It is said that there are people who can see 100 shades of white, where others only see three or four. In Eskimo language, there are over 100 words to describe white as a color who know in their various states and situations, distinguishing clearly what others would call subtle differences.
Possibly, the Eskimos have much more information on the “White” and all its manifestations, transmitted from generation to generation, that other peoples, little or not accustomed to living with the snow and ice.
What if we create a common place where all tribes, ethnicities and cultures of the world, talking about all types of “White” differing, join the information and we create an universal dictionary for “White”
Today, this would be realizable, speaking about a collaborative action to define a concept of universal form, create a “Truth”, using current technology.
Technology has helped civilization to develop an increasingly faster, more effective, more sustainable but not always, which has led to a scenario in which we realize that we have limited resources, and we have to use new technology to better measure, manage better and especially make decisions in a more sustainable and intelligent way.
The concept “Smart Destination” is framed in this context, as modern integrated management of destinations, using technology to optimize resources and new strategies for making smart decisions.
But, what are the key factors in this development?
Big Data and expert systems
The first computers were able to processing a limited amount of data, in a slow and complex way.
Suddenly one day, a computer playing chess was unbeatable, the number of possible scenarios that could anticipate in the game, was much higher than the world’s best players.
Into the XXI Century, with the advancement of expert systems and the data processing speed of today’s technology that multiply by thousands the speed over the first computers, we are at a stage where we can process massive powerful information technology systems, which also “learn” by developing data processing tools with learning logical processes, systems that “learn to learn”.
Expert systems are included in the concept of Artificial Intelligence, and processing are based on the infinite possibilities that exist between 0 and 1, in the “Difusse Cloud”, so the more options reject the possible combinations, faster learn to understand the information they receive. Increasingly larger percentage are correct in their diagnoses. These systems have been used in software predictive of disease evolution, or even in one’s own prediction Banking and financial scenarios.
Thus, the current systems “Big Data” , the more information they receive, the faster they learn to predict future scenarios. If we apply this capability collection, interpretation and diagnosis information scenarios,to the management of cities in different aspects, we have the opportunity to look at decision making analyzing a lot of issues that are affecting the same, finding great opportunities for optimization, improvement, and shooting of an increasingly synergistic in city and destination planning.
If 5% tourist occupation in the city increases, what is the impact in the city capacity of charge, how it affects the public service expectations for that level of demand in the energy and resource management, the need for police and emergency services , or how it affects the city’s GDP by sector analyzing with Imput-Output tables designed for this.
The new possibilities to analyze a lot of data across indicators, manage them in a coordinated way, and learning to allways improve the process, opens up new maps of “smarter” decisions that help getting smarter management of cities and sustainable tourism destinations in time.
The concept of “Smart” technology: The Internet of things.
One of the most widespread meanings of the concept “Smart” is the technological. In this area, we talk about the ability of today’s devices and software to talk to each other without human intervention thanks to previous input parameters.
So, today we have smart refrigerators that can launch a request by email to the supermarket when it detects missing things, or that something is near expiration. This is the concept of “smart technology” applied to the domestic sphere.
In tourism, There are previous applications for hotels with air conditioning and lights that operate and optimize energy by sensors, temperature controllers, power consumption, etc..
At the level of tourism destination, we study the location of various types of sensors that alert to a central system and helps to optimize the use of resources. In this area there is a great ride for technology to help optimize resources automatically, and provides extensive information for decision making from both the field of city management, and the management as a tourist destination, in a frame of footage common decision.
“The Internet of Things”, opens a wide field of study on linking figures, design automation and energy management among others, helping to a more sustainable and optimized planning.
Tourism Marketing for Destination Smart models.
Since Michael Porter proposed a map from which to measure the forces competing in a market, competitive analysis and market territories for both public organizations and private label, also has advanced exponentially, evolving a model from the original basic Porter Diamond to complex models of “Clusters” Analysis.
The reality of a territory, is not more understood in a single aspect, but in many areas and aspects that are affecting . That complexity, has to be managend by the use of models called “Cluster”, which defines the areas that affect decision making on the territory, as a systemic reality, with multiple interconnected elements.
Tourism Clusters, bring together key public and private stakeholders who design, plan or are associated with the key factors of competitiveness in tourism planning. Under this approach, a decision also takes into account all aspects of tourism or own land, that are affecting it. Decisions are made based on a comprehensive and related to each other way, so that in principle, decisions are “smarter”.
When a destination, or “tourism cluster” is designed with this vision, making tourism marketing, giving visibility to their values and approach the creation of new experiental products ,Marketing has the mission of merging local values with communications, and create products that are allways included into the sphere of the natural values of the destination, where the values of the destination become the adjectives of products and experiences lived there.
Marketing is done on an open, cooperative system, so the final “Showcase” ,needs to be built in the same way, looking for systems of ordered aggregators, social networks interconnected specifically, or collaborative actions, offering multiple interactions between destination agents and stakeholders.
Thus, marketing is a longer lens, to take into account in the collaborative construction of tourist destination cluster model.
The role of marketing in these systems is also bidirectional, as it attracts lot of information onto the system, interpreted for a central fueling destination management system and continuously improve own learning and creates structures for visitors and agents to generate dynamic actions related to the target values with a huge external visibility.
It is certainly a big change in the way of understanding tourism destination marketing, which is no longer performed on static models and seasonal tourist destination, but as a common structure of the territorial system, always analyzing and creating and applies knowledge, creating innovative destinations, sustainable and attractive, in an era in which also “the social and experiential factor” has a great relevance in the territory’s competitiveness.
Thus one of the most valuable functions of marketing in this environment, is to help to transform the “Big Data”, the large amount of valuable information about the destination into “Visual Data”, indicators and actions that create a great attraction to the same.
Perhaps we are witnessing a major shift of tourist destination marketing, as deep as the change that represents to work in a a lineal plan ordered by specific areas, or to create open systems and transversal crosses, which creates lots of “mixes” of information, that help us to a better understand how our destiny works, and what we can do in order to remain competitive and sustainable in time”.
