effective operator capable of contributing to the development, modernisation and maintenance of
a leading tourist industry through technological innovation. It generates and manages the technology, expertise, and
innovation necessary to improve competitiveness, quality and sustainability in the environmental, economic and social
aspects of tourism. It disseminates, promotes and implements in tourism markets both at home and abroad the best
practices, know-how and technological innovation that have made Spain a world reference in the sphere of international
tourism (https://www.segittur.es/en/lines-of-action/)”.

2.3.2 Methodology
As mentioned above, Smart Tourist Destinations works on five different pillars: governance,
innovation, technology, sustainability and accessibility. 3
1. Governance: The pillar of governance implies strong tourism governance (public-private

partnerships and the local community), with the support of the governments, needed in order
to implement and operate a Smart Tourist Destination. The governance must create a strategic
vision for the future of the destination, and identify and implement all actions identified as
strategic for the destination. It is important to ensure efficient management through the rational
use of available resources in the territory and proper measurement, guarantee transparency
and implement participation channels for citizens and for the tourism sector.
2. Innovation: The pillar of innovation involves a process of continuous improvement of services,
marketing and promotion at the DMO. The continuous improvement process, carried out
systematically, brings new ideas and facilitates value generation, helping to reduce risks. Training
and knowledge-based solutions allow the DMO’s management team and the different actors of
the tourism ecosystem to be updated permanently with tools, legislative changes and trends
that set the pace of technological advances in the 21st century.
3. Technology: The pillar of technology defines the digital transformation of the destination across
the board, deploying cutting-edge technologies for critical processes. These may include tools
to improve the tourist experience (e.g., digital tourism information offices, free Wi-Fi connection,
apps, QR codes, VR), online reservation systems to streamline conversion of Big Data analysis
to understand the tourist/customer behaviours, or the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence in
different management processes throughout the value chain. The destination must take into
consideration the rapid obsolescence of technology and develop strategies of risk assessment
to avoid pitfalls or failures.
4. Sustainability: The sustainability pillar imposes a long-term perspective on tourism activity,
such that DMO’s management does not compromise the future of the local resources nor the
quality of life. Treating the authenticity and cultural diversity of the destination with respect and
expanding the opportunities and benefits of tourism to the local population are key to social
and economic sustainability. This pillar involves sustainable, responsible tourism policy; a strong
focus on conservation of culture and its heritage, as a differential element of the destination;
and environmental preservation and improvement, as a key element for long-term survival.
5. Accessibility: Finally, the accessibility pillar aims to develop a “universal design for everybody”
that allows anyone full access to the destination, without exclusions of any kind, thus guaranteeing
the equal right to fully enjoy the destination. Consequently, DMO should evaluate the current
normative framework on accessibility and its implementation. Accessibility must be guaranteed,
especially physical and sensory accessibility, for the different tourist attractions, public spaces,
3
The methodology has been proposed by SEGITTUR. This methodology is also supported by UN World Tourism Organi-
zation a United Nation Specialized Agency (UNWTO).

infrastructures, and tourist services. It is also important to develop accessible technology, in
line with existing norms and international standards.
COVID-19 has forced a reset of the whole sector. Readiness is key to resilience; hence digital and
sustainable transformations are not only a must, they are also a great opportunity for the entire
spectrum of sectors.
For example, the Smart Tourist Destination Network (Red DTI), managed by SEGITTUR, brings
together an ecosystem of more than 380 agents: destinations and DMO as titular members;
institutional members; and collaborating members such as associations, businesses and academic
institutions. Destinations receive knowledge, technical assistance, tools and support in their digital
transformation process.
2.3.3 Expected Results
The main results of implementing the Smart Tourist Destinations methodology are:
• The Smart Tourist Destinations methodology strengthens local governance through the
involvement of the different actors from various industries and the creation of a new ecosystem.
• The methodology also strengthens the internal management structures, creating new capacities
in the public and private sectors.
• Destinations become more competitive due to the efficient use of its tourism budget and the
identification of possible synergies with other departments.
• The smart strategy boosts the sustainable development of the destination in its environmental,
economic, and socio-cultural aspects; and, therefore, it aligns strategies and visions with the
United Nations 2030 Agenda.
• For businesses, smart transition facilitates the updating of tourism products and services to offer
optimal experiences to hyper-connected travelers of the 21st century.
• As the Smart Tourism strategy overlaps with the local administration, tourism can better contribute
to the economic revitalization of the territory, fostering its positive effects in the long term.
• The Smart Tourism methodology helps reduce the digital gap and inequality through the
adoption of technology in the territory, in the public and private spheres.
• Finally, it also promotes the consolidation of public-private collaborative schemes based on
innovation and the leading role of Big Data.
2.4 Standards and norms for smart destinations
Tourism is a global industry that is highly competitive and continuously developing in supply and
demand sides alike. New proposals emerge constantly to attract the attention of tourists, who have
more information and tools with which to select the most attractive destinations and proposals.

ICTs are transforming knowledge and the way potential tourists plan, organize and manage
travel, including the interactions within the destination and sharing of experiences. Increasingly,
demanding tourists seek best value for their money, more personalized services and experiences
tailored to their tastes and needs; they value the most environmentally friendly options and demand
to be permanently connected and to be able to make use of new technologies throughout the
entire life cycle of the trip.
Turning destinations into smart destinations has an impact on management models in various areas
such as those related to transparency, digital transformation, mobility, sustainability and economic
development, among others. Tourist destinations integrate multiple interlocutors, public as well as
private, who interact with one another and with tourists. Tourism is also a cross-cutting domain, and
it is sometimes difficult to separate tourists and citizens. Consequently, actions designed to improve
the tourism model will benefit the management of other sectors and areas of the destination
and its various stakeholders. For instance, improvements in safety, communications, health care,
transportation, telecommunications, accessibility, the food sector, hotels, restaurants, sports and
cultural facilities and activities, leisure. In particular, it is important to mention the significant role
that technology plays in managing tourism flows and the impact of visitors on resources (e.g., water
and waste). With regards to cities, where congestion issues have emerged pre-pandemic, and will
remerge post-pandemic, building smart destinations is critical to measuring flows and promoting
the redistribution to less visited areas.
For example, the Spanish Secretariat of State for Tourism has developed and published several
standards to improve the management and tools for Smart Tourist Destinations, to create a
consistent framework for developing Smart Tourist Destinations (STDs) aligned with the process of
creating smart cities. These public standards allow all interested destinations to further standardize
some aspects of the STD:
• UNE 178501 – "Smart Tourist Destination Management System. Requirements": This

standard specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving
a Smart Tourist Destination management system that adequately considers governance,
innovation, the use of technologies, universal accessibility, and sustainability at the destination.
It covers all types of Tourist Destinations, regardless of their conception (e.g., vacation, urban,
natural), size (municipal or supra-municipal) and the nature of their Management Entity.
• UNE 178502 – "Indicators and Tools for Smart Tourist Destinations": This standard specifies a
set of indicators and tools associated with governance and the axes of a smart tourist destination
(governance, innovation, technology, universal accessibility, sustainability), to be applied in
the management of smart tourist destinations, so that they can be used efficiently for decision
making by the destination's management body and by those responsible for the processes or
activities affected and, consequently, contribute to the improvement of the destinations.
• UNE 178503 – "Smart Tourist Destinations. Semantics applied to tourism": This standard
defines a semantic base that makes it possible to represent the relevant information that makes
up the tourist destination (tourist destination, tourist resources within the destination, travel

