The world is abuzz with the idea of smart cities but Spain is actually putting them to work. Connecting people, places and technology is allowing the country to bring in more tourists, and present a digitally savvy framework of visiting experience. Tourism Spain in India has partnered with SheThePeople.TV to present the Smart Destinations for Smart Women Award to two women applicants of the Digital Women Awards.
Here's a sneak peak into what smart destinations really offer.
What is a Smart Destination?
The Smart City paradigm is meant to be the last (and beloved) son of Postmodernity for urban territories, providing useful tools (an attractive mix of leadership, infrastructures, services and people powered solutions) for making them more efficient, more sustainable and more livable for citizens, as well as more attractive for tourist and occasional visitors.
Benefits of converting a destination into a Smart Tourist Destination
The complexity and heterogeneity of a Smart Tourist Destination requires the concerted actions of private companies, public administrations, training institutions and RDI institutions, to create and bring about an integrated action plan involving aspects beyond strictly tourism: technological, economic, infrastructure, environmental, structural, legal, artistic, etc.
Implementing this new model, which means, aligning land-innovation-technology with tourism and its stakeholders, makes destinations more competitive and increases the revenues of the private sector by creating other innovative resources, and by improving the efficiency of productive and distribution process in a win-win dialogue between offers and visitors, which in the end, drives the sustainable development of the destination, improving the quality of life of the residents and experience of the visitors.
Sample Pilot Destinations
There are already 14 tourist destinations in Spain included in this pilot:
- El Hierro
- Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
- Palma de Mallorca
- Villajoyosa
- Castelldefels
- Madrid
- Santiago de Compostela.
- Badajoz
- Región de Murcia
- Marbella
- La Palma
- Almería
- Castilla La Mancha
- Sevilla