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Smart Tourism Destinations Enhancing Tourism Experience Through

Personalisation of Services

Conference Paper · February 2015

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-14343-9_28

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Smart Tourism Destinations Enhancing
Tourism Experience Through
Personalisation of Services

Dimitrios Buhalis and Aditya Amaranggana

Abstract Bringing smartness into tourism destinations requires dynamically

interconnecting stakeholders through a technological platform on which informa-
tion relating to tourism activities could be exchanged instantly. Instant information
exchange has also created extremely large data sets known as Big Data that may be
analysed computationally to reveal patterns and trends. Smart Tourism Destinations
should make an optimal use of Big Data by offering right services that suit users’
preference at the right time. In relation thereto, this paper aims at contributing to the
understanding on how Smart Tourism Destinations could potentially enhance
tourism experience through offering products/services that are more personalised
to meet each of visitor’s unique needs and preferences. Understanding the needs,
wishes and desires of travellers becomes increasingly critical for the competitive-
ness of destinations. Therefore, the findings in the present research are insightful for
number of tourism destinations.

Keywords Smart tourism destinations • Personalisation • Tourism experience

1 Introduction

It is said to be a challenging task to manage and market a destination due to variety

of stakeholders involved in the process (Buhalis 2000). Destination should form
strategy that covers the entire range of tourism activity, from visitation to environ-
mental problem as well as seasonality problems and sensitivity to local culture
(Evans et al. 1995). These factors are among many other aspects that need to be
managed properly as tourism becoming an increasingly competitive marketplace
which leave only the best-managed destinations to prosper (Buhalis 2000). Ritchie
and Crouch (1993 as cited in Buhalis 2000) argued that competitiveness is a
function of wide range of elements including numbers of factor in internal and
external environment which need to be combined and synergise to determine the
attractiveness of a destination.

D. Buhalis • A. Amaranggana (*)

School of Tourism, Bournemouth University, Poole, UK
e-mail: i7273843@bournemouth.ac.uk

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 377

I. Tussyadiah, A. Inversini (eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in
Tourism 2015, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-14343-9_28
378 D. Buhalis and A. Amaranggana

Bringing smartness into tourism destinations requires dynamically interconnecting

stakeholders through a technological platform on which information relating to
tourism activities could be exchanged instantly. One of the challenges in tourism
sector is the presence of many stakeholders, which have different interest between one
another. In Smart Tourism Destination, tourism service providers could make use of
centralised information platform in order to make better business decision.
Instant information exchange has also created extremely large data sets known as
Big Data that may be analysed to reveal patterns and trends. Smart Tourism Desti-
nations should make an optimal use of Big Data by offering right services that suit
users’ preference at the right time. With availability of massive tourists’ data, desti-
nations are expected to offer personalised services to each different type of tourists in
order to exceed their prior expectation and subsequently enhance their tourism
experience. Presumably, such experience would enrich how tourists value their trip.
The significance of this research reflects on industry as well as academic.
Starting from the industry perspective, it is important to draw attention to the
gaining ground of smartness development, especially within destinations. This
growing trend is currently and will exponentially affect the sector in the near future.
However, not many publications have covered this issue as most of the literatures
are focusing on the development of Smart City. Tourism destinations, and all the
related stakeholders, will increasingly have to face number of challenges in regard
with the smartness development in order to maintain their competitiveness. By
conducting this study, researchers would like to provide a little hint to the industry,
on types of personalised application expected by tourists during their time in
destination as well as prior to the trip and after the travel takes place. Moreover,
this study also captures tourists’ perception and their perceived challenges upon
Smart Tourism Destination as well as personalised service.

2 Theoretical Background

2.1 The Development of Smart Tourism Destinations

Bringing smartness into tourism destinations meaning that destinations need to

interconnect multiple stakeholders through a dynamic platform mediate by ICT in
order to support prompt information exchange regarding tourism activities through
machine-to-machine learning algorithm which could enhance their decision making
process (Buhalis and Amaranggana 2014). Since one of the challenges in tourism
sector is the presence of many stakeholders, which have different interest between
one another, the smartness approach is then deemed necessary. Zhu et al. (2014)
argued that the development of Smart Tourism Destinations benefits tourism
industry by providing convenient access to information for both tourism organisa-
tions and tourists through integrated and centralised data platform. Smart Tourism
Destinations also harnessing the true essence of technology by building framework
to facilitate multiple visualisations in a common direction.
Smart Tourism Destinations Enhancing Tourism Experience Through. . . 379

