SMART HOSPITALITY MEASUREMENT MODEL FOR A TOURIST DESTINATION BASED ON MANAGEMENT AND INFRASTRUCTURE INDICATORS
Smart Hospitality; Tourism; Indicators; Smart Cities; Smart Tourist Destinations.
Although tourism has been growing rapidly since World War II, diverse factors of varying magnitude have influenced the way it is conceived, planned, and managed in localities. Increased and improved access to and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have necessitated that a location's product and service offerings be prepared to welcome this new consumer profile, through more thoughtful and structured hospitality designed to enhance the visitor experience. Therefore, some cities have undergone transformations related to the use of these new technologies, giving rise to concepts such as Smart Cities, Responsive Cities, and Smart Tourist Destinations. It is believed that these new technologies can be used to generate a more efficient and personalized welcome through so-called Smart Hospitality, providing a positive experience for tourists through information resources and technological infrastructure to facilitate their arrival and stay. However, it is also necessary to consider the humanization of these technologies in the city, which is the idea of a human-centered smart city. This is a crucial concept for ensuring that technological development is a tool, not the only means, and that it benefits all citizens, whether residents or visitors. Based on this, the objective of this study is to propose a model for measuring Smart Hospitality for a tourist destination based on a system of indicators linked to management and infrastructure. As a methodological approach, we chose to present this research in a multipaper format—multiple articles, each providing important insights for developing the final model. The research was exploratory and descriptive in nature, using a survey-type questionnaire with eighteen experts in hospitality and tourism technology. From there, the data were processed quantitatively and qualitatively, and content analysis and Excel software were used to support the analysis. The results were achieved through systematic literature reviews, bibliographic and documentary reviews on the analyzed topics, and field research, which enabled the development of the final model proposed for measuring the level of Smart Hospitality in a tourist location. The model presented in this research is expected to contribute to the management of tourism activities in cities, providing important information resources for strategic use, improving the competitiveness of tourist destinations by understanding the location's level of Smart Hospitality. The data generated will also be collected to demonstrate how the location's management can use this data to better welcome incoming visitors, leveraging technology to obtain more and better information about these tourists' profiles.