Overtourism in urban destinations: the myth of smart solutions

The rapid increase in urban tourism flows generates problems of tourist overcrowding and gives rise to important challenges for city management. Within this context, urban tourism planning is experiencing a convergence of new paradigms related to the so-called Smart Tourist Destinations (SD). Smart...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: María García Hernández, Josep Ivars Baidal, Sofía Mendoza de Miguel
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
ES
Publicado: Asociación Española de Geografía 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/c320b3a1e6f84314b6ec293b2f884c20
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:The rapid increase in urban tourism flows generates problems of tourist overcrowding and gives rise to important challenges for city management. Within this context, urban tourism planning is experiencing a convergence of new paradigms related to the so-called Smart Tourist Destinations (SD). Smart tourism and its operational level open up new avenues for intervention in the city which can help to manage overtourism. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyse the level of implementation of smart solutions in four Spanish destinations: Donostia-San Sebastián, Madrid, Málaga and Valencia. The methodology used combines the compilation of information on initiatives and measures found in public tourism planning documents with semi-structured interviews with those responsible for managing the Smart City strategy and the SD project. The results reveal that there is a gap between the SD approaches, the level of implementation of smart solutions and their operability in relation to the management of tourist overload. Almost no technological solutions have been developed to address this issue, which is barely perceived as a problem by local governments. However, the need to generate knowledge that is useful for managing tourist overload constitutes a challenge faced by a growing number of destinations.