experiences), ensuring interoperability through its use of its tourist platforms and of the city
and the territory with each other and with third-party developments.
• UNE 178504 – "Digital, smart, connected hotel (HDIC) to smart destination/Smart city
platforms”. Requirements and recommendations": This standard establishes the requirements
and recommendations for converting an accommodation into a smart digital hotel connected
to the tourist destination or smart city, in order to share relevant information for the tourism
system, improve the planning of the accommodation and the tourist destination, adapt to the
needs of tourists, reduce the negative impact on residents, and offer more efficient and more
personalized services.
Additionally, the following Publicly Available Specification (PAS), which are still in the development
phase (2021), should be highlighted due to their potential cross-sectoral impact and relation to
tourism sustainability policies.
• ISO/FDIS 21902 – "Tourism and related services. Accessible tourism for all. Requirements
and recommendations": This standard provides a simple approach to the requirements that
a tourism service provider must comply with in order to make its offer accessible to everyone.
It contains a general chapter (including aspects such as information, training, design and the
built environment), and also specific chapters for each service provider type (e.g., lodging,
transportation, restaurants). The document emphasizes the importance of making all links in
the tourism chain accessible. The standard is an awareness-raising tool that provides expertise
in tourism accessibility and leads to an opening to a wider market.
• ISO/DIS 23405 – "Tourism and related services. Sustainable tourism. Principles,
terminology and model": This document specifies the core concepts, principles and model of
sustainable tourism, which are applicable to public and private organizations and destinations,
regardless of their size and location, including other stakeholders committed to sustainable
tourist development.
• ISO/DPAS 5643 – "Tourism and related services. Measures to reduce the spread of
COVID-19 in the tourism industry": The document establishes general requirements,
including organizational aspects, cleaning and disinfection measures, contingency plans and
air conditioning/ventilation systems. Specific requirements are then established, which vary
according to the activity. Finally, several Annexes are included with World Health Organization
(WHO) recommendations for handwashing, the correct use of masks and gloves, or how to act
when a case of COVID-19 occurs among personnel or clients.
Cities implementing smart destination features to facilitating tourism can also benefit from smart
sustainable city standards as well. In its role as an SDO, ITU through its ITU-T Study Group (SG) 20
on Internet of Things (IoT) and smart cities and communities (SC&C), develops standards to help
cities address urban challenges and maximize the use of digital technologies to accelerate digital
transformation. The ITU-T Recommendation Y series covers a variety of global infrastructure, Internet

protocol aspects, next-generation networks, IoT and smart cities. ITU-T SG20 has developed a
series of standards which can support the overall transition to a smart city including the following:
• Recommendation ITU-T Y.4200: "Requirements for interoperability of smart city platforms"

• Recommendation ITU-T Y.4201: "High-level requirements and reference framework of smart
city platform"
• Recommendation ITU-T Y.4461: "Framework of open data in smart cities"
• Supplement 33 to ITU-T Y.4000 series: "Smart sustainable cities - Master plan"
• Supplement 32 to ITU-T Y.4000 series: "Smart sustainable cities - A guide for city leaders"
• Supplement 34 to ITU-T Y.4000 series: "Smart sustainable cities - Setting the stage for
stakeholders' engagement"

3 Smart tourism destination platform
A tourist destination can be defined as a physical space with or without administrative and/or
analytical boundaries in which a visitor can spend the night. It is the cluster (co-location) of products
and services, and of activities and experiences along the tourism value chain and a basic unit
of analysis of tourism. A destination incorporates various stakeholders and can network to form
larger destinations. It is also intangible with its image and identity which may influence its market
competitiveness (UNWTO, 2019).4
These can be of many types. When referring to tourism, it would be relevant to highlight sun and
beach destinations, business destinations, language destinations, sports and leisure destinations,
rural destinations, culinary destinations, and so on. These features relate to key tourism products
in the destination which in many cases can be combined. For example, a city can be a cultural and
business destination. Despite these distinct features of certain destinations, all of them will share
the common feature that their day-to-day activities and performance are altered by a tourist influx
that requires them to:
• Adapt their services (e.g., water) to the influx of tourists.

• Manage the destination with a comprehensive approach based on the governance of all services
and stakeholders that are part of the destination.
• Manage the impact on social fabrics of the destination.
With a view to ensuring a fair digital transformation for the tourism sector and its destinations,
accelerating and facilitating the entry of SMEs to the data economy by adding operational
capabilities among all agents.
4
- This Section explores the ideation related to the smart destination platform. It does not seek to provide an alternate
methodology to the one proposed in Section 2.

Figure 1: Tourist destination managed by a Digital Platform
Therefore, it requires the design, development and implementation of a Smart Tourism Platform to
respond to the challenges of the destinations in an integrated manner based on:
• Unified Management: This enables the unified management of all elements of the destination,
from monitoring to operation.
• A data-driven economy: This involves getting the most out of the destination's data, based
on standards that ensure consistency and interoperability.
• Distributed Intelligence Models: This includes combining and extracting value from the
information as a whole: new and legacy systems, mobile and web applications, sensor
technology, social media, and so on.
• The development of an open innovation ecosystem: Such a platform would be open to the
outside world, with the aim of generating new solutions, business cases and entrepreneurship
at the destination.
3.1 Value proposal
Meeting the challenges of a smart, sustainable, safe and resilient tourist destination calls for a
revitalization channel that will enable it to become more competitive.
A set of solutions ensuring the sustainable development of the tourist destination, improving its
accessibility and interaction with the visitor, in addition to its integration with the territory and the
quality of life of its residents.
• A series of solutions geared at managing the tourist area to meet its economic and social needs
using new technologies that allow us to connect the physical and digital worlds, improving
relations with tourists by aiming to:

o guarantee sustainability;
o increase their activity; and
o minimize the environmental impact.
This process should be approached in three main stages/phases:
• before (understanding the current destination);

• during (revamp the destination); and
• after (create the destination of the future).
Firstly, the current destination must be transformed. To do so, an initial diagnosis of the degree of
maturity of the destination is conducted and the focus is placed on the digitalization of operating
models and visitor interaction.
Secondly, the destination must be revitalized. Once the context in which the destination operates
is understood, it is necessary to enhance the destination by reinventing it and adjusting its offer
and services in a dynamic way.
Finally, the destination of the future must be designed through continuous improvement. In short,
the process would involve learning from the past to design a more resilient future through pre-
emptive measures and preparedness to respond to any crisis.
For example, SEGITTUR (State Mercantile Society for the Management of Innovation and Tourism
Technologies) from Spain has also been aiming to put in place a credible tourism system to enable
the transition to a smart destination with the strategy indicated in the Figure below.

Figure 2: Smart Tourism Strategy for SEGITTUR
Figure 3: Smart Tourist Destination digital transformation path
Tackling the different phases of the digital transformation of the destination requires a technological
model based on the following pillars:
• Spatial management:
o Physical and digital world integration for real-time monitoring, operation and management
of heritage, leisure and/or natural tourist sites.

• Promotion and Advanced Relationships:
o New promotion and relationship channels that deliver a 360º vision of the tourist with
advanced relationship capabilities.
• Tourism intelligence:
o Use of advanced analytics techniques to extract value from every interaction and tourist
behaviour with the destination, its offering and services.
Figure 4: Pillars of Smart Tourist Destination
3.2 Functional overview
The Smart Tourist Destination Platform should be conceived as a solution that includes all the
dimensions of the destination, with an approach based on intelligence and the use of data, the
integration of all actors and systems through interoperable and open solutions, in a model of
interterritorial and inter-administrative cohesion, and that scales through public-private partnerships.
The comprehensive Smart Tourism Technology Platform for a destination supports the end-to-end
management of the tourist destination, from a promotional and from an administrative point of
view, and the relationships between the different stakeholders of the destination.

Figure 5: Stakeholder governance
Such platforms can be understood as a service, or a sectoral platform built or extended from the
smart city platform or territorial platform. The Smart Destination Platform can be built by tapping
into the capabilities of the city or territorial platform.

Figure 6: Smart Tourism Platforms for Smart Destinations
This platform must have at least the same characteristics as the city platform, and should also
integrate at least the following tourism components or tools:
• Multichannel content manager for the development, creation, publication and updating of all
the destination's tourism content and assets through web portals, mobile applications, totems,
etc.
• Digital marketplace: offering tourists the full range of the destination's products and services.
• CRM: rendering tourist segmentation and profiling capabilities.
At a functional level, the following diagram can be used to identify the most relevant components
of a smart destination platform model together with its vertical solutions grouped by stakeholders
or end-users.

Figure 7: Smart Tourism Platform detailed by stakeholders and solutions
In conclusion, a Smart Tourism Technology Platform supports the end-to-end management of the
tourist destination, from a promotional and an administrative point of view, and the relationships
between the different stakeholders of the destination.
3.3 Comprehensive tourism management system
It is essential that along with the implementation of a technological platform for smart tourism
destinations and the development of its solutions and use cases (see next section), a comprehensive
tourism intelligence system based on indicators is defined in the system. This system should feature:
• Improved strategic planning processes: This can help to gauge and analyse the actual
consumption behaviour of visitors and tourists. This tool can also serve to improve strategic
planning processes by putting the knowledge generated at the service of the destination
manager through a comprehensive scorecard.
• Multidimensional analysis tool: This must be able to load, process and analyse information that
transforms it into useful, relevant, systematized and orderly knowledge that makes it possible to
have updated information available at any time and to generate its own analysis easily without
advanced technological or statistical knowledge.

It is common for this system to start as a management scorecard and later be integrated into
the destination's platform thus becoming a tool capable of adapting to the information needs
of any tourist destination, and becoming the main source for generating tourism intelligence
and knowledge at the territorial level and equipped with all the technological components of
the platform at the level of processing, e.g., intelligence, data sources, software, analytics and
automations.
Additionally, it should allow, and be designed to measure and quantify, indicators of the different
strategic axes/dimensions of the destination (analysed in the previous topic).
In short, it must provide the destination with the following differentiating elements:
• Unified management: This involves the unified management of all indicators and processes
of the destination; from monitoring to the operation and promotion of tourism
• Distributed intelligence: This includes getting the most out of the data, analysing tourist flows,
making it possible to direct demand and adapt the destination's offer to the needs of each
visitor.
• Productivity of the destination: This involves contributing to improving the use of tourism
assets through the personalization of visitor services, directly impacting the destination's
economy.

4 Solutions and use cases
This section distinguishes the following pillars on which the destinations build various technological
solutions to respond to the challenges they face in terms of:
• Tourism spatial management

• Promotion and tourist relations channels
• Local service supply and demand management
• Tourism intelligence
The following is a description of each of these four blocks of general solutions, grounding them
in technological use cases that make use of technological components to respond to the specific
needs of the destinations in each of the pillars mentioned above:
Figure 8: Solutions and Use cases (1)
Figure 9: Solutions and Use cases (2)

4.1 Tourism spatial management
4.1.1 The challenge
In the current scenario, in which social distancing and tourist safety play vital roles, it is essential to
transform the experience by guaranteeing safe experiences, in open spaces (beaches, parks, etc.),
and in cultural and heritage sites.
4.1.2 Solution
This would include an information system comprising two modules that allow, on the one hand,
the management of the flow and capacity of the spaces to be monitored, and on the other hand,
the management of climatological, comfort and consumption variables for the preservation and
intelligent operation of the historical, cultural and architectural heritage. Additionally, through the
analysis of information, it allows maintenance tasks and the use of material and human resources
of the space.
4.1.3 Benefits
Increased competitiveness through better use of tourism resources.

Improved quality of stay for visitors and quality of life for residents.

Promoting the sustainable development of the destination in terms of its
environmental, economic, cultural and safety aspects.
4.1.4 Use cases
Solutions adapted to the safety management of the spaces in the advent of COVID-19 are capable
of directly impacting the quality and experience of the visit.
Accordingly, the main elements of tourism spatial management would involve:
Safe cultural and architectural heritage: Monitoring of heritage and/or natural

elements focused on conservation and preventive safety.
Capacity control: Control of the degree of occupancy of public spaces to improve
their experience and provide them with safe environments.
Social distancing: Analysis of the movement and flow of people to ensure
compliance with the established minimum safety distance.
Face mask usage control: Detection of violations related to the protection measures
established for each case (e.g., use of masks, gloves).
Tourist pattern analysis: Analysis of visitor behaviour to develop better marketing
strategies to increase the productivity of the spaces.
4.1.4.1 Safe cultural and architectural heritage
4.1.4.1.1 Description
Monitoring system for heritage and/or natural elements focused on their conservation and
preventive safety, enabling the control of environmental and structural parameters and parameters
related to the management of public use of the space, and their real-time analysis.
4.1.4.1.1 Main characteristics

• Monitoring of the state of conservation showing the reading of the variables recorded by
sensors and measuring equipment.
• Early warning system that allows the activation of protocols for action and maintenance of the
space, minimizing its deterioration and improving the efficiency of conservation activities.

• Analytical and simulation that allows adapting maintenance resources and services, including
space safety, to the detection of real needs at any given moment.
4.1.4.2 Capacity control
Real-time monitoring of the occupancy rate of public spaces (e.g., museums, beaches, leisure
centres, PoIs) to improve the visitor's experience and provide a safety environment that guarantees
the distance between people and control of the capacity.
• Generation of alerts and alarms based on

the degree of occupation of the monitored
space through anonymized information.
• Ability to perform automated actions based
on visitor flows, and to ascertain information
including average duration of visits, peak
and off-peak times, for predictions.
• Contextualized information to tourists on the degree of occupancy of the areas and the
safety measures to be adopted, including forecasts based on historical data and further
recommendations based on their profile.
4.1.4.3 Social distancing
System to control the movement of people in predetermined areas to control the minimum safety
distance established by the health authorities through artificial vision cameras capable of detecting
and warning of distance violations or group formations of people (e.g., queues in stores, access
to enclosures) ensuring the safety of spaces and the movement of people.

• Location of flow cycles throughout a site

(with the volume of users by areas) and of
hot/cold spots to avoid crowding.
• Alerts based on traffic data or capacity
prediction criteria in each study area during
specific time slots.
• Generation of alternative routes and
itineraries for visitors depending on
the degree of affluence such as visits to
museums, cultural centres.
4.1.4.4 Face mask usage control
Artificial vision solution integrated in the CCTV

system that allows, through the training of
algorithms, to detect infractions related to the
protection measures established for each case
(e.g., use of masks, gloves).

• Generation of real-time alerts to identify the area or geographical area where the incident is
occurring through integration with the CCTV system.
• Generation of automated action protocols such as public address announcements, launching
of work orders to safety personnel.
• Ability to offer supplementary information such as capacity control, social distancing, queue
management, by training additional algorithms leveraging the existing infrastructure.
4.1.4.5 Tourist pattern analysis
Analysing visitor behaviour to secure insights for better marketing strategies that increase the
productivity of the space and increase demand.

• In this way, it is possible to understand which

areas are attractive, and to identify points
of greater or lesser affluence, to adapt the
offer and services according to the visitor's
analytics.
• Use of real, accurate and reliable data to
develop tailor-made marketing studies.
• Identification of hot spots in the venue to
strategically install interactive kiosks or digital
screens displaying relevant information.
4.2 Promotion and interaction channels
4.2.1 The challenge
The main challenge involves providing tourists with contents and tools that contribute to improving
their experience at the destination, in addition to offering updated information on the different
areas and services of the territory, making them feel safer and more welcome.

4.2.1 Solution
The solution for this would include a manager who, regardless of the digital channel chosen (e.g.,
APP, Web Portal, Totems, social media), provides tourists with content and tools that contribute to
improving their experience at the destination, while offering updated information on the different
areas and services in the territory that contribute to increasing the tourist's perception of safety.
4.2.3 Benefits
Maintaining the interaction and relationship with the tourist in all phases of the trip
(planning, during and after the trip) through multiple channels.
Enabling the channels to adapt to new usage trends and their contents to the new
tourist demand.
Constant evaluation of the feedback and digital interaction of the tourist's online
behaviour.
4.2.4 Use Cases
These use cases highlight solutions aimed at restoring tourist confidence in the safety of the
destination by generating safe and personalized experiences.
360º Planner: A solution for planning the trip, managing the stay and sharing the
experience, providing updates and information of interest during the stay.
Safe and customized offer: Profiling and adapting the offer to the potential demand
through proximity marketing and online interaction of the tourist.
Safe and advanced tourist services: A bidirectional relationship channel with tourists
that offers information on the services of the territory and their updates, together with
answers to queries and incidents.
COVID-free tourist traceability: COVID-19 test traceability module for tourists
through a decentralized, reliable and safety network that allows them to access tourist
services freely.
Virtual immersion at the destination: Attraction of interest in the trip planning phase
and offer immersive and safe experiences in the face of peak traffic scenarios.

Safe tourism gamification: Enabling tourists to experience and enjoy the destination
and its attractions, without compromising their safety against possible contagions.
4.2.4.1 360º Planner
This involves enabling the organization and planning of the trip from any device by organizing the
entire trip and information of interest relevant to the experiences to be consumed, offering updates
and information in real time in the execution phase of the trip.
• It gathers information on places of interest to

visit and a complete travel guide, providing
information and implemented hygiene and
safety actions.
• Plan and book your trip before arriving at the
destination for the consumption of unique
experiences during your stay.
• It receives information, in real time, on modifications, capacity and the flow of people, which
enables modification and creates the ability to decide between one experience and another
according to certain parameters such as availability, safety and promotion.
• Providing continuous feedback on each experience consumed and sharing the journey with
other users.
4.2.4.2 Safe and customized offer
Contextualization and personalization services are used to profile tourists and adapt the offer to the
potential demand, considering their preferences and interactions, physical (proximity marketing),
as well as online, with the destination.

• Through its integration with the sensors

deployed for spatial management and
mobile application traceability systems,
tourists are provided with real-time
information on the occupancy of each space.
• Based on historical data and reservation
analysis, it recommends visit projections with
different safety levels/scenarios depending
on the area, the attraction or PoIs.
• Depending on the location of the tourist, it can offer information and content about offers and
promotions, and places of interest that can have a positive impact on the tourist.
4.2.4.3 Safe and advanced tourist services
Providing tourists with a virtual customer

service office with permanently updated
information on all the services of the
territory, and the possibility of managing
incidents and/or suggestions sent by
the same, with the aim of improving the
feeling of permanence, safety and comfort
at the destination.

• This allows two-way communication with tourists as if they were citizens through mobile
applications, chatbots, totems and web portals.
• Enabling access to services specific to the territory/city such as transportation, safety, health
information, and de-escalation protocols.
• Real-time notification of any changes that might be of interest and might impact the tourist
experience such as capacity, flow of people, and changes in de-escalation scenarios.
• Continuous feedback of the interaction with the tourist, and information that allows the CRM
module to better segment the tourist.

4.2.4.4 COVID-free tourist traceability
Module of the tourism app that allows the traceability of the COVID-19 tests that tourists have
taken and thus record the results, obtaining a digital certificate generated automatically through
a decentralized, reliable and safety network, which ensures their good health and allows them to
access tourist services freely.
• Information shared in a decentralized way

between companies, destination managers
and tourists that allows sharing COVID-free
certificates under a decentralized system in
which the owner of the information is the
user.
• It allows the creation of a test history for
each tourist so that he or she can access the
different services of the destination with all
the guarantees.
• It is helpful to identify possible sources of contagion or specific quarantine episodes should
a positive test be detected, acting in a faster and more coordinated manner between all the
services of the destination and the tourist.
4.2.4.5 Virtual immersion at the destination
A tool that enables virtual interaction with the destination's main assets such as points of interest
and tourist attractions, with the aim of attracting interest in the trip planning phase and offering
immersive and safety experiences in the most crowded scenarios.
• It shortens visiting times, reduces crowds and

offers a safer visiting environment.
• Capacity or availability of technological tools
for content generation by stakeholders, e.g.,
destinations and museums.
• Aggregator of multiple uniform and diverse
content and information: audio guides, virtual
views, videos and guides.

4.2.4.6 Safe tourism gamification
Leveraging technology to build a gamification system that lets visitors experience and enjoy the
destination and its attractions without compromising their safety against possible contagions.
• Creation of a bonus system that allows access

to promotions, offers and services in different
companies or activities at the destination
through different channels (physical or virtual
tourist cards).
• Incorporation of augmented and virtual
reality technologies for the generation of
gamification scenarios with greater user
penetration.
• Influence on the tourist's decision process through the generation of itineraries that take into
account the variables of capacity, safety and hygiene measures of the attractions.
4.3 Local service supply and demand management
4.3.1 Challenge
In a changing environment in which destinations are struggling to maintain their competitiveness,

the management body has the critical role of implementing a cooperation strategy between the
different businesses to increase their productivity and therefore that of the destination through
synergies among the different players.

4.3.2 Solution
Collaborative platform designed to let the managing entity centralize and harmonize the entire
tourism offer, thanks to the publication and creation by the entrepreneurs, in a professional portal
adapted to the destination's strategy. Thus, complete experiences are generated as a sum of
individualized and personalized offers for each tourist segment. It also includes a module to boost
the local economy through a loyalty system.
4.3.3 Benefits
Optimizing digital sales and promotion channels and e-commerce of the destination's
businesses.
Increased direct sales of the destination, localizing the supply chain.
Reinforcing the branding and brand positioning of the destination through the
incorporation of all its offerings and assets under a single identity.

4.3.4 Use Cases
Solutions aimed at building a collaborative tourism governance ecosystem, which allows the
Professional portal: Content and asset manager to incorporate the safety and
hygiene offer and actions carried out in response to COVID-19.
Marketplace: Creation of experiences through the assets of companies adhering to
the professional portal and providing tourists with the ability to reserve and purchase
products and services.
Local economy stimulation: Implementation of tourist loyalty strategies through a
collaborative ecosystem between entrepreneurs and services.
Scheduling and reservation manager: Guarantees the maximum capacity
established in the regulations applicable to COVID-19 through intelligent planning.
Digital tourism community: Collaborative platform for sharing “tourism expertise”
and accessing grants and subsidies.
4.3.4.1 Professional Portal
4.3.4.1.1Description
Content and asset manager that allows an easy and simple way to incorporate the tourism offer
and promotion of the destination's companies, providing them with tools that enable new sales
and promotion channels to increase demand.
• Coordination and governance of the sector's

tourism offer in a single portal and adapting
it to the quality standards established at the
destination.
• Decentralized maintenance of promotional
information and digital assets of the different
companies adhered to the portal.
• It offers tools that allow companies to perform segmentation and analytics of user interaction.
• Incorporated timeline for publishing safety and hygiene measures against COVID-19 enabling
the transparent publication of performance certificates through the Tourist App.

4.3.4.2 Marketplace
4.3.2.1 Description
The managing entity acts as an aggregator of tourist offers and assets, creating experiences through
the combination of assets of the companies that are members of the professional portal, and
providing the potential tourist with the ability to book and purchase products and services.
4.3.2.2 Main characteristics
• Streamlined booking and purchasing

processes for local experiences and
packages at the destination.
• Personalized information according to the
type of user, improving the customer journey.
• Incorporating marketing tools and analysis
of advertising impacts, search engine
optimization, SEO, etc.
• Integrated with the destination's portal and promotional app to incorporate trip planner
capabilities before, during and after.
4.3.4.3 Economic stimulation
Capable of implementing tourist loyalty strategies through the creation of a collaborative ecosystem
between entrepreneurs and services of the destination thanks to the use of different systems, e.g.,
tourist card (physical or virtual) or compensation system.
• Allowing the business owner to join a

collaborative loyalty programme coordinated
and managed by the destination's
management body.
• Enabling entrepreneurs to offer discounts
and unique loyalty promotions for their
services and/or collaborations within the
destination's dynamization ecosystem.

• Options for integrating a customized compensation system for each destination and type of
service: services of the destination (museums, cultural activities, etc.), restaurants, excursions,
etc.
• Integrated with the destination's portal and promotional app to incorporate proximity marketing
and gamification capabilities.
4.3.4.4 Scheduling and reservation manager
Integration through the marketplace of the capacity to manage agendas and reservations so that
the system itself is the one that guarantees the maximum capacity established in the regulations
applicable to COVID-19 through intelligent planning that helps the implementation of the protocol.
• Agile and flexible: allowing the modification

of variables such as capacity, surface of
the establishment and maximum stay, in
order to plan the shifts and capacity of the
establishment intelligently.
• It is integrated within the marketplace to
offer the range of options and availability of
reservation and/or visit to the tourist through
the mobile application.
• Integrated with the destination's apps and promotional channels to incorporate marketing
capabilities based on capacity and offer personalization based on preferences.
4.3.4.5 Digital Tourism Community
A collaborative ecosystem linking local entrepreneurs and management entities that allows, through
different channels, the sharing of expertise on the use and training of digital technologies applied
to tourism, and to inform and channel grants and subsidies associated with the business activity
of the local tourism sector.

