Smart tourism destinations: a critical reflection

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the main literature contributions that concern smart tourism development and management, highlighting gaps and logical inconsistencies. In addition, to further stress the importance of the issues at stake, a simulation is performed for showing how technology allows achieving better outcomes when a certain level of efficiency is obtained via re-engineering of main organizational and operational processes. Design/methodology/approach: A content analysis of recent relevant literature is performed with the help of machine learning topic modelling algorithms. A network analytic approach to digital ecosystems, then, is used to study the relationship between technological tools and physical entities in a destination and how these and their combination affect the efficiency of the system at local and global levels. Findings: The literature analyzed lacks a good discussion on the necessity to improve and rationalize the operational and organizational processes while emphasizing mostly the technological aspects. On the other hand, the simulation case presented shows that if information and knowledge flows are reasonably efficient and well organized in the physical world, the integration of digital components further enhances these processes, whereas inefficiencies can hinder the flow of information and reduce its efficiency. Originality/value: Apart from the methods used, relatively little explored, the authors show that, as also much of the computer science literature states, a fundamental prerequisite for successful “smart” projects is a logical and effective restructuring of the main operational and organizational processes.