To establish true data openness in Smart Tourism Destinations, tourism author-

ities should ensure that any information generate from every development of new
application should be made openly available subject to their commercial and legal
agreement without unreasonable additional cost (Buhalis and Amaranggana 2014).
Users could use this information to identify problems as well as customised
potential solutions to overcome those problems.
It is vital to bear in mind the fact that in regard with ICT system there is no size
that could fits all. Local context would trigger different patterns of ICT usage. To
this end, destinations should enact bottom-up approaches that are not just based on
the deployment of complex technological platforms, but rather on tailoring them to
the local needs (Neirotti et al. 2014). For instance, customers have been mentioned
as an important knowledge source for innovation (Foss et al. 2011). Thus, smartness
emerges when creative people dynamically sharing their knowledge to the system
that is well supported by decent learning environment (Buhalis and Amaranggana
2014). Real-time feedback loop is essential in the hospitality sector to give appro-
priate follow-up while guests are still at the location in order to fix the problem
immediately and ward off guests posting unsavoury review online. Centralised
operation systems must not only monitor their people but also engage with their
human capital. To this end, by using Living Lab methodology, Smart Tourism
Destinations could gain insights about customers’ actual needs and preferences.
Within this approach, active engagement between tourists and tourism service
providers are being encouraged in order to continuously offer innovation on
destinations’ products that best suit users’ preference (Schaffers et al. 2011). For
Smart Tourism Destinations, the use of Mobile Living Lab is suggested to capture
tourists’ needs and preferences in real settings. Benefit of applying this approach is
the main characteristic of mobile devices that could go on 24/7, which opens up the
possibility for users to test the product prototype in its authentic environment and
time frame precisely when they use it and give valuable feedback on how it could fit
into their valid usage context. Interactive manner among different stakeholders,
namely government, companies and researchers is essential in conducting this
method (Ståhlbröst et al. 2009).

2.2 Personalisation

Ever since personalisation becomes a gaining ground, number of customer expec-

tations across all industries has significantly increased (InterContinental Hotels
Group 2014). Blom and Monk (2003 as cited in Popescu-Zeletin et al. 2003) have
defined personalisation as a process that escalates the content of information to its
relevance for individual. Essentially personalisation is the process of collecting and
utilising personal information about the needs and preferences of customers to
create offers and information, which perfectly fits the needs of the customers
(Frank and Harnisch 2014 as cited in Yang et al. 2005). Within the service industry,
personalisation refers to a state where consumers increasingly expect service that
380 D. Buhalis and A. Amaranggana

moulds to them. As a consequence, tourism service providers are starting to adapt

their approach to meet this expectation by collecting proper information in order to
be able to provide right offer at exactly the right time. The challenge for tourism
industry is to ensure employees are armed with related information they need for
crucial moments. Using location-based and proximity-awareness system, destina-
tion could deliver real-time marketing message in a means that customers in a place
where they are most likely interested in the offered deal. The biggest benefit from
personalisation as experienced by travellers is an increased comfort level in both
emotional and physical, such as getting things just the way they like and the feel of
being looked after (InterContinental Hotels Group 2014). In general, different
travellers have their own preferences and requirements, which range from the
preferred hotel location to type of meals the want to have during their trip
(Michopoulou and Buhalis 2013). Tourism industry should also note that different
type of devices used by travellers also predispose their decision making process.
Having multiple screens has fundamentally altered guests’ consumption experience
by which tourism service providers could create additional simultaneous touch
points to offer their products and services.
A study conducted by InterContinental Hotels Group (2014) found out that
travellers from emerging countries (e.g., China and Russia) put higher expectations
for personalised services compare to travellers from developed markets (e.g., UK
and US). In general, service personalisation in hospitality industry is trying to
(1) encourage speedier check-in system and saving time on booking process;
(2) deliver better content delivery; and (3) form better guest experience through
in-room distinctive services (i.e., auto-brewed coffee pot and television set on a
specific channel upon guests arrival) as well as giving the ability for guests to
control their room (i.e., ability to lock the room and room temperature through
guests’ smartphone) (InterContinental Hotels Group 2014).
Furthermore, from the customer point of view, personalisation of information
assist them in the decision making process by showing only relevant information
since decision making can be ineffective due to a large volume of data that becomes
obsolete very quickly. Information about the user can be obtained from a history of
previous sessions (implicit method) or directly through survey (explicit method)
which gathered from the user input to the system, where they might be presented
with simple questions such as their interest, demographic data and duration of the
trip and uses this feedback to build a user profile and make recommendations
accordingly (Losada et al. 2013 as cited in Mahmood and Salam 2012).
Profiling customer with Big Data assistance is beneficial as it provides better
services. However, it also possesses a significant thread to users’ privacy (Habegger
et al. 2014). A study performed by Chatfield et al. (2005) had shown gaining
concern over users’ privacy; users want control over who has access to their private
data and feedback on the use of their data. Hence, tourism service providers must
facilitate users with proper information so they could understand the importance of
sharing information and enable them to weigh risks with potential benefits. Other
challenge is the risk of ‘closing down’ discovery of new things due to the fact that it
recommends things that they already know they like (InterContinental Hotels
Smart Tourism Destinations Enhancing Tourism Experience Through. . . 381

Group 2014). Furthermore, overdoing personalised services or making errors in

judgement on the targeting could cause guests to opt-out from the offer as this trust-
based bond must not be abused and marketing must be consistent, gentle and wholly
appropriate pull for the guests to avoid uncanny factors while bringing out
enchanted promise of ICT and enhancing hospitality.

2.3 Tourism Experience

Since tourism experiences are the core product in tourism industry with direct
impact on tourist’s satisfaction and revisit intention, it is a critical issue for
Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) to examine the main construct
of tourism experience and how to enhance a positive tourism experience. In
tourism, the value of the experience is not only created by the service providers
and its customers but is embedded in a larger social and physical context of what is
being experienced (Hoarau and Kline 2014). Experiences can also be formed within
any part of a service process which are not controlled by the company (Juttner
et al. 2013) considering the fact that experience develops throughout all contact
points during the interactive process (Mascarenhas et al. 2006). Furthermore, travel
could be seen as a sense-making process in which tourists are able to enhance their
experience by exploring local culture embedded in the visited place (Jennings and
Weiler 2004). The places visited and cultures experienced are connected to tourists
through stakeholders, including tourists, service providers, governments as well as
local communities. As such, stakeholders mediate tourists’ travel experience
through taking part in the tourism context to reflect the experience as a whole
(Wang et al. 2012). Hence, destinations marketers need to put focus on the entire
tourism experience instead of examine only the core service suppliers (Zouni and
Kouremenos 2008). The fact that tourism experiences are multidimensional in
nature, various involvements along the trip (including before, during and after)
could also affect overall tourism experiences (Stickdorn and Zehrer 2009). Pine and
Gilmore (1999) indicates that experiences exist only in the mind of an individual
who has been affianced in various level of engagement (i.e., emotional, physical,
intellectual and spiritual) which makes experience is inherently personal (Jennings
et al. 2009).
Moreover, Kim and Ritchie (2013) suggested that visitors are more likely to gain
a memorable experience on the trip when they could immerse in activities within
destination. The increasing proliferation of ICTs has allowed tourism companies to
ameliorate their relationship with the customer by offering distinctive service
mediate by ICTs (Tussyadiah and Fesenmaier 2007). As argued by McCarthy and
Wright (2004), ICTs could function as mediator of experience as well as the core
experience itself. Through their engagement with ICTs, tourists could gain richer
experience within their actual physical setting (Neuhofer et al. 2013).
382 D. Buhalis and A. Amaranggana

3 Methodology

In order to analyse tourism experience as perceived by tourists, individual in-depth

interview followed by content analysis were chosen to allow researcher delve
deeply into personal matter (DiCicco-Bloom and Crabtree 2006). It is stated by
Jordan and Gibson (2004) that researching humans’ experiences is achieved most
conveniently by using interview considering the possibility to seek clarification and
elaborations as special features from this method (Finn et al. 2000). Furthermore,
semi-structured personal interview was chosen as a tool for this research because
the purpose of the study is to analyse participant’s perceptions upon several matters
and this method enabled researcher to gather descriptive data with an opportunity to
respond to open-ended questions. For these interviews a standard set of open-ended
questions were prepared in order to achieve uniformity in following the research
intentions while the questions sometimes adapted and changed emphasis during the
course of the interview as the investigators learn more about the subject (Patton and
Cochran 2002). Using a set of semi-structured interview questions, 13 interviews
with technology savvy tourists age 20–25 were conducted to capture the voice of
the visitor about the types of experiences they are seeking, their opinion upon the
development of Smart Tourism Destinations as well as personalised services and
type of service they expected to get from such development. All were taped and
transcribed word by word to serve as tangible sources for data analytics. Respon-
dents were chosen to represent range of nationalities and different characteristic
(i.e., age, gender, profession).

4 Findings and Analysis

Respondents were asked about several factors that positively affect their tourism
experience on their last trip as well as expected experience for the upcoming trip to
reflect what visitors are actually seek during their travel. Answers were varies from
typical services given by Tourism Service Providers in destinations to specific
context such as weather, access to proper broadband connection and authenticity
of localness. As comparison, researcher also asked their negative experience during
their last trip and things they would like to avoid on their forthcoming trip. In order
to enhance tourism experience, destinations have to address factors that positively
affect tourism experience while also help tourists to avoid negative tourism expe-
rience that likely to occur. During the interview, questions on typical use of ICT
services during travel were also asked (i.e., Seeking for information, sharing,
booking, etc.). Results were combined to see ICT potential in addressing factors
that not yet covered by current ICT usage in order to enhance tourism experience.
Responses were summarised as depicted in Table 1.
To date, tourists mainly use their ICT devices to seek for information to help
them form decisions in regard with their trip. However, there are few aspects that
Smart Tourism Destinations Enhancing Tourism Experience Through. . . 383

Table 1 Current state of typical ICT usage during travel

Factors affecting positive experience ICT usage to address positive experience
Proper broadband connection Not applicable
Localness/authenticity from destination (culture, Seeking for information, share experience
meals, lifestyle)
People (local and fellow traveller) Seeking for information, communication
Weather Seeking for information
Attraction (architecture, landscape) Seeking for information, share experience
General services Seeking for information, booking service,
(accommodation, transport, gastronomy) share experience
Tourism activities (adventurous, relaxing) Seeking for information, booking service,
share experience
Factors affecting negative experience ICT function to avoid negative experience
Problem in navigation Seeking for information, communication
Security concern Not yet addressed
Less informed (on opening hours, prices) Seeking for information
Waiting time (delay, long queue) Not yet addressed
Lost luggage Not yet addressed
Service below expectation Not yet addressed
(rude staff, dirty buses, unclean rooms)
Bad broadband connection Not applicable
Weather Seeking for information
Language barrier Seeking for information, communication

influence tourism experience that still has not been addressed properly by current
state of ICT use amongst tourists. Smart Tourism Destinations through its service
integration and capability to produce real-time information come as one possible
solution in answering the gap between current state of ICT use and its possibility to
enhance tourism experience.
When asked on what to avoid in the development of Smart Tourism Destina-
tions, 46% of respondent mentioned they have concern in regard with their data
privacy, along with several other concerns namely rely too much to technology, less
interaction with people, errors in given information, not experiencing destination as
it is, difficulties for older people and losing job as tour guide. In 2013, UK’s
Department of Business, Enterprise and Skills (BIS) has listed ‘Trust in data
privacy and system integrity’ as a barrier to smart city projects (Dowden 2014).
There is an opportunity cost to be considered between privacy and efficiency. Thus,
clear communication with users on how destination would use and protect their data
to benefits them is needed to build trust bond between tourists and destinations.
In the next section, most of the respondent is positively welcoming
personalisation of services. However, there were also few concerns regarding
personalised services, which fall into several categories namely privacy concern,
abusive marketing activity, limiting discovery and security concern. In the case of
Smart Tourism Destinations where information can be exchange instantly, respon-
dents have been asked about their willingness on their data being shared between
384 D. Buhalis and A. Amaranggana

Tourism Service Providers. Unexpectedly, majority of the respondents had

responded with negative reaction within this option as argued that they would
lose control over consequences. This finding are in contrast with study performed
by Engage Customer (2014) which argued that millennial, which described as the
demographic cohort with birth years ranging from the early 1980s to the early
2000s, are happy to share their information. Furthermore, this outcome should be
treated as potential obstacle in the development of Smart Tourism Destinations. In
the last section, respondents were asked about type of personalised service they
expect to be offered to them in Smart Tourism Destinations which covers various
involvements along their trip (before, during, after) that arguably affect their overall
tourism experience within five destination dimensions.
Unfamiliar destinations and their transport systems can present a forbidding
challenge even for more adventurous travellers. These factors combine and create a
tension between the desire to explore and the frustrations of getting around.
Moreover, respondents also demand the availability of recommender system in
the form of trail package, which could assist them in narrowing down decision in
regard with the use of transportation inward, within as well as outward. In addition
to the recommender system, tourists also attracted to discount and offer, which
consider those two among other factors in shaping their final decision. As a form of
personalised approach, number of tourists also expects the system to send reminder
through their device regarded the service they have booked.
Meanwhile, within accommodation setting, tourists put expectation in receiving
personalised service in the form of updated information regarded location, reviews,
room type, price as well as information on surrounding events prior to their arrival.
Again, content plays an important role in serving this kind of information to
potential guests, as they are not expecting to end up with information overload.
Tourists are also seeking for personalised welcome message even before their trip
equipped with several list on what to do and what to see while in destination.
Furthermore, option to secure their preferred room by enabling tourists do perform
online booking and check-in are also need to be properly addressed since it will
save tourists time while in destination (Table 2).
Smartness approach within gastronomy setting would allow restaurants, pubs as
well as cafes in destination to communicate with users’ devices through sensors and
LBS. The use of dynamic technological platform would allow them to instantly
exchange real-time information on users’ location and profiling so service providers
could offer real-time information upon variety of meals, food ingredients, nutri-
tional data, restaurant general information as well as latest promotions. LBS could
alert users on promotional offers in restaurants that are close to them at any given
time. Estimated wait times in restaurants are accurately quoted, to the minute, so
guests can get a drink in the bar while waiting for their table. This allows tourists to
get much more from their travel and helps realise the potential of the destination. In
addition, almost every respondent finds that it is necessary for service providers to
be aware on customers’ special dietary condition in regard with their medical
condition as well as religion restriction in order to personalise their service to
them. By having access to personal data, service providers would have proper
Smart Tourism Destinations Enhancing Tourism Experience Through. . . 385

Table 2 Tourists expectation on personalised services

Phases
Dimensions Before During After
Transportation 1. Planning: navigation and 1. Real-time schedule 1. Feedback
information (duration, types of 2. Personalised greet- loop
transportation, schedule and ings 2. Promotional
fare) 3. Personalised meals update
2. Recommender system: trail 4. Suggest alternative 3. Luggage
package and offerings 5. Universal card finder
3. Time savings: booking,
check-in
Accommodation 1. Planning: navigation and 1. Personalised wel- 1. Feedback
information (location, reviews, come message 2. Promotional
room type, price and surrounding 2. Awareness on cus- offers
events) tomer preference 3. Maintaining
2. Time savings: booking and 3. Personalised cus- engagement
check-in tomer service 4. Post cus-
3. Personalised welcome 4. Room control over tomer service
message customer services
Gastronomical Information (special dietary, 1. Integration service 1. Promotion
variety of meals, navigation, 2. Real-time informa- 2. Prolong
food ingredients and restaurant tion: customer aware- engagement
information) ness and social context
Attraction 1. Recommender system 1. Co-creation through 1. Sharing
2. Information provider digital maps platform
2. Real-time informa- 2. Prolong
tion experience
3. Information on sur- 3. News update
rounding events 4. Recom-
mender system
Ancillaries 1. Navigation
2. General information
3. Instantly exchang-
ing information

amount of information so they could avoid making their customer feeling uncom-
fortable by explaining their personal condition while ordering meals. Most of the
respondents also find that the presence of recommender system on available
attraction is deemed important prior to their trip especially for business traveller
who only has limited time in destination.
Personalisation applies not only at the planning stage but also when people reach
their destination. During their actual trip in destinations, respondents expectation
within transportation settings are ranging from basic personalised greeting by name
to more personalised on-board meals that suits their preference, be it due to medical
condition as well as personal predilection over meals. Furthermore, intelligent
mobility harnesses new technologies to create seamless journeys, where transport
is smart and connected, and delays and congestions are a thing of the past. Optimum
use of data could tackle congestion and improve tourists’ experience by providing
386 D. Buhalis and A. Amaranggana

real-time information about where they’re going, which particular direction to get
on and also the ability to respond (i.e., by suggesting alternatives) to unpredictable
events in real-time. Moreover, as tourists these days are probing more simplicity,
they demand the use of universal card, which they can use in different countries for
different purposes. This would require collaboration among authorities, but also
industries, including companies that may usually be in competition. Meanwhile,
within accommodation settings, guests could also obtain essential information
including maps, city guides, and weather forecasts through their in-room TV,
which also allow them to also share their experience with relatives using their
social network. This automation also let guests to set the room to their liking
(Philips 2014). As guests also expect the service providers to notice their personal
preference, hotels need to dynamically keep tracks on guests’ predilection upon
meals and any other condition. Guests can also request extended services of a
bellboy, left luggage service or order a taxi to the airport (Cisco 2008).
Furthermore, destinations could also achieve distinctive service by integrating
social aspect within their service. The fact that tourists enjoy sharing their experi-
ence in social network through checking-in and posting imageries as well as
communicating with their network and having desire to meet new people along
their trip; should be picked up by destination through enabling them to see who is
around them, who is share a common interest in their food or drink selection in
order to open up possibility of engage with fellow tourists as well as local people.
During the actual visit to tourist attractions, tourists are looking for a more real-time
access to information in regard with their preferred attraction. A number of respon-
dents agrees that it would be helpful if destinations could provide real-time infor-
mation on how long they have to queue for an attraction, and give them alternative
nearby attraction if they have to queue for long as well as the case of severe weather
condition. Furthermore, none of the respondents have stated that they include
ancillaries’ service during their planning stage as well as for their post-trip since
they consider this as supporting service, but use ancillary services while they are
actually in destination. Thus, they are expecting to receive real-time information in
regards to navigating function, working hours, as well as access emergency call for
hospital. In addition to the emergency service, respondents also expecting a seam-
less access of information between health care (hospitals) in handling their personal
data upon emergency situation so they do not have to deal with forms and other
bureaucracy procedures. Another ancillary service that perceived as important is
the use of banking service in destinations. Respondents are expecting to receive a
secure transaction process during their trip. Language barrier and different use of
currency should not be a limitation in delivering a secured transaction within Smart
Tourism Destinations (Farah 2012).
After their journey, few respondents are willing to prolong their engagement
with destination through subscribing to their news update and promotional offers as
long as they find it relevant to their condition. Destinations could use point reward
for guests to redeem later. To ease the practice, destinations should enable the
integrated use of users’ device that would count the point upon payment being
made. Destinations could also extend guests’ experience through sending them
Smart Tourism Destinations Enhancing Tourism Experience Through. . . 387

relevant imageries, group pictures or typical playlist during the time that could
relive their prior experience. Service providers could activate an all-seeing network
of video cameras that are supposed to capture tourist moments. This is a modest and
slightly frivolous example of executing internet-of-things in destinations. Mean-
while, a value-added service on a post-trip phase within the transportation setting
(i.e., luggage finder facility at the airport) is also valued by tourists. Airline could
put RFID tag on the luggage during check-in in order to make it easier to locate the
luggage after the plane lands in destination.

5 Conclusion and Limitations

Applying smartness concepts within destinations is deemed necessary to potentially

enhance tourism experience through advance feedback loop, enhanced access to
real-time information and advance customer service through Internet of Things to
address factors that potentially shape negative experience (See Table 1) namely lost
luggage, security concern, delay and long queue as well as services that are below
expectation (i.e., rude staff, unclean rooms). This study also discovered number of
personalised services expected by tourists to be offered within Smart Tourism
Destinations in order to enhance their tourism experience which characterised as
(1) Before Trip: To support planning phase by giving all the related real-time
information based on user profiling in order to make a more informed decision;
(2) During Trip: Enhanced access to real-time information to assist tourists in
exploring the destination, direct personalised service as well as real-time feedback
loop; and (3) After Trip: Prolonged engagement to relive experience as well as
decent feedback system which allows tourist to review their holistic tourism
experience.
Finally, Smart Tourism Destinations are essential on offering personalised
service to their tourists by considering several aspects namely access into real-
time information to collect users’ data, instant feedback loop to help reveal users’
opinion upon offered service, dynamic platform which enabling different stake-
holders exchanging data to promote service integration; and ability to precisely
predict what visitor wants through historical data (pattern analysis) to formulate
distinctive services and dynamic recommender system.
Having revealed number of potential insights from the development of Smart
Tourism Destinations, it is also noteworthy to mention that this study has limita-
tions to notice as it was limited only by gathering response from 13 tourists within
the same range of age (20–25). Thus, findings of the study were, therefore,
indicative rather than conclusive, as it cannot capture perceptions from other type
of visitors, namely technology illiterate and disabled person. As Smart Tourism
Destinations have the potential to become enabling environment by empowering
the disabled individual through a procedure that automatically adapts the devices to
the personal needs of the user, it is then necessary to seek their opinion and
expectation on such development.
388 D. Buhalis and A. Amaranggana

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