• It provides entrepreneurs, through a single

channel, with access to grants and subsidies,
workshops, training, and even further
activities for the recovery of the sector.
• Establishing a channel to share experiences
and expertise among professionals about
best practices in tourism management
during COVID-19.
• It links and connects professionals in the sector to establish possible synergies and cross-selling
collaboration models that improve their productivity.
• It offers the possibility of posting job offers so that local resource matching is predominant.
4.4 Tourism intelligence
4.4.1 The Challenge
Broadening knowledge about visitors to the destination by aggregating and centralizing data on
origin, reason for the trip, socio-demographic information, mobility, most visited areas, length of
stay, etc., in order to identify patterns, relationships and trends that can be used to plan and optimize
services that enhance the tourist experience and improve the quality of life of local citizens.

4.4.2 Solution
Management system (collection, storage and processing) of information about visitors captured by
Wi-Fi sensors, mobile data and digital media, to obtain insights that help to know and understand
tourists, and to analyse the evolution of the activity to always adapt the offer and services to the
needs of the visitor.
4.4.3 Benefits
Understanding and managing tourist flows in the destination, combating saturation

and attending to the tourist carrying capacity.
Adaptation of tourism resources to the current and future needs of visitors, improving
their experience before, during and after the trip.
Optimization of the strategy based on visitor habits and defining the tourist
experience in relation to the destination.
4.4.4 Use Cases
Solutions aimed at the economic reactivation of the destination will allow its revaluation and
productivity increase.
Visitor segmentation and profiling: Qualitative analysis of tourists before,

during and after their visit to the destination to create and offer new personalized
experiences.
Visitor behaviour and mobility: Monitoring of anonymized data to study the
seasonal behaviour of segments of the population.
Economic impact observatory: Analytical approach to the consumption activity
carried out through credit cards at merchants operating within the destination.
Safe Destination Reputation Analysis: Evaluating the perception of safety, health
and hygiene that the destination is transmitting and promoting to tourists through
multiple channels.
Mapping of tourism spatial planning strategies: Useful in identifying and driving
tourism business performance through combined analysis of tourism flow and
spending information.

In addition to the solutions outlined above, tourism specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for
the destination management:
1. Demand
a. Number of visitors (overall and overnight ones)

b. Spending (overall and per arrival/trip)
c. Distribution between national and international demand
d. Seasonality / Dispersal of demand in time
e. Geospatial dispersal
f. Diversification of source markets (i.e., limit the dependence on a certain number of source
markets)
2. Employment (level, quality, and gender balance)

3. Environmental KPIs (waste and water management, sewage management, climate change)
4. Local Satisfaction
5. Economic benefits / Leakages
6. Accessibility
4.4.4.1 Visitor segmentation and profiling
Capturing and analysing visitor data to

segment tourist profiles and create new
personalized experiences by categorizing
digital interactions, comments on social
networks, tourist service chats, incident
channels, blogs, mobile applications, among
others, and synthesizing the data.

• Qualitative analysis of the feedback provided by tourists before, during and after their visit to the
destination, through mobile data and Wi-Fi antennas and their interaction with the destination's
different marketing channels.
• Generation of configurable reports with data matrices of the visitors under study segmented
by age range, nationality, gender, origin, average stay, overnight stays, and so on.

• Ability to model scenarios based on historical data to consolidate new tourist segments through
better promotion and adequacy of supply.
4.4.4.2 Visitor behaviour and mobility
Tourism mobility flow analysis to study the seasonal behaviour of segments of the population,
making it possible to analyse the estimated activity in different geographical areas and points of
interest, and to extract behavioural patterns to establish preventive measures to ensure the safety
of the areas and visitors.
• Monitoring of anonymized data from

mobile devices and Wi-Fi sensors that allow
obtaining information about places with
more traffic, time spent at points of interest,
peak/valley hours, and so on.
• Travel prediction and simulation of inflow
scenarios based on historical storage.
• Generation of reports to compare results and evaluate seasonality and tourism behaviour at
different intervals (e.g., month, year).
4.4.4.3 Economic impact observatory
Analysis and monitoring of the consumption

activity of tourists visiting the destination with
anonymized data from the transactions made
by visitors through their debit/credit cards at
the different merchants operating within the
destination.

• Cross-analysis of information with data from other systems and services of the destination,
allowing for a much richer and high value-added global vision.
• Estimation of activity by geographic area, origin of visitor, spending, merchant category codes
or average spending, segmenting tourist spending.

• Predictive models to detect trends and anticipate the needs of tourists, offering them services
focused on their profiles and needs.
4.4.4.4 Safe Destination Reputation Analysis
Enabling an analysis of the perception of safety, health and hygiene that the destination is
transmitting and promoting to tourists so that campaigns and actions can be established to increase
the image and brand of the Safe and Resilient Tourism Destination.
• Analysis of tourist sentiment through

multiple channels, with special emphasis on
social networks and mobile apps.
• It allows us to evaluate the tourist's
perception in different phases of the trip: at
origin, during the stay and post-trip.
• At origin: enabling targeted marketing
campaigns to be implemented and
improving web positioning.
• At the destination: able to analyse the tourist experience to act and react in real time to possible
negative aspects.
• Post-trip: analysing the feedback received and the behaviour of the tourist in order to learn
from the experience and improve the next campaign.
4.4.4.5 Mapping of tourism spatial planning strategies
Useful in identifying and boosting the

performance of the space (e.g., store, museum,
restaurant, tourist attraction) through geospatial
analysis combined with information on tourist
flows and economic impact.

• Analysis of expenditure variables through anonymized information on POS transactions (average
expenditure, frequency) with the minimum level of aggregation (e.g., type of store, district,
neighbourhood).

• It studies demographic variables of visitors to each tourist area by analysing mobile data to
identify potential customers.
• It combines both sources of information and performs geospatial analysis to understand tourist
spending behaviour and improve spatial productivity.
• Increasing the RoIe of existing and/or future businesses through the generation of ad hoc
reports that help decision-making and the implementation of strategies to increase revenues
and reduce costs.

5 Success cases
5.1 Cáceres smart heritage
5.1.1 Summary
City managers in tourist areas may not have information regarding how many tourists visit the
city, how long their stay lasts or what their profile is. These data are essential to be able to create
tourism strategies, identify the city's potential and make the necessary improvements to increase
the number of tourists and recommend a visit to the city.
To this end, the city of Cáceres proposes itself as a pioneer in Smart Tourist Destination projects
to improve tourist knowledge and shape smart tourism strategies.
5.1.2 Entity
Cáceres City Council.
5.1.3 Region and location
Cáceres is a World Heritage City located in Spain near the border with Portugal. Receiving more
than 900 000 visitors, it is the third most visited monument in Europe. It has more than 2 400 hotel
rooms and attractive natural, monumental and cinematographic tourism.
The community of Extremadura is in the centre-west of the Iberian Peninsula and is made up of
two of the largest autonomous communities in Spain. Bordering Portugal, it boasts a wide range
of natural and tourist attractions.
5.1.4 Definition/explanation of the case
The Cáceres City Council intended to implement a project that would enhance and publicize the
city's heritage, and preserve its monuments. To this end, together with Minsait, it developed a
project to acquire a greater knowledge of their visitors in order to activate strategies to attract, retain
and increase these visitors’ length of stay. The city's business sector has been incorporated within
this strategy, and has been involved in the process of diversifying the consumption of the supply
of services to structure a management system and model that promotes the city's business fabric.

Figure 10: Smart Destination Manager
The integrative model is led by the horizontal city platform Onesait Platform, which collects all the
data from the project and displays them strategically within the holistic tourism scorecard Smart
Destination Manager. This allows the state of the city to be visualized, as well as the making of
forecasts or the creation of unified strategies with the different tourism stakeholders in the city
such as businesses, hotels and event managers, to increase tourist satisfaction and length of stay.
In addition, a series of sensors and devices have been deployed within the project to create an
intelligent ecosystem by monitoring different points:
• Counting sensors to delimit the capacity of the city's main monuments, so creating a safe
environment for visitors.
• Cameras for monitoring the condition of the city squares.
• Monitoring of heritage elements with sensors for humidity, temperature, presence, luminosity,
water level and quality, energy efficiency and weather stations, all of which will carry out a study
of the building's state of conservation.
• Tourism portal and app to improve the visitor's experience and provide content, routes and
promotions to extend the length of stay.
• Beacons that will send notifications to the app based on the profile about events in the city,
videos and audio guide and information about the monuments to simplify the tourists’ journey.
• Totems where city events, information of interest, access to routes, stores and restaurants will
be published.

5.1.5 Impact / added value contributed
Currently, the City Council has the Onesait city platform and the comprehensive manager of the
tourist destination where the state of the city can be visualized, creating unified and integrated
strategies with the different actors of the city, knowing the profile of the tourist and sizing services
and infrastructure to improve the perception of the tourist.
The City Council will be able to prevent deterioration and carry out preventive maintenance of
monumental buildings, limit the capacity of monuments according to needs, design tourism and
gamification strategies thanks to beacons, portals and apps.
5.2 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – “Blue Intelligence”
5.2.1 Summary
Minsait has launched a pioneering initiative in Spain. An application that consolidates the new era
of urban services management in a tourist destination par excellence such as Las Palmas de Gran
Canaria.
The “LPA Blue Intelligence” project aims to turn Las Palmas into a Smart Destination par excellence
through the implementation of a Smart city platform that provides an integrated and transversal
vision of the city, bringing together a large amount of data generated from different sources to
make Las Palmas a benchmark in tourism and the environment, and improve the quality of life

of citizens and visitors daily. The benefits achieved include savings in water risk, optimization of
waste collection routes, management of parking spaces, smart payment for public transport or
management of the fleet of vehicles of all municipal services, and a substantial improvement in
the management of Las Canteras beach and all its associated services and activities.
5.2.2 Entity
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Municipality.
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is a Spanish city and the capital of Gran Canaria Island, which is located
off the north-western coast of Africa. It has an extension of 100.55 km² and a population of 379
925. The city is a major cruise port and known for its good weather and beaches. The main – and
most touristic – beach is Las Canteras, with three kilometres of sand and as many kilometres of
promenade, where the offer of services such as hotels, restaurants, bars and terraces, is very broad.
5.2.4 Definition / explanation of the case
“Las Palmas Blue Intelligence” uses Onesait Platform (formerly Minsait IoT Sofia2), Minsait's open
Internet of Things and Big Data platform, as its technological basis. Based on data obtained from
multiple sources and devices, it can integrate and manage these data under predictive rules and
models and transform them into relevant information, not only for citizens, but also for managers,
who will help them make decisions that are better adapted to the city's needs.
These new city capabilities, which translate into improvements for citizens and visitors, are based on
intelligent rules that are applied to the information captured by the thousands of sensors deployed
throughout the city.
Within the framework of the “LPA Blue Intelligence” project, several vertical services are also being
developed and integrated in areas such as intelligent mobility, urban services and citizen relations,
mostly linked to the improvement of environmental quality, with special attention paid to the
intelligent management of beaches, a key pillar of the tourist activity of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
To this end, the implementation of a “Smart Beach Scorecard” around Las Canteras Beach is
contemplated, which takes advantage of, and develops, information so that municipal technicians
can adapt the services of that area to real needs. The deployment of a sensor network and software
to send data will make it possible to optimize everything from cleaning and waste collection to
parking management based on traffic flow.
Intelligent management of surface parking spaces and waste collection services are two other
vertical services that will be integrated into the urban platform. In the first case, Indra's solution will

provide citizens with real-time information on free parking spaces thus reducing the time spent
searching for them and reducing polluting emissions.
Additionally, an intelligent waste-management solution has been implemented in the Canary

Islands capital, which facilitates, among other advantages for the city, the establishment of dynamic
collection routes, and obtaining estimates of the increase or decrease of waste per route and per
container, depending on the time of year or the demographic composition of the area.
The smart park and garden management system deployed will bring significant economic
and environmental benefits and contribute to making the city more sustainable thanks to the
incorporation of humidity sensors and other devices that will trigger irrigation only when necessary.
It also highlights the implementation of a CRM that will act as a central tool for citizen access to
information and will make it possible to extract data from all interactions to improve public services.
Figure 11: Scorecard – Citizen CRM
Another innovative solution contemplated by the project is the implementation of advanced

ticketing systems in public transport to take advantage of the growing digitalization of citizens
and their means of payment, which will reduce costs and improve the user experience.

The project has been developed in a city with unique insular, economic and social characteristics,
which pose very important challenges in terms of water management, mobility, tourism, employment
and economic development, and has become a reference for island and tourist cities and territories.
Minsait's smart management solutions provide an integrated and transversal vision of the city,
bringing together a large amount of data generated from different sources to make Las Palmas a
benchmark in tourism and the environment, and to improve the quality of life of its citizens daily.
These will achieve benefits such as savings in water risk, optimization of waste collection routes,
management of parking spaces, intelligent payment of public transport or management of the
fleet of all municipal services, and better management of the Las Canteras beach.
More specifically, the impacts of this project derive from the efficiencies generated in multiple
services. According to company estimates, it is possible to achieve savings of more than 35 per
cent in water consumption thanks to the cross-referencing of data with the environmental and
meteorological service; or to reduce by at least half the time spent by drivers in the search for
parking.

5.3 Vatican museums
5.3.1 Summary
The Indra company Minsait is the key partner in the digitization of the Vatican Museums, one of
the most visited venues in the world. The company, a leading consultancy in the fields of Digital
Transformation and Information Technology, is implementing a system to integrate the services of
the Vatican Museums, improving the protection of works of art and the safety of its visitors.
The project consists of the implementation of digital solutions and technologies managed by an
intelligent platform that enables the sharing of information among all the agents in the value chain
to offer users more attractive and safer experiences that will attract more visitors and boost the
museum's economy while respecting its environment.
5.3.2 Entity
Vatican Museums.
Vatican City.
5.3.4 Definition / explanation of the case
The project is part of a five-year digitization plan aimed at improving the services offered to the
public and involves, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Directorate of Safety and Civil Protection
Services, the Directorate of Technical Services and the Directorate of Telecommunications, all within
the “Governatorato” of the Vatican City State.
The complex system of sensors already in place in the museums will be enhanced and developed
technologically, and integrated into the comprehensive Onesait management platform, providing
useful data to the safety systems as well.
A team of Minsait experts in Smart Security and Smart Tourism completed an initial study defining
the safety plan that has been implemented progressively. In addition, a Data Centre was built to
receive and integrate information from the different systems, centralizing the management of
safety processes.
Museum Connectivity
A complex fibre-optic network, which now stretches some 20 kilometres, connects the complex
system of flow and environmental control sensors, video surveillance, and safety, fire and evacuation

systems. In addition, the wireless connection is available to the thousands of visitors who enjoy
the Museums' works every day, offering new visiting experiences through dedicated applications
and a “safety place”.
A comprehensive digital Safety & Security system
In its initial phase, the project addressed the digitization of all safety and visitor flow management
systems, positioning the Vatican Museums as a global benchmark in Safety & Security thanks to
Minsait technology.
The integration of the various sources and systems makes it possible to centralize the monitoring
and control of all the areas of the institution, guaranteeing an immediate diagnosis of each incident
based on the situation detected, the place and context in which it occurred, and the number of
visitors affected.
In addition, the public has the best guarantees in emergency situations5 thanks to a digital and
multimedia warning system capable of intelligently channelling visitors according to the levels of
concentration of people in the rooms, accelerating and automating evacuation procedures and
protocols.
"Integra Museum", the experience of the Vatican Museums together with Minsait technology.
The deal reached between Minsait and the Vatican Museums also includes the joint development of
“Integra Museum”, an innovative digitization and safety platform that will be available to museums
and centres around the world.
The platform adds the knowledge and experience of the Vatican Museums to Minsait's technology,
based on the Onesait platform technology, which incorporates the most innovative Internet of
Things, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence technology for the digitization, safety and management
of visitor flows.
It is a Physical Security Information Management (PSIM) platform that integrates sensors and systems
in a single graphical interface, thus enabling unified and coordinated management of the safety
and services offered by museums.
The system improves the safety of visitors, contributing to the protection of infrastructures and the
conservation of the thousands of works of art on display. It also ensures the safety of spaces, and
5
For more information and guidance on the importance health emergency management and ICT-based surveillance
mechanisms to monitor and curb public health disasters, refer to the U4SSC Deliverable – Smart public health emergency
management and ICT implementations.

establishes more efficient artistic and cultural heritage management models. Forecasts point to an
increase in the number of tourists and visitors.
5.4 Decarbonizing tourism – the case of Valencia
5.4.1 Summary
The changes that have taken place in recent years are transforming the global tourism paradigm,
which is the result of the challenge of climate change and is reflected in new national and
international policies such as the UN's Agenda 2030, the Urban Agenda (Habitat III), the European
Green Pact and the Climate Emergency declaration in Spain.
In this context, the industry and destinations must rethink the parameters of competitiveness in
terms of safety, health and sustainability, as is the case of the city of Valencia (Spain), which has
redirected its model of tourist destination, promoting the improvement of the quality of life of
residents and the positive perception of tourism activity in the citizenry.
5.4.2 Entity
Valencia City Council.
The Spanish city of Valencia is located on the

Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula, on
the banks of the Turia River, in the middle of the
alluvial plain l'Horta, and its extension between
east and west does not exceed 8 km. It provides
mild winters and warm summers to enjoy in its
sunny white sandy beaches that extend from the
city itself along the Valencian Community, and
that make it the epicentre of a large tourist area.
Valencia is a city with a population of more than 800 000 inhabitants (2020). The current economy of
Valencia and its metropolitan area is closely linked to SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises),
and is centred on the service sector (commerce, leisure tourism and business tourism), since nearly
84 per cent of the active working population belongs to this sector. In addition, the city maintains
an industrial base, with an employed population percentage of 5.5 per cent, and agricultural
activities survive in the municipality with a total of 3 973 hectares, which are mostly occupied by
orchards and citrus crops.

Valencia is implementing a strategy based on a sustainable tourism development model, capable

of extending profitability to the social and environmental level, so contributing effectively to the
protection and enhancement of the cultural and natural heritage, with special emphasis on those
resources that give the destination its greatest authenticity and uniqueness. This model aims to
minimize negative impacts, always promoting the improvement of the quality of life of residents
and a positive perception of tourism activities among the citizens.
In order to turn these goals into reality, and with a focus on the fulfilment of the SDGs, a scoreboard
has been designed based on a broad international reference framework, which connects each
SDG with the specific indicators for tourism that have been selected (GSTC criteria, European
ETIS indicators, indicators included in the Spanish UNE 178502 standard, STD criteria), making it
possible to identify areas for improvement to fulfil the SDGs.
Within this strategy, the aim is to become a benchmark as a carbon neutral tourist destination,
offering real solutions to the public and private sector to be more competitive in the new paradigm.
The roadmap for the decarbonization of tourism comprises three phases:
• The initial calculation of the footprint of the destination and its stakeholders.
• The implementation of a digital management system (tracking the footprint and its reduction).
• The development of compensation projects in the territory.
Applying the public-private collaboration model, Visit València (a foundation dependent on the
City Council) collaborates with the Global Omnium group (an international group based in Valencia
with divisions specializing in sustainable water management and tourism). As the first fruit of this
collaboration, Valencia was the first destination in the world to verify the calculation of the carbon
footprint of its tourism activity, in addition to calculating and soon certifying its water footprint.
Using a powerful Big Data tool, the carbon footprint has been calculated in relation to the three
scope areas:
• Scope 1: The footprint of passenger transportation to and from the destination, and internal
transportation.
• Scope 2: Indirect GHG emissions from energy consumption in tourism activities.
• Scope 3: Other indirect emissions: accommodation, tourist consumption, waste management
and water management; and those related to cultural activities, festivals, sporting and cultural
events, and tourist infrastructure.
In turn, the study has broken down the calculation into ten chapters, so that the footprint
corresponding to each of the segments involved has been identified: a broad range of aspects
not limited to transportation, restaurants, infrastructure, public services and leisure activities.

The second phase entails implementing a digital carbon footprint management system, using
smart tags that will record the emissions of each organization (calculating the carbon footprint in
real time), feeding the digital platform that verifies and manages the information – using blockchain
technology (recently awarded the Wakalua-UNWTO Innovation Award). A certified process that
will allow individual and aggregated verification of the progress of the reduction, which can be
passed on to users at any time.
Valencia has taken concrete steps to reduce the carbon footprint of tourism. The SDGs serve as
a compass to guide Valencia towards the new paradigm; with a clear vision of becoming a safe,
sustainable and healthy destination. By applying the knowledge, experience and resources of all
the actors involved in this joint challenge to combat climate change.
5.5 La Nucía smart sports destination
5.5.1 Summary
The City Council of La Nucía wants to undertake its transformation towards Smart Tourist Destination
with a specialization in sports tourism. The key point of this project is that, for the first time, the hyper
specialization of a Smart Destination in sports takes place in the context of a Smart City project.
5.5.2 Entity, region and location
The municipality of La Nucía is in the province of Alicante, 50 km north of the capital and 150
km from Valencia. Located in the region of the Marina Baja, the municipality has a total of 18 242
inhabitants and shares borders with large tourist centres on the Costa Blanca like Benidorm, Altea,
L’Alfàs del Pí and Villajoyosa. La Nucía is a residential municipality with little tourist tradition, and
barely 851 beds. Most of its population lives in suburbs outside the downtown area, and 40 per
cent of its companies are related to the service sector.
The City Council of La Nucía is undertaking its transformation into a Smart Tourist Destination
specializing in sports tourism. This implies a new way of selling, operating, and serving residents
and visitors, and relating to the institutional, business and social environment. La Nucía Smart
Sports Destination is a pioneering and innovative project, which relies on the power of the Camilo
Cano Sports City to consolidate these facilities as a source of prosperity and well-being for the
municipality.

5.5.4 Impact / value added contributed
The Smart Sports Tourist Destination model for La Nucía takes components from the Smart Cities
and the Smart Tourist Destinations conceptual frameworks. The project impacts are:
• The strong specialization in sports tourism is already contributing to the quality of life and
generating opportunities and benefits for the resident society.
• The strategy fosters the digital economy with initiatives around sports and innovation.
• Likewise, it contributes to the municipality’s social objectives: a connected society, the promotion
of well-being and quality of life through healthy lifestyles, intelligent mobility and, of course,
sustainability.
• As a Smart Sports Tourist Destination, la Nucía will be increasing its contribution to the United
Nations SDGs.
5.5.5 Applicable Technologies
• Connectivity: Connect all devices in the territory (e.g., sensors, mobile devices) to connect into
a network, so that the data flows bidirectionally.
• Sensors: Transform the sports facilities and the city into a Smart space with functionalities to
improve the sustainability of the DTI and to provide valuable information for the management
of public services.
• Smart City Platform: Greater management capacities and control over services and processes
to improve municipal management and decision-making in all areas of the city.
• Smart Economy: Develop the technological components that provide visibility and drive digital
transformation of local commerce.
• Mobility: Implement technologies for efficient management of mobility in the municipality,
especially in situations of potential road saturation.
• Safety: Improve the technological capacity of the municipality to protect people’s integrity.
• Sustainability: Expand the use of technology for environmental protection.
• Facility management system: Install a comprehensive management platform to the Camilo
Cano Sports City and other facilities.
• Technologies for sports disciplines: Provide the Camilo Cano Sports City with state-of-the-art
technologies for training and competition.

• Accessibility: Guarantee universal access to all sports and tourism facilities.
• Boosting entrepreneurship: Encourage the creation of new startups associated with the sports
sector.
• Tourist and sports data centre: Build a storage and processing platform for the data generated
by the interaction of visitors with the destination systems to generate useful knowledge.
• Dashboards: Build the measurement & control system to generate process and operations
intelligence for more efficient digital transformation management.
5.6 Rota smart tourism destination
5.6.1 Summary
The tourism sector is facing changes, and the administrations must undertake actions to create new
business opportunities and to promote the diversification of markets and consolidate the successes
obtained in traditional markets. In this context, with the experience of a Smart City model, the city
of Rota as a unique enclave of beach tourism and the particularity of the US naval base, aims to
create and implement a new concept of tourist territory.
5.6.2 Entity, region and location
The town of Rota is a Spanish municipality

located in the province of Cádiz, in the
autonomous community of Andalusia. It
covers an area of 84 km² and is bordered by
the towns of Chipiona, Sanlúcar de Barrameda
and El Puerto de Santa María. It is located at an
altitude of 9 metres above sea level and lies 51
kilometres from the provincial capital, Cádiz.
With an enviable climate for most of the year and a 19 km- long beach, Rota is a very popular
tourist destination for national and international tourists, especially from the United States, due to
the demographic privilege imposed by the US naval base.

5.6.3 Definition/explanation of the case:
In Rota, the touristic data such as the influx of tourists or overnight stays, among others, show that
the tourism sector is one of the main economic engines of the municipality. Rota is aware that the
economic and tourist promotion of the municipality requires the incorporation of new technologies
for its transformation into a Smart Tourist Destination, recognized nationally and internationally.
This transformation towards an intelligent tourist destination will allow Rota to increase its
competitiveness and revalue itself as a destination, improve the use of its natural and cultural
attractions, create new innovative tourist resources adapted to the current and future needs that
tourists demand, improving their experience before, during and after the trip, favouring the
interaction of the visitor with the municipality and improving the efficiency of services. It also
enables the generation of opportunities for the business sector under an umbrella of intelligent,
sustainable, innovative and integrated development.
Knowing how the tourist/visitor behaves in Rota and being able to act with the most appropriate
strategy to improve the marketing of the destination and the visitor's experience during their stay,
makes it crucial to know in a systematized way, among others, the following aspects:
• The number of visitors it receives. The location and size of Rota means that access to the
municipality is mostly by road by private vehicle, which has limited information to date on the
number of visitors and other data of interest such as origin due to the limited use of public
transport. The information on which tourism-related actions are defined comes mainly from the
INE and the IEA on hotel occupancy, from surveys carried out at the tourist office, which are not
a very representative sample, and from listening to the RRSS.
• Visitor behaviour: What was visited? Duration of the visit? How long was the stay in the
destination? Which parts of the destination were visited? Was the visit restricted to the historic
centre? Did the visitor visit the most commercial streets? Did the visitor know all the offers? Did
he or she visit as much as possible? What was not visited because of lack of interest, lack of
time or lack of information? These are questions that need to be answered to diversify the offer,
provide a higher quality service, attract more visitors, diversify the destination or undertake any
action seeking to be successful. At present, this information is scarce, dispersed and unreliable.
• Impact on the sector. Knowing the supply of the service sector and its interrelationship with
consumption in the Rota destination is another element that is essential to know. Tourist activity
and the consumption model are related closely to the events that take place in the tourist
destination, one-off events (e.g., festivals, markets, concerts, fairs, gastronomic events), as well
as permanent events.
• Real-time information. Rota currently has a horizontal IoT platform, Elliot Cloud technology
that brings together real-time information from IoT systems deployed in the city.

5.6.4 Impact / value added contributed:
Quantitatively, these actions will have multiple impacts:
• The number of visitors to the destination will increase through a better offer and marketing.
In addition, tools will be available to promote successful actions and correct those that are
achieving poorer results.
• The length of stay of visitors to the destination will be increased through an offer and
marketing that is better adapted to demand. The municipality will be provided with tools
that will allow it to diversify and induce the visitor's desire to stay longer in Rota.
• The average expenditure per visitor per visit will increase as a direct consequence of the
increase in the number of visitors and the average length of stay.
• Visitor satisfaction will increase as a direct consequence of the development of the actions,
knowing the visitor's demand.
• The active population in the service sector will increase per period of time as a direct
consequence of the increase in visitors and average length of stay.
• Direct/indirect municipal income will be increased per period of time. Due to the tools
that will be implemented, a high impact on the direct income derived from this project is not
expected at first. This trend will change as visitor numbers increase and visitor diversification
initiatives grow.
5.6.5 Applicable Technologies
• IoT Platform collecting data in real time of the following sensors and systems:
o Waste
o Energy
o Environmental
o Irrigation
o Security

Figure 12: Rotamunicipality IoT City Platform
• 20 signs with beacons.

• 5 interactive screens or totems.
• 2 cameras for people counting or rather to control the flow of vehicles and people.
• Tourist APP that interacts with the platform.
• Tourist destination vertical that goes inside the platform.

6 Conclusion
Accelerating digital transformation in the tourism sector is a priority for destination management,
especially with reference to natural resource management, heritage and culture preservation,
enhancement of social fabric and overall livability in tourism destinations. The advent of the fourth
industrial revolution and the convergence of various data streams, have provided the opportunity
to drastically metamorphise the multi-faceted domain of tourism. In the context of smart
tourism, technologically-enhanced innovations can be leveraged to improve not only inhabitant
engagement, but also drive decision-making, along with social inclusion, and delivery of citizen-
centric services. In this context, cities should also consider tourists as “temporary inhabitants” and
ensure the engagement of visitors in a holistic and fully integrated manner.
The examples elucidated in this Report highlight the importance of adopting digital technologies to
improve ease of access to local information in multiple languages along with phasing out the need
for physical currency. As is observed from the use-cases elaborated in this Report, the development
of a centralized platform for accessing information as well as services for tourists is vital for any city
seeking to build a smart tourism ecosystem and foster their transition to a smart and sustainable
city. Having such a system in place, improves ease of travel, eliminates the probability of fraud and
enriches the overall experience for tourists, thereby holding the potential for cities to promote
themselves as tourist destinations. Some of the recommendations underscored in this Report
include (but not limited to) the following:
• Tourist Destination Framework: Establishing and adhering to a specific smart tourist destination
framework and adoption of relevant international standards relating to smart tourism.
• Smart Tourism Destination Platform: Creating a central smart tourism destination platform and
management system which can provide a one-stop destination for the products and services
at the disposal of the tourists. Such a system will allow for assessing tourist behavior patterns
and enhance the overall planning process for driving smart tourism transitions.
• COVID-19 Tracing: In this post-COVID area, resumption of tourist-based activities, may lead
to concerns relating to COVID spread. Existing tourist apps on COVID-19 tracing allow for
sharing of COVID vaccination certificates under a decentralized system in which the owner of
the information is the user. With the help of such a system, coordinated detection of COVID-19
infection is feasible along with the designation of containment zones.
• Loyalty Programmes: The creation of a loyalty programme or bonus programme will help
highlight promotions, offers and services available at a specific destination through different
channels including physical or virtual tourist cards or on the smart tourism destination platform
itself.

7 Bibliography
“Destino Turístico Inteligente”, Destino Turístico Inteligente. [Online]. Available at: https://www.
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For more information,
please contact: [email protected]
Website: itu.int/go/u4SSC
Published in Switzerland
Geneva, 2022
Photo credits: @Shutterstock, Pixabay

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ii Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

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Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations iii

iv Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

1 Digital transformation, a vital partner for safe and resilient tourism����������������������������������������������������1

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations v

vi Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

U4SSC United for Smart Sustainable Cities

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations vii

Globalization continues to deliver important benefits to citizens, public administrations and

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 1

1.1 Steps and technologies for dealing with crises

2 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 3

2.1 The context for smart tourist destinations

In an increasingly globalized and competitive tourism marketplace, destinations develop innovative

2.2 From smart cities to smart tourist destinations

4 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 5

2.3 The Spanish Smart Tourist Destinations framework

2.3.1 Smart Tourist Destination definition

“A Smart Tourist Destination is an innovative tourist destination, consolidated on a cutting-edge

6 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

1. Governance: The pillar of governance implies strong tourism governance (public-private

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 7

2.3.3 Expected Results

2.4 Standards and norms for smart destinations

8 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

• UNE 178501 – "Smart Tourist Destination Management System. Requirements": This

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 9

10 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

• Recommendation ITU-T Y.4200: "Requirements for interoperability of smart city platforms"

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 11

• Adapt their services (e.g., water) to the influx of tourists.

12 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

3.1 Value proposal

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 13

This process should be approached in three main stages/phases:

• before (understanding the current destination);

14 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

Figure 3: Smart Tourist Destination digital transformation path

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 15

Figure 4: Pillars of Smart Tourist Destination

3.2 Functional overview

16 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 17

18 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

3.3 Comprehensive tourism management system

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 19

20 Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations

• Tourism spatial management

Figure 8: Solutions and Use cases (1)

Figure 9: Solutions and Use cases (2)

Smart tourism: A path to more secure and resilient destinations 21

4.1.1 The challenge

Increased competitiveness through better use of tourism resources.

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1 Digital transformation, a vital partner for safe and resilient tourism��1