ORIGINAL RESEARCH
The experience co-creation in smart tourism
destinations: a multiple case analysis of European
destinations
Piera Buonincontri1 • Roberto Micera1
Received: 1 December 2015 / Revised: 13 July 2016 / Accepted: 15 July 2016 /
Published online: 3 August 2016
Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016
Abstract In the last years, destinations have started to redeﬁne their role and their
entrepreneurial logics, involving tourists as active co-creators of their own experiences
and considering new technologies as the main tools for deﬁning tourism
products. It implies the birth of a new kind of destinations, the smart tourism
destinations (STDs), in which new technologies are so extensively embedded to
inﬂuence tourism experiences, enhance destinations’ competitiveness and favour
tourism development projects. Starting from these considerations, the main purpose
of this paper is to contribute to the recent debate on innovation in tourism, by
proposing an interpretative framework able to explain the way in which technological
components in a STD may improve the co-creation of tourism experiences.
Empirical analysis on two European STD best practices, Venice and Salzburg,
conducted triangulating qualitative methods, reveals that the smart approach
adopted by STDs improves the co-creation of tourism experiences by encouraging
the interaction with tourists, increasing their active participation during the experience,
and promoting the sharing of the experience among the tourists themselves.
The paper provides interesting insights for destination managers and policy makers
on how they should use innovative technologies in STDs to improve the experience
co-creation.
Keywords Smart tourism destination Á Tourism experience Á Co-creation Á
Smartness
& Piera Buonincontri
p.buonincontri@iriss.cnr.it
Roberto Micera
r.micera@iriss.cnr.it
1
Institute for Research on Innovation and Services for Development (IRISS), National Research
Council (CNR), Via Guglielmo Sanfelice, 8, Naples, Italy
123
Inf Technol Tourism (2016) 16:285–315
DOI 10.1007/s40558-016-0060-5
1 Introduction
In the current era, characterized by ubiquity of technology, where computers
increasingly disappear and services are seamlessly available to the users, technology
is becoming fundamental also for destinations (Kuﬂik et al. 2015). This fast
development of technology in tourism and the growing interest in the smartness of
cities have increased the attention of destination managers and policy makers on the
opportunities offered by the adoption of a smart strategy also at tourism destination
level. In a similar context, a new typology of destination has come to light,
characterized for being a smart tourism destination (STD). This concept indicates a
tourism destination in which new technologies are so extensively embedded to
inﬂuence tourism experiences, enhance destinations’ competitiveness and favour
tourism development projects (Buhalis and Amaranggana 2013; Presenza et al.
2014; Boes 2015). Bringing smartness into tourism destinations requires the use of a
technological platform on which information on local resources, tourists, their
actions, and their consumption habits, can be integrated and made available to
several stakeholders. According to the smart approach, the technological platform is
composed by three technological components: cloud computing services, internet of
things, and end-user devices (Zhang et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2013).
These technologies are activated through contacts with stakeholders during
multiple touch points. Stakeholders are directly engaged in the dynamic use of the
platform, which works as a neural system (Buhalis and Amaranggana 2014):
through the smart approach, tourists may be actively engaged with tourism service
providers, and collaborate in the co-creation of their own experiences. They may,
therefore, directly contribute in innovating the tourism offers (Schaffers et al. 2011;
Buhalis and Amaranggana 2014).
The smart system, thus, may affect the co-creation of tourism experiences since
the platform and the three technological components that compose it are able to
support the collaboration with tourists and to improve their active involvement. The
use of technologies before, during and after the visit and its inﬂuence on the role of
tourists as experience co-creators reﬂect on more successful experiences: literature
on tourism experience, in fact, shows that the competitiveness of destinations
increases thanks to co-creation (Binkhorst and Den Dekker 2009; Neuhofer et al.
2012).
Despite the recognized positive inﬂuence of technologies on tourism experience
co-creation, only few researches have investigated the inﬂuence of a smart approach
adopted by STDs on the co-creation of tourism experiences. In order to ﬁll this gap,
the paper poses the following research question:
How the use of technological components in a smart tourism destination may
improve the co-creation of tourism experiences?
In particular, the paper wants to contribute to the recent debate on innovation in
tourism, by proposing an interpretative framework able to explain the way in which
technological components in STDs—speciﬁcally, the use of cloud computing
286 P. Buonincontri, R. Micera
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services, internet of things and end-user devices—may improve the co-creation of
tourism experiences.
In order to reach this purpose, two European STD best practices are
investigated—Venice and Salzburg. The multiple cases analysis was considered
the proper methodology for this study, as it is frequently used to understand a reallife
phenomenon in depth, including important contextual conditions of the
phenomenon (Yin 2013) and is recognized in tourism literature as a useful approach
to examine the implementation of STDs and to generate more in-depth
understanding within this subject (Buhalis and Amaranggana 2014).
An interpretative framework has been elaborated to analyze the cases. It is useful
to understand how the typical technological components of a STD act on the
destination, inﬂuencing the experience co-creation with tourists. Cases are
investigated through qualitative methods, triangulating public documents, information
from tourism web sites of each destination, and in-depth interviews realized
with key-informants involved in the development of smart tourism strategies of
Venice and Salzburg.
The results and insights from this study provide explanations for the relationship
between the smart approach of STDs and the improvement of tourism experience
co-creation. The elaborated interpretative framework is useful for destination
managers and policy makers to investigate what are the weaknesses and strengths of
a smart approach related to the experience co-creation.
The paper is structured into ﬁve sections. After the Introduction, the second
section provides an overview of the literature describing the conceptual foundations
of the STD and of the experience co-creation in tourism. In the third section, the
methodology and design of the empirical research are described: the multiple cases
analysis is introduced, explaining the selection of best practices and the data
collection. The study introduces also the interpretative framework useful to
understand how the experience co-creation is strengthened in STDs thanks to the
improvement of technological components. The fourth section shows the results of
multiple cases analysis. Finally, the last section contains the conclusions; the
implications and possible future advances of the research are also presented.
2 Literature review
2.1 The smart approach of tourism destinations
Current literature on destination management and on the impacts of ICT in tourism
is focusing on the opportunities generated by the adoption of a smart approach in
areas where the tourism industry is one of the primary sources of GDP.
The implementation of smartness in tourism has originated the smart tourism
destinations (STDs). The STD concept derives from the development of smart cities
(Buhalis and Amaranggana 2014), characterized for being cities in which the
massive use of technology allows to coordinate all activities, information and
services in real time, interconnect all local organizations, and improve urban
efﬁciency (Vicini et al. 2012; Buhalis and Amaranggana 2014).
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According to Gretzel et al. (2015a), ‘‘smart’’ is a new buzzword to describe
technological, economic and social development fuelled by using new technologies.
For this reason, smart cities have quickly gained international attention as a new
approach able to give real answers to the needs of new models of urban
development; despite this, there is no yet a unique and shared deﬁnition of the
concept. According to Holland (2008), it is a fuzzy concept due to the fact that the
increasing attention to this phenomenon has determined an excessive use in a not
univocal way: the term is often used with different meanings depending on the
different contexts and conditions of use. In order to conceptualize smart cities, many
theorists have tried to individuate and explain the main characteristics of these
technologically advanced cities. Among them, Caragliu et al. (2009) consider that a
city may be categorized as smart when its sustainable economic growth and a better
quality of life are based on three pillars: investment in human capital who actively
participate in the activities and drive the smartness; development of a solid
technological infrastructure that covers the whole city; dissemination of information
throughout the city, which is essential for optimizing the city functions and
improving the quality of life. Studies by Komninos et al. (2013), instead, focus on
social innovation and spatial intelligence as the main outcomes of smart cities:
innovation refers to the use of technology to enable citizens and businesses to
develop and experiment innovative solutions; intelligence refers to the use of
predictive applications that allow to generate more accurate decisions.
Another important study on the topic is by Cohen (2012), who proposes a
model—the smart city wheel—to identify the key characteristics of a smart city,
support the development of its strategies, and track its progress. the smart city wheel
monitors the smartness of a city using six dimensions, deﬁning for each of them
speciﬁc indicators: smart governance, smart environment, smart mobility, smart
economy, smart people, and smart living. UE decided to adhere to the smart city
wheel and to use this model to deﬁne the European smart cities ranking.
Starting from the studies on smart cities, some authors (Baggio and Del Chiappa
2014) point out that the use of a smart approach can affect not only the methods of
management of a smart city, but also of a tourism destination, as well as it can affect
its deﬁnition. A destination, in fact, is deﬁned as a network composed by a plurality
of stakeholders, all engaged in offering services and experiences to tourists.
Acknowledging the importance of new technologies in tourism, destinations are
increasingly supported by a technological infrastructure that creates a digital
environment able to foster the collaboration among stakeholders and to empower
the transfer and sharing of knowledge (Baggio and Del Chiappa 2013, 2014). To
bring smartness in tourism destinations thus means to dynamically connect the
stakeholders through a technological platform on which they can exchange real-time
information relating to their tourism activities (Beritelli et al. 2007, 2014). This
platform facilitates the touch points with the tourists by allowing the connection
through a wide range of end-user devices supporting tourism experiences.
The concept of STD ﬁnds its origins in the need to adopt smart city principles in
areas with high tourist value. The ﬁrst contributions on the research stream date
back to the Chinese scientiﬁc literature, where the term STD was ofﬁcially coined
(China’s State Council of Chinese Central Government). These authors emphasized
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that the intensive use of technology by means of an IT platform that integrates
information on tourism with information on consumption and use of resources (cfr.
smart tourism systems by Zhu et al. 2014), fosters the co-created tourism
experiences, improving the effectiveness of DMO communications strategies, and
enhances the competitiveness of destinations (Zhang et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2013).
Lamsfus and Alzua-Sorzabal (2013) deﬁne the STD a destination in which ‘‘the
investments in human and social capital, traditional transport, and modern ICT
communication infrastructure meet the social, cultural, economic, leisure and
personal needs of visitors. Visitors are the short term citizens of a smart city’’. They,
in fact, comparing the STDs with the smart cities, afﬁrm that the notion of STD is
based on the temporary nature of the visit of tourists and travelers. Lopez de Avila
(2015), instead, deﬁnes the STD as ‘‘an innovative tourist destination, built on an
infrastructure of state-of-the-art technology guaranteeing the sustainable development
of tourist areas, accessible to everyone, which facilitates interaction with the
visitor and integration into his or her surroundings, increases the quality of the
experience at the destination, and improves residents’ quality of life’’.
The birth of a STD, therefore, is not limited to a pure technology implementation,
but requires complex organizational and managerial activities, through which
resource sharing processes are facilitated, common strategies are developed, and the
promotion of the destination by individual actors in the territory is realized. Through
the analysis of three European smart cities—Barcelona, Amsterdam, Helsinki—
Boes (2015) provided an holistic framework for the development of STDs,
consisting of four fundamental concepts explored: human capital, leadership, social
capital, and innovation.
About the STDs theme, at the ENTER Conference 2015, the features of the
cloud-based ICT infrastructure to support the creation of context-aware mobile
services by tourism stakeholders have been outlined (Lamsfus et al. 2015).
Furthermore, it has also been discussed how to effectively manage big data and how
to create the conditions so that the stakeholders are dynamically interconnected and
information are used to enrich tourism experiences in real-time (Buhalis and
Amaranggana 2014).
Recently, Gretzel et al. (2015b) envisioned the STD as an integral part of the
smart tourism ecosystem, where technology breeds new business models, interaction
paradigms and even new types of tourism businesses.
The attention of the scientiﬁc literature (Xiang et al. 2015) was then focused on
STD in order to provide useful information on topics such as: conceptual
foundations for STDs, knowledge transfer (Del Chiappa and Baggio 2015) and
social marketing management (Buhalis and Foerste 2015); the utilities of data
analytics for destination management using cases of speciﬁc destinations (Supak
et al. 2015; Kladou and Mavragani 2015); the application of analytic approaches to
understand the traveler’s behavior (Marine-Roig and Clave´ 2015; Marchiori and
Cantoni 2015).
In order to understand the way in which the smart approach adopted by STDs
may improve the co-creation of tourism experiences, we decided to focus on the
technological aspects of STDs, which can be considered tourism destinations in
which new technologies are so extensively embedded to inﬂuence tourism
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experiences, enhance destinations’ competitiveness and favour tourism development
projects (Buhalis and Amaranggana 2013; Presenza et al. 2014; Boes 2015).
In particular, we focus on three essential technological components at the basis of
the smartness of a destination: cloud computing services; internet of things (IoT);
end-user internet service systems (Wang et al. 2013; Zhu et al. 2014).
Cloud computing services are important instruments for data management in the
tourism industry, as they allow the access from any client to all the resources that
are virtually stored and managed by cloud service providers, making software
applications/services accessible anytime and anywhere (Armbrust et al. 2010, cited
by Kuﬂik et al. 2015). Cloud infrastructures are dynamic and scalable, so are
constantly reconﬁgured to be adapted to a variable workload, allowing the optimal
use of resources (Zhang et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2013). These services
simultaneously provide both open and shared information to a large number of
users, and private data for the exclusive use of tourism providers. They may be
applied at horizontal, vertical and transverse level. At horizontal level, their use
allows the sharing of data, information, and applications useful to improve the
services development processes. At vertical and transverse level, are able to provide
an integrated supply system. Companies that become virtual enterprises thanks to
cloud computing services broaden their scope and increase their competitiveness by
optimizing their applications and the internal logics of monitoring.
The IoT is a phenomenon that is rapidly developing in the world of ICT (Buhalis
and Amaranggana 2014; Atzori et al. 2010). The term was coined in 1999 by Kevin
Ashton, who deﬁned it as a network able to connect anything at anytime and
anywhere, in order to identify, locate, manage and track real objects and places,
deﬁned ‘‘smart’’ (Mingjun et al. 2012; Lin 2011). IoT is the pervasive presence of a
variety of things or objects that, through unique addressing schemes, are able to
interact with each other and to cooperate to reach common goals (Atzori et al.
2010). In this sense, IoT facilitates the exchange and elaboration of information and
the monitoring of activities, reducing the gap between the real world and digital
realm and facilitating analysis (Chui et al. 2010).
The end-user internet service systems refer to applications supported by
combinations of cloud computing services and IoT accessible through wired and
wireless connections and represent all those hardware technologies that enable
players in the tourism industry to use the technologies, applications and other ICT
services.
Another important contribution to the topic of STD is provided by Buhalis and
Amaranggana (2014), who state that smartness in STDs is strengthened by
implementing tourism applications as combinations of STDs dimensions and
destinations elements.
STDs dimensions are represented by the model of the smart city wheel by Cohen
(2012).
Destination elements are deﬁned by the authors as the six elements that
characterize a successful destination (6 As of tourism destinations by Buhalis 2000):
attractions, access, amenities, available packages, activities and ancillary services.
Attractions are all attractive resources of a destination, which may be natural,
artiﬁcial or cultural; access refers to the entire transportation system to reach the
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destination and to move along it; amenities characterize all services aimed at
facilitating a convenient stay, namely accommodation, catering facilities, and other
tourism services; available packages refer to pre-arranged service bundles by
intermediaries; activities refer to all activities available at destination that tourists
may do during their stay; ﬁnally, ancillary services are all services used by tourists
which are not uniquely related to tourism, such as banks, postal services, etc.
According to Buhalis and Amaranggana (2014), STDs are destinations in which
the application of new technologies in terms of attractions, access, amenities,
available packages, activities and ancillary services generates positive effects on
their smartness in the dimensions of governance, environment, mobility, economy,
people, and living. The ultimate goals of a similar STD are to provide value-added
experiences for tourists, integrate all stakeholders at both micro and macro level,
and improve the effectiveness of resources management enhancing both the
destination competitiveness and the tourists satisfaction and achieving, ﬁnally, longlasting
sustainability and economic growth (Buhalis and Amaranggana 2014).
A STD is also able to facilitate the processes of experience co-creation. Thanks to
smartness in tourism, in fact, tourists are active stakeholders engaged in the smart
platform. Consequently, they are more informed and competent, able to activate
processes of conversational marketing through social media and to contribute to the
creation of content, and use end-user devices. These elements reduce the uncertainty
in the decision-making process and, therefore, the risk that the tourism experience
does not reﬂect the initial expectations.
2.2 Co-creating experiences in tourism
Co-creation of tourism experience can be described as a process that includes
tourists and other possible stakeholders in the deﬁnition of unique and personal
experiences, with the ﬁnal goal of generating value (Salvado et al. 2011).
The tourism industry is constantly changing and tourists are more oriented to
actively collaborate with service providers in order to co-create their own tourism
experiences. Modern tourists, in fact, want to combine their resources with those at
destination with the purpose of living experiences able to satisfy in a better way
their speciﬁc needs, and are prepared to directly interact with the destination supply
system in order to live custom experiences. Literature on experience co-creation in
tourism revealed that at the basis of co-creation there are (Binkhorst and Den
Dekker 2009; Salvado et al. 2011; Neuhofer et al. 2012): the interaction among
ﬁrms and tourists, the active participation of tourists, and their need of sharing the
experience with other subjects, which can be considered antecedents of the
experience co-creation in tourism. The experience co-creation, in fact, depends, to a
large extent, on the ability of tourists and ﬁrms to directly interact each other during
all the experiential process, in order to have more stable relationships and more
customized offers. Furthermore, tourists want even more to actively participate into
the activities at destination, personally intervening in the building of their own
experience, combining their resources, and inﬂuencing the success and competitiveness
of the territory (Aho 2001; Rustichini and Siconolﬁ 2004; Andersson 2007;
Prebensen et al. 2013). Finally, for tourists is also extremely important the sharing
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of their experiences with other tourists and locals at destination, but also with
relatives, friends and unknown users through social media, the Internet, and other
tools (Binkhorst and Den Dekker 2009; Neuhofer et al. 2012; Brejla and Gilbert
2014).
Tourists want to co-create their experience along the whole experience process,
which starts when they are still in their daily context and collect information, and
continues when have come back home (Aho 2001). For many tourists, in fact, key
parts of the experience are composed by the planning of the visit while are at home,
and by the memory of the trip when are come back (Minkiewicz et al. 2009).
The tourism experience process has been adapted from studies on experiences in
manufacturing companies, which traditionally considers three phases of consumption
process: pre-consumption; core consumption; post-consumption. Similarly, the
tourism experience process is distinguished in:
1. Pre-travel phase, when the tourist is still at home, searches information, chooses
the destination, and buys the offer.
2. On-site phase, when the tourist visits the destination.
3. Post-travel phase, when the tourist is back at home and reminds the trip.
Destinations and tourism ﬁrms have recognized the changes in the industry, the
new active role of tourists, and, therefore, the increasing importance of experience
co-creation as a key factor for reaching success. In order to encourage the
experience co-creation, ﬁrms of the destination supply system have started to build
and manage competitive experience environments in which tourists can actively
intervene, contributing to increase the destination’s competitiveness, especially
thanks to the support of technology. In such a context, in fact, new technologies are
more and more emerging as valid tools to support the experience co-creation: the
most successful tourism experiences are those co-created with tourists and
supported by high levels of technology (Tussyadiah and Fesenmaier 2009). There
are several technological tools able to support the experience co-creation in the
tourism context, such as websites, blogs, travel diaries, travel review websites,
virtual communities, on-line booking systems, applications, on-line travel guides,
etc. The use of these tools mainly depends on the tourist’s needs, the experience
phase she/he is living, and the place where she/he is (Gretzel and Jamal 2009;
Tussyadiah and Fesenmaier 2009).
Technology, therefore, is relevant for co-creation in tourism industry, both from
the demand and the supply side. As shown by the model by Neuhofer et al. (2012)
(Fig. 1), ICTs are extremely able to facilitate the encounters among tourists and
destinations, to enlarge the experience process in time and space, and to improve the
co-creation with other stakeholders.
The model contributes to the literature on tourism experience co-creation by
introducing three key elements:
1. The recognition of an extended experience co-creation space, which refers to
the whole tourism experience process, including the co-creation process also in
the pre-travel and post-travel phases.
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2. The recognition of two levels of experience, due to the fact that tourists live
both a physical and a virtual tourism experience thanks to the use of mobile
technologies. Tourists are generally involved in the experience co-creation
process at physical level when being at destination, and at virtual level when
being at home. Thanks to mobile technologies, however, they may be involved
in the virtual experience co-creation also in the on-site phase: during their
physical experience of visit at destination, they are also technologically
connected with the tourism ﬁrms, exchanging real-time information with them,
modifying their plans, receiving custom offers.
3. The recognition of multiple levels of engagement: technology allows tourists to
develop connections with a large number of subjects during their tourism
experience. Both when being at destination and at home, in fact, they interact
not only with tourism services providers and with their network of parents and
friends, but also with a wider social network of followers, visitors, tourists and
fans, who are interested in virtually living and sharing experiences about a
particular destination.
Literature on tourism experience co-creation, then, shows how particularly
relevant are mobile technologies to enhance the experience co-creation: using
mobile technology (especially applications on smartphones and tablets), tourists
may access to any information wherever they are and at any time. Furthermore, they
may also custom their experiences and share them with others when they are still at
destination (Green 2002; Neuhofer et al. 2012).
Fig. 1 Technology enhanced destination experiences. Source: Neuhofer et al. (2012)
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3 Research methodology
The literature review on the smart approach of tourism destinations and on the
tourism experience co-creation shows that destinations and tourism ﬁrms have
recognized the importance of technology for the strengthening of tourism
experience co-creation.
What is still unexplored is the way in which technological components in STDs
may improve the co-creation of tourism experiences. In order to ﬁll this gap, the
paper focuses on the technological aspect of smartness and investigates how it is
able to enhance the experience co-creation in a tourism context. The research
strategy used is multiple cases analysis (Eisenhardt 1989; Yin 2003) that was
considered the proper methodological strategy in this study, as it allows in-depth
insights into emerging ﬁelds and is used to understand a real-life phenomenon,
including important contextual conditions of the phenomenon (Yin 2013).
Furthermore, the multiple cases analysis is recognized in tourism literature as a
useful approach to investigate the implementation of a STD and to generate more
in-depth understanding within this subject (Buhalis and Amaranggana 2014). In this
research, the STD has been considered the proper unit of analysis to understand
the role of technology in improving tourism experience co-creation in a smart
context.
3.1 STDs’ selection
Venice (IT) and Salzburg (AT) are chosen as the two best practices to investigate,
due to their relevant positions (respectively, 1 and 2 out of 77) in the ranking of
smart cities based on the touristic attractiveness. Since the smart approach has been
widely investigated in the urban context, the choice to refer to a smart city ensures
the presence of a smart approach. Furthermore, the high value of tourism
development veriﬁes if the smart city may be considered a relevant destination,
ensuring that the study is conducted in a signiﬁcant tourism context.
The European smart cities have been individuated thanks to the European Smart
City Index elaborated since 2007 by the Wien University of Technology, the Delft
University of Technology, and the University of Ljubljana (http://www.smart-cities.
eu). The Smart City Index is the result of a standardized combination of six
dimensions of smartness (Smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart
people, smart living, and smart governance) divided into 28 domains and measured
by 81 indicators.
In 2014, the European Smart City Index was applied to 77 European cities
characterized for being of medium size, recognized on a global level and with
accessible and relevant databases. One domain of the ‘smart living’ dimension is the
‘touristic attractiveness’, calculated using the indicator ‘Importance as tourist
location’, a score which takes into account the number of beds available, the number
of nights spent in the touristic facilities, and the appreciation reﬂected by the
touristic guide Michelin. In order to individuate the smart cities with the highest
value of ‘touristic attractiveness’, they were classiﬁed on the basis of this domain.
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The ﬁrst two cities ranked in this new classiﬁcation—Venice and Salzburg—were
selected as best practices. Their high development in the tourism industry is
conﬁrmed by the number of overnight stays per resident: in 2014 the historical
centre of Venice received 114 overnights per resident (http://www.comune.venezia.
it) and Salzburg received 18 overnights per resident (http://www.wien.gv.at/english/
administration/statistics/tourism.html). It is important to underline that the two cities
have very different positions in the European Smart City Index (Table 1).
Considering their total positions, Salzburg ranks 10 out of 77, while Venice ranks
46. Salzburg, therefore, is one of the top10 European smart cities of medium size
and is the ﬁrst Austrian smart city, followed by Innsbruck (ranked 13), Linz (ranked
14) and Graz (ranked 16). Salzburg has a strong smartness in all the six dimensions:
it is ranked 1 in smart living, 2 in smart mobility, and is in the ﬁrst 30 positions for
all the other dimensions; the weakest position is for smart governance, ranked 29.
Among the 28 domains, it has strongest values in ethnic plurality (smart people),
cultural facilities, and touristic attractiveness (smart living). These values show how
Salzburg is implementing its smartness in all the aspects of the city, which
encompass not only the needs of tourists, but also those of the citizens.
Venice is in lower positions in all the smart dimensions compared with Salzburg,
but is the ﬁrst smart city among the Italian cities, followed by Verona (ranked 49),
Trento (52), Trieste (53), Perugia (57), Padova (61), and Ancona (65). As for
Salzburg, also Venice shows its better position in smart living (is ranked 8) and its
worst position in smart governance. Apart the eighth position in smart living, its
positions range from the 38 in smart mobility to the 68 in smart governance. The
best values are registered in the domains touristic attractiveness, cultural facilities
(smart living), and international accessibility (smart mobility).
3.2 Research design
In order to understand the way in which technological components in the STDs
Venice and Salzburg may improve the co-creation of tourism experiences, an
interpretative framework has been elaborated (Fig. 2). It is based on the literature
review on STDs (Buhalis and Amaranggana 2013) and on tourism experience
(Neuhofer et al. 2012) presented in the previous section.
The proposed framework may ﬁll the current gap in literature, providing a better
understanding of the way in which technological components in a STD may
Table 1 European smart cities
ranking—Venice and Salzburg
(out of 77 smart cities). Source:
http://www.smart-cities.eu
Smart ranking Venice Salzburg
Smart economy 33 27
Smart people 63 24
Smart governance 68 29
Smart mobility 32 2
Smart environment 59 27
Smart living 8 1
Total position 46 10
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improve the co-creation of tourism experiences. It considers that the typical
technological components of a STD act on the six dimensions which identify a
destination, inﬂuencing the experience co-creation with tourists. In the lower part of
the framework, there are the technological components of a STD, characterized by
cloud computing services, IoT, and end-user internet service systems, and by the
technological tools related to them. These components, in fact, are at the basis of
innovative technological tools (i.e. websites, transport control systems, smart cards,
apps, etc.) implemented by the destination supply system in order to enhance the
visit experience.
The upper part of the framework shows the tourism experience co-creation space
as a result of collaborative encounters between the destination and its tourists, not
only when the tourist is at destination, but also when she/he is at home preparing the
trip or remembering it. The destination supply system is here represented through its
main dimensions, summarized by the 6A’s framework by Buhalis (2000). The
experience co-creation is represented through the three antecedents able to improve
and facilitate the co-creation of tourists: the direct interaction with tourism services
providers, the active participation during all the experience process, and the need of
sharing the experience with a wide network of subjects.
The arrows show that an integrated and coordinated implementation of the three
smart technological components in the 6A’s of the destination allows to increase the
experience co-creation at all the phases of the experiential process acting on the
three antecedents of experience co-creation.
Fig. 2 Experience co-creation in smart tourism destinations. Source: our elaboration
296 P. Buonincontri, R. Micera
123
According to the interpretative framework proposed, the empirical analysis
started with the individuation of the main features of a destination according to the
6A’s framework by Buhalis (2000). This phase was useful to ensure that the smart
cities selected are also destinations: relevant elements in attractions, access,
amenities, available packages, activities, and ancillary services have been individuated
in both the cases, allowing to deﬁne Venice and Salzburg as STDs.
Subsequently, the role of technology in enhancing the experience co-creation in a
smart approach has been studied. The use of cloud computing services, IoT, and
end-user internet service systems have been investigated identifying the main
technological tools developed by the destinations and the tourist ﬁrms. Their
functionality has been studied taking into account the phases of the experience
process during which they can be used (pre-travel, on-site, and post-travel), and
which of the six dimensions of the A’s framework they are related to. Finally, the
way in which these technological tools improve the co-creation of tourism
experiences is investigated.
Cloud computing services are useful to connect all the 6A’s of the destination
and support the experience co-creation even if tourists not always perceive the use
of a cloud system. These services, in fact, facilitate the transfer of information and
allow the access to stored data that are useful for the creation of customized
experiences. The support of cloud computing services to the experience co-creation
is veriﬁed during all the experience process: in the pre-travel phase, when tourism
ﬁrms promote their offers and potential tourists deﬁne the modalities of visit; during
the visit, due to the fact that cloud computing services allow real time changes; and
in the post-travel phase, since the exchange of data and information generates other
data which can in turn be stored in the system and further shared.
The development of IoT in tourism, and especially the use of QR, RFID and NFC
codes, inﬂuences the experience co-creation especially in the on-site phase, by
giving tourists the opportunity to enjoy wide functions in each of six As dimensions,
such as mobile payments, provision of information, access permissions, object
identiﬁcation, geo-location services, etc. The evolution of IoT is connected to the
semantic web, allowing the creation of platforms that, using an interactive and
participative system, simplify the transfer of data from tourists to operators and vice
versa, facilitating the sharing of information (Gutie´rrez et al. 2013).
As far as the end-user internet service systems is concerned, the traditional PC
still plays an important role, mainly in the pre-travel phase: potential tourists usually
organize their journey at home, by visiting websites, choosing the most convenient
available package, deﬁning the activities to do, and checking the available ancillary
services. However, currently, mobile devices are radically transforming the
industry: smartphones and tablets are able to satisfy many of the needs of tourists
during the visit, as the opportunity of following travel routes, of sharing their
position, of booking amenities and paying tickets, etc. Through mobile technologies,
tourists also share the experience with others by accessing to applications in
order to post photos, write opinions and reviews, and ask for suggestions. Mobile
devices represent a huge opportunity for tourism providers to interact with their
customers and to collect information at any phase of the experience process. Finally,
the end-user internet service systems may also be wearable devices (i.e.
The experience co-creation in smart tourism destinations… 297
123
SmartGlasses, etc.), which allow the total immersion of tourists in the visit,
amplifying their experience both on site and before or after their stay at destination.
Data collected to apply the interpretative framework to the cases of Venice and
Salzburg were obtained combining secondary sources (reports, public documents,
information from destination web sites) and in-depth interviews realized with keyinformants
involved in the development of smart tourism strategies of Venice and
Salzburg, namely representatives of the Venice’s Municipality related to the
economic development for tourism and planning and control areas, and the CEO of
Salzburg Tourism Promotion (Tourismus Salzburg GmbH).
Interviews were conducted in the period February–May 2015 and lasted
approximately 60 min; a ‘courtroom’ procedure has been used in which questions
were concentrated on facts and events, rather than on respondents’ interpretations
(Eisenhardt 1989). Interviews followed a semi-structured interview guide aimed at
gathering information on how the implementation of a smart approach has
inﬂuenced the co-creation of experiences in tourism. The guide has allowed to
individuate the main elements of interviews which, combined with secondary
sources, allowed to triangulate data thereby enhancing the reliability of cases
analysis (Yin 2013). The qualitative method was applied, which in literature is often
considered particular beneﬁcial for the generation of intensive, detailed examinations
of a case (Bryman 2008; Yin 2013).
4 Research results
4.1 Venice as STD
The number of inhabitants of Venice was 264.579 in 2014 (http://www.comuniitaliani.it).
It is one of the most famous destinations in Italy: its cultural resources
and its spectacular lagoon attract every year more than 2.6 million of tourist arrivals
and registers 6.4 million of overnight stays only in the historical centre (Comune di
Venezia 2014). Due to its beauties, Venice is inscribed since 1987 in the UNESCO
World Heritage list, as an extraordinary architectural masterpiece in which even the
smallest building contains works by some of the world’s greatest artists.
Furthermore, Venice is well organized as tourism destination with relevant key
factors in all the dimensions of the 6As’ framework (Table 2).
The importance of tourism for Venice, and the awareness of its priceless
historical heritage, encouraged the Administration in adopting a smart approach
able to improve the life of citizens and tourists, which allows to characterize it as a
STD.
The drivers considered to empower the role of Venice as STD are classiﬁed into
two categories (Bettini 2013): existent assets and skills. As for the assets, since the
last decades of XX century the Municipality allocated many investments in
technological infrastructures to offer innovative services to citizens and tourists.
Among these, the most important are the broadband, allowing a high-speed access
to the Internet, and the WiFi, allowing to access to the Internet everywhere, through
mobile end-user devices.
298 P. Buonincontri, R. Micera
123
Regarding the skills, the Municipality is still investing in specialist knowledge
with the objective of offering strategic services related to culture, transports and
leisure activities with high use of technology.
Other factors adopted by Venice for the development of its smartness are (Bettini
2013):
1. Services offered into integrated proposals based on a coherent integration and
on a shared logic of ticketing.
2. Development of strong synergies among the local ﬁrms in order to avoid
duplication and waste.
3. Deﬁnition of a demand-centric strategy, in order to allow the access to
technological services for different targets (sms, Apps, print-at-home systems,
printed tickets, QRcode, Smartcards, etc.).
4. Deﬁnition of anytime-anywhere technologies.
The commitment of Venice in developing a smart strategy to improve the visit of
the city and the life of its citizens has been recognized through several prizes. It won
the smart cities 2012 Prize by Smau di Milano as one of the most innovative cities at
national level; it was classiﬁed as second city in the category of smart mobility in
the ICity Rate 2012 by ForumPA and as third smart city in Italy by Fondazione
Ambrosetti. Furthermore, the smart approach of Venice is also supported by
important companies, such as Google, as afﬁrmed by an interviewed:
Table 2 Six A’s dimensions of Venice destination. Source: our elaboration on data by Comune di
Venezia (2014) and Provincia di Venezia (2014)
Six A’s
framework
The A’s of Venice
Attractions 10 museums and picture galleries are related to the Civic Museums Foundation, 5
museums and galleries are related to the State Museums Circuit, 15 churches are
related to the Chorus Circuit, and more than 50 churches, church museums, historical
buildings and bridges are in the city
Access In 2013 the Harbour of Venice recorded 1225 arrivals of cruise ships and ferry boats
(2,073,953 passengers), the Airport of Venice recorded 1,683,900 passengers on
national ﬂights and 6,691,965 on international ﬂights, and almost 7 million of tickets
for urban mobility were sold
Amenities The city records in 2013 425 hotels—almost 70 % of them 3 or 4 stars—and 2552
other accommodation; in 2011 there were almost 1000 restaurants and 700 bars
Available
packages
There are many national and international tour operators specialized in the
organization and promotion of holiday packages which combine the cultural visit of
Venice with leisure activities, naturalistic walks, and the knowledge of local
traditions
Activities The most important events organized in Venice are the FilmFestival, the Biennale and
the Carnival; in 2014 Venice dedicated 9 days to fairs and exhibitions, 13 to
traditional events, 317 to dance and theatre events, 566 to music events, 368 to ﬁlm
festivals
Ancillary
services
Venice has all the services that are vital for the development of a city but are also able
to support the tourism industry (waste removal, car renting, etc.)
The experience co-creation in smart tourism destinations… 299
123
‘‘When Google decided to test its wearable backpack with a camera for the
street view, Venice was chosen as the second place of test after the Grand
Canyon’’.
The data collection and interviews allow to individuate several technological
tools that are strategic for the success of tourism in Venice. These tools are related
to the smartness of the city, as they are based on cloud computing services for
ensuring a secure storage of data across the network of tourism stakeholder and use
IoT to facilitate the exchange of information. Furthermore, many of these tools are
developed to be accessed by any end-user internet service system. Once
individuated the technological tools, the study focuses on the understanding of
how these are able to empower the 6 As dimensions of the destination and to
positively inﬂuence the level of experience co-creation for tourists during the whole
experience process (Table 3).
The main technological tool able to guide the tourists of Venice along all the
experience process is VeneziaUnica App. It is part of the wider project
VeneziaUnica, aimed at managing the tourist information and the e-commerce
related to Venice.
The App is useful during the pre-travel phase, as it allows tourists to organize
itineraries, read information about the city, and check the transport. In this phase,
the tool mainly impacts on activities, suggesting six itineraries. The co-creation
level is emphasized through the active participation that users may experience: they
may organize their own visit paths by using the ‘‘favourite’’ section, and may have
fun with riddles on the resources of Venice. VeneziaUnica App is useful also in the
on-site phase, as it provides a detailed description of all tourist and cultural services,
empowering amenities and attractions dimensions; furthermore, it allows to check
where to take the ferry boats and their timetable, acting on the access dimension,
and dedicates a section to ancillary services, with telephone numbers for
emergencies, transport and services. The App also improves the dimension
available packages, since users may buy on line the integrated ticket VeneziaUnica
CityPass. During the visit the App allows the users to directly contact the cultural
and tourist operators by telephone and email or using the links to the speciﬁc
websites; users may also change their visit ideas, by showing on a map with tracking
system all the Attractions and Amenities near their position and the directions to
reach them. Finally, in the on-site phase, as well as in the post-travel phase, users
may use the App to share opinions, photos and information with other users. Thanks
to these functionalities, VeneziaUnica App impacts on the tourism experience cocreation
by facilitating direct interaction of tourists with the destination supply
system, improving the active participation, and supporting the sharing of the
experience: the tool impacts on all the three antecedents of tourism experience co-
creation.
Another tool which is part of the VeneziaUnica project is VeneziaUnica.it, the
ofﬁcial tourism website of Venice which recorded 1,312,187 visits in 2013, 22.4 %
more than the previous year. It enhances the pre-travel phase by providing all the
most important information about the resources in the city and the auxiliary
services, acting on the Attraction and Ancillary Services dimensions. Furthermore,
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Table 3 Experience co-creation in Venice STD. Source: our elaboration
Name Technological
tool
Tourism
experience
phases
Six A’s
framework
How increase smart co-creation
experience
VeneziaUnica
App
App Pre-visit
On-site
Post-visit
Attractions
Access
Amenities
Available
packages
Activities
Ancillary
services
Active participation
‘‘Favourite’’ section to custom the visit
Riddles on the resources of Venice to
solve
Geo-location system to individuate the
near resources and how to reach them
Interaction
Telephone numbers and email address
to directly contact the services
providers
Links to providers’ websites
Sharing
Opinions, photos and information may
be shared with other users
Opinions, photos and information may
be shared with other users
VeneziaUnica.it Ofﬁcial
website of
tourist
promotion
Pre-visit
On-site
Post-visit
Amenities Active participation
City pass to custom according to own
needs
Interaction
Contact information of hotels and
restaurants in the city
Sharing
Direct link to social media pages to
share information and own position,
ask for advices, rate the website, or
participate to photo contests
VeneziaUnica
City Pass
Smart card On-site Attractions
Access
Available
packages
Ancillary
services
Active participation
Creation of custom visits by mixing
different options of transfers,
waterbuses, cultural circuits, and
public services
Centro Maree Alert service
App
Pre-visit
On-site
Ancillary
services
Access
Activities
Active participation
‘‘Favourite’’ section to indicate the
places about the user wants to be
informed
Limit to be alerted customized by the
user
‘‘Favourite’’ section to indicate the
places about the user wants to be
informed
The experience co-creation in smart tourism destinations… 301
123
the website allows to buy the VeneziaUnica CityPass, creating a custom card
through a selection of different tickets options. In this way, tourists may directly
interact with the local ﬁrms, since are indicated all the contact information of hotels
and restaurants in the city; furthermore, they may create the city pass most ﬁtting
with their needs.
VeneziaUnica.it is also in a mobile version, useful during the visit at destination:
in 2013, 154,231 visits by tablets and 40,311 by smartphones were recorded. It
allows to immediately know the ‘‘not to be missed’’ events and to create and buy the
CityPass. Users of the website are directed to the social media pages to share
information, ask for advices, rate the website, localize themselves, or participate to
photo contests. VeneziaUnica.it, therefore, enhance the tourism experience cocreation
supporting the direct interaction with tourism services providers, the active
participation of tourists, and the sharing of the experience with other users.
Table 3 continued
Name Technological
tool
Tourism
experience
phases
Six A’s
framework
How increase smart co-creation
experience
Argos Navigation
control
system
On-site Access Active participation
Monitor of the trafﬁc level in the Grand
Canal according to custom information
Individuation of ‘‘favourite’’ taxi stops
that the user wants to reach
Individuation of a speciﬁc taxi boat by
inserting its license number
Telepago Virtual pocket On-site Access Active participation
Custom amount of money in order to
pay the parking
Bike sharing Sharing
service
On-site Access
Activities
Active participation
Checking by internet of the real-time
availability of bikes in a speciﬁc stop
station
Smartcard that allows to take the
bicycle in a bike station, to use it, and
to return it in any bike station of
Venice
Subway ebook project On-site Activities Active participation
Downloading of eBooks
Iris Web site On-site
Post-visit
Ancillary
services
Active participation
Possibility to leave Comments and
proposals
Possibility to upload photos and to use
the geo-reference system to specify
where is the problem
Interaction
Direct interaction with the city
administration
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123
The smart card of VeneziaUnica project is VeneziaUnica CityPass, which is used
during the on-site phase. It is an integrated ticket composed by a RFID card, which
allows the access to the public transport and to the cultural and tourism services. It
acts especially on the available packages dimension, allowing the combination of
the other As’ dimensions, and positively inﬂuences the experience co-creation
through the improvement of the tourists active participation: tourists may create
their custom visits by mixing different options of transfers, waterbuses, cultural
circuits, and public services. The different levels of active participation are ensured
by the possibility of buying a pre-arranged city-pass for tourists who do not prefer
customization:
‘‘There is a continuous ﬁght among tourists who prefer to select their visit
options and tourists who do not: some tourists want a pre-arranged card’’.
Venice dedicates particular attention to the adoption of smart tools in the on-site
phase through a series of technologies particularly able to act on the Access and
Activities dimensions.
In order to alert citizens and tourists, the Tide Centre by the Venice Municipality
created an alert system, improving the Ancillary Services dimension: the system
informs over 40,000 individuals sending emails or SMS if water exceeds the
customized limit speciﬁed by the user. The Tide Centre developed also the Hi!Tide
App, which provides detailed tide forecasts, indicating the level of water and
realizing charts and reports. The App encourages the tourism experience co-creation
by empowering the active participation of tourists, who can select their ‘‘favourite’’
places they want to be informed about; it impacts both on the on-site and on the pretravel
phases, by providing information for the current day and the subsequent two,
allowing tourist to be prepared when arriving in Venice.
The Municipality also realized ARGOS, the Automatic and Remote Grand Canal
Observation System, which contributes to the development of trafﬁc management
policies, acting on the Access dimension. The system is based on automatic vision
technologies and on a number of survey cells deployed along the Grand Canal.
Providing real-time pictures, the type and position of each boat circulating in the
Grand Canal can be determined. The co-creation level is empowered through the
active participation of tourists, who can use ARGOS to monitor the trafﬁc level in
the Grand Canal and to individuate the taxi stops they want to reach; they also may
search for a speciﬁc taxi by inserting its license number.
Another tool that inﬂuences the level of active participation of tourists in the
Access dimension is Telepago, the parking system realized by the Mobility Services
Company of Venice. Tourists may activate the service by paying a deﬁned amount
on a virtual pocket and may use it to pay their car parking in the city, calling through
the mobile phone or sending SMS.
The Mobility Company contributes to the smartness of the Venice also with the
implementation of the bike sharing service, which acts on the access and activities
dimensions, inﬂuencing the active participation level of tourists. Tourists access the
service using a smartcard that allows to take the bicycle in a bike station, to use it to
visit the city or just to move around and to return it in any bike station of Venice.
Tourists may also check by internet the real-time availability of bikes in a speciﬁc
The experience co-creation in smart tourism destinations… 303
123
stop station. The service will be implemented in the future with more interaction
with tourists:
‘‘In the future we will do even better because it will be possible to book in
advance both the departure and the arrival bike stops’’.
Participation during the visit is also emphasized by the Subway project. It is
based on the placement at the ferry terminals and at the station of panels which
show the available eBooks and the QR-codes to download them: tourists may use
the codes to free download eBooks on their mobile devices and read them while are
waiting for the ferry or when are on board.
Finally, Venice developed the IRIS system—Internet Reporting Information
System—in the Ancillary Services dimension. It is a web 2.0 communication
channel through which citizens and tourists may inform the Municipality about
problems related to the urban maintenance. The system works through a web
application accessible both by mobile devices and by pc, so tourists and citizens
may use it during the visit or after. Users may leave comments and proposals,
upload photos and use the geo-reference system to specify where is the problem.
Until its launch, in 2008, IRIS received 22,542 warnings and 17,861 of these have
already been concluded. The system improves the experience co-creation,
encouraging the active participation of tourists and the interaction among them
and the city administration.
Furthermore, it has to be underlined that the Municipality of Venice is
strategically aimed at using technologies and tools already implemented in other
contexts and cities, in order to be sure about their efﬁciency:
‘‘The city may use what already exists. It’s more convenient to make
agreements with companies that have already implemented technologies and
adapt them to the characteristics of Venice’’; ‘‘We thought to use what already
exist […] the public sector may offer the WiFi and the private companies have
to insert the contents. It’s the philosophy of do it less’’.
4.2 Salzburg as STD
Salzburg is one of the main centres of Austria for historical, artistic and cultural
heritage resources. It owns 148,420 inhabitants in 2014 (http://www.citypopulation.
de), which are renowned for their hospitality. The city is known throughout the
world for its baroque architecture and since 1997 its historic centre is a UNESCO
World Heritage Site. Its identity is linked to the ﬁgure of Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart and is worldwide known for hosting a famous classical music festival. These
elements make Salzburg a tourism destination of appeal for tourists from around the
world, and its success is supported by key factors in all the six dimensions of a
destination (Table 4).
In recent years, Salzburg has faced a development process in a smart perspective.
In this context, a master plan was realized, which starts from the empowerment of
sustainability related to the environmental and mobility aspects, but impacts also on
all the other areas of smartness (governance, living, people, etc.). This led to
304 P. Buonincontri, R. Micera
123
obvious positive changes also in tourism, which beneﬁts from the implementation of
projects and innovative products and services able to increase the value of local
resources.
The success of this strategy is conﬁrmed by important awards, such as the Smart
Access City Award in 2012 and The Energy Globe Award in 2013 for the district of
Lehen.
In tourism, stakeholders are focusing their efforts in achieving objectives of
liveability, intelligent networking, sustainable mobility and open collaboration, as
explained in the ‘‘Master Plan 2025—Smart City Salzburg’’.
The main smart tools adopted by the Municipality of Salzburg, the institute for
tourism promotion in Salzburg (Tourismus Salzburg GmbH) and other tourism
ﬁrms, may be grouped into three macro-categories: Website, Smart Card and App.
These have been studied through secondary sources and interviews, in order to
understand the destination dimensions in which they act and how they inﬂuence the
tourism experience co-creation. Results are summarized in Table 5.
Salzburg.info represents the main tourism website of Salzburg; it is dedicated to
leisure tourism and is based on a cloud technology that stores data on all 6As of the
destination; data are managed and coordinated in an integrated manner, according to
the needs of different users, and allowing the exchange of information among all the
stakeholders. This tool, in fact, provides in-depth information about city attractions,
different types of accommodation, and how to access to different options for
domestic travel. It also provides information on public service and promotes tourism
Table 4 Six As dimensions of Salzburg destination. Source: our elaboration
Six A’s
framework
The A’s of Salzburg
Attractions Salzburg is rich in cultural sites: historic buildings, churches, castles, museums, art
galleries. The major attractions of the city are: the fortress Hohensalzburg, the
birthplace and the home of Mozart, Hellbrunn Castle, the museum of contemporary
art on the Mo¨nchsberg, the museum of natural sciences, the Salzburg Zoo, the
Salzburg Cathedral and the crypt with the tombs of the Archbishops of Salzburg
Access It is ensured by the presence of an international airport served by several low cost
airlines and by the opportunity to arrive at the hub of Monaco and Vienna. The city
also has an important railway station and is accessible by car from different
directions: Germany, Italy and the rest of Austria. Internal mobility is ensured by an
efﬁcient urban transport system, a dense network of roads, and bike paths easy to use
Amenities Salzburg has a decent range of accommodation suitable for different targets: families,
athletes, musicians. Amenities on the urban area include breweries, cafes, trendy
bars, taverns and elegant restaurants
Available
packages
There are many international incoming operators that offer packages with overnight
stays proposals and many visits to Salzburg’s main resources
Activities There are many spas and wellness centres, ski resorts and other facilities for winter
sports; all these activities are useful to increase the intensity of the tourism
experience at destination
Ancillary
services
The city has institutions and ofﬁces directly responsible for the promotion and
organization of tourism (Tourismus Salzburg GmbH), but also for all the additional
services to support tourism (banking, telecommunications, hospitals, etc.)
The experience co-creation in smart tourism destinations… 305
123
Table 5 Experience co-creation in smart tourism destination Salzburg. Source: our elaboration
Name Tool Tourism
experience
phases
Six A’s
framework
How increase smart co-creation
experience
http://www.salzburg.info/
com
Ofﬁcial
website for
leisure
tourism
Pre-travel
On-site
destination
Post-travel
Attractions
Access
Amenities
Available
packages
Activities
Ancillary
services
Interaction
Each user can directly interact with key
players of destination supply, using
booking system, phone numbers, e-mail
address
Active participation
Users can select route and choice
activities to do on the basis of available
time and money, and also their needs
and interests
Sharing
Users can share all kind of data and
information (pictures, videos, opinions)
by generalist and thematic social media
linked on this ofﬁcial website
http://www.
salzburgcongress.at/
com
Ofﬁcial
website for
business
tourism
Pre-travel
On-site
destination
Post-travel
Access
Amenities
Activities
Ancillary
services
Interaction
Each user can directly interact with key
players of meeting industry of the
destination, using booking system,
phone numbers, e-mail address
Active participation
Website allows to users to create their
own meeting
VR creates conditions for a more
immersive experience
Sharing
Website allows the sharing of photos and
video accessing to Facebook via link or
using the speciﬁc App
Salzburg Card Smart card On-site
destination
Attractions
Access
Available
packages
Activities
Interaction
Tourists can choice a wide range of basic
services of the card
Active participation
Tourists may integrate basic services of
the card with other custom services,
deﬁning actively their own visit
Salzburg City Map with
Guides and POI
Salzburg City Ofﬂine
Street Map
CityMaps 2Go
Salzburg Map and
Walking Tours
Salzburg Street Map
Ofﬂine
Salzburg Walking Tours
and Map
Maplets—maps for All
National Parks,
Subway, Ski Resorts
and more
App Pre-travel
On-site
destination
Post-travel
Attractions
Access
Amenities
Activities
Ancillary
services
Interaction
Each visitor can gather information about
the destination and the areas with greater
tourist importance
Active participation
Visitors can build personalized maps on
the basis of their interests
Sharing
It’s possible to share information and
maps directly through the App or
connecting to generalist/thematic social
media
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packages, events and leisure activities organized in the city.With regard to the
inﬂuence on tourism experience co-creation, each user can directly interact before,
during and after the tourism experience with the key players of the destination
supply system, using the booking system, or simply by phone numbers, e-mail and
links to speciﬁc websites. Furthermore, users may create a wide range of packages
and select among different typologies of accommodation, tourist routes and
Table 5 continued
Name Tool Tourism
experience
phases
Six A’s
framework
How increase smart co-creation
experience
Salzburg (city) travel
guides
Salzburg travel guide
Salzburg travel guide—
tripwolf
Salzburg travel guide
ofﬂine
Salzburg portal and guide
Travel book Salzburg
Welt Reisefu¨hrer
WorldExplorer
World Travel Guide by
Triposo
Geolover—travel guide
App Pre-travel
On site
destination
Post-travel
Attractions
Access
Amenities
Available
packages
Activities
Interaction
Each visitor can gather information about
destination POI and interact with every
actors of destination supply system
Active participation
Visitors can build personalized routes and
choice Access Services, Attractions,
Activities and Amenities on the basis of
their needs
Sharing
It’s possible to share any information
about own travel experience directly
through the App or connecting to
generalist/thematic social media
Mozart’s birthplace:
TextGuide
Mozart’s residence
AudioGuide/Mozart’s
residