Abstract
A standardized tourist intelligence system adapted to the local context and a destination manager organization (DMO) that validates the axes of a smart tourist destination (STD) are the bases of the proposed roadmap in the design of a dashboard indicator (DCIH). This enables a hotel to exchange data and information in a bi-directional manner, allowing hotel managers to make more accurate and informed decisions, and predict the course of events. The results of the research show, thanks to the collaboration of the smart office STD located in the Benidorm City Council (the first intelligent tourist destination certified in the world in the UNE 178501 standard) that the dashboard indicator (DCIH) can be fed from both an interoperable STD platform. This chapter aims to make an important contribution by providing the phases, requirements, recommendations, and indicators that must be taken into account in the design of a hotel's control panel connected to the smart tourist destination where it is located.
TopIntroduction
The application of surveillance and competitive intelligence in the tourism sector forms the basis for tourist intelligence, which has proved to be a tool that improves decision-making for the managers of smart tourist destinations (STDs). The exponential increase in technologies, digitalization, and the use of data in the tourism sector has led public strategy decision-makers to incorporate tourist intelligence as a decisive factor in the transformation of companies in the tourism sector (Arroyo, 2005) and the development of STDs. Tourist intelligence has also been promoted by different public institutions (OECD, 2018; MINECO, 2018; SEGITTUR, 2015) and by theoretical perspectives and other academic research (Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2014; Casado & Jimenéz, 2016; Ivars-Baidal & Femenia-Serra, 2020; Romero et al., 2018a; Romero-Rodriguez et al., 2020; Tanev & Bailetti, 2008).
Aligning the tourist intelligence system with the destination strategies through an STD plan is the first phase for destinations that want to become STDs (Romero et al., 2017). Currently, most STDs do not have a technology platform that brings together the different layers of information that such a destination needs, as established in the definition of the standard UNE 178104, UNE (2017), for a smart city, much less a layer for tourist intelligence (UNE, 2018a, 2018b). Tourist intelligence systems are part of the operational development of all those destinations that want to become STDs (ITU, 2017; UNE, 2018a, 2018b; Romero et al., 2018), but the participation of entities in tourist intelligence at the destination is also necessary. To connect the data generated by the hotels with the destination, information needs to be prioritized and validated. An STD plan allows for the incorporation of strategies into the local context, and it defines the guidelines in each of the four relevant axes (governance, sustainability, accessibility, and innovation and technology) for setting out objectives and their indicators.
The incorporation of new technical terms such as “smart hotel” (UNE, 2019a, 2019b) raises the question of how aligned the indicators of an STD with a destination-connected hotel actually are. In the present article, we suggest a roadmap and recommendations for the design and development of a control panel model that would prioritize the information needs of the tourist accommodations that want to be connected in an intelligent way to an STD. The bidirectional exchange of data is essential to optimize data usage and to improve decision-making both in hotels and in STDs (Ivars-Baidal et al., 2017, 2021).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Smart Office: Physical or virtual environment in which the optimization of data governance is visualized and helps to plan, coordinate, and execute the development and implementation of the transformation process of a DTI in the three layers (of the destination, business and smart data) (UNE 178502:2022).
Tourism Intelligence: Systematic process of surveillance and Competitive Intelligence to provide valuable information (knowledge) for decision making.
Smart Tourist Destination: Territory accessible to all, which makes use of innovation and technology, guarantees development sustainable tourism in its three aspects (economic, socio-cultural, and environmental) to improve the tourist experience and the citizen's quality of life and is governed by a Managing Entity (UNE 178501:2018, 2.21).
Smart Hotel: Establishment dedicated to accommodation (hotels, tourist apartment buildings, campsites, white parks, etc.) equipped with the necessary capabilities and digital infrastructure to collect, process, and manage data and information, applying intelligence, which communicates bidirectionally on a destination platform to improve customer experience, hotel, and destination management (UNE 178504:2022).
Destination Manager Organization: Territorial local entity, local entity or unprovincial, autonomous community that governs and manages a DTI with sufficient responsibility and authority to establish, implement, maintain, and improve a management system of a DTI (UNE 178501:2018, 2.31).
Control Panel: Management tool that facilitates decision-making and that collects a coherent set of indicators that provide senior management and the responsible functions with an understandable vision of the business or its area of responsibility. The information provided by the scorecard makes it possible to focus and align the management teams, the business units, the resources, and the processes with the organization's strategies (UNE 66175:2003, 3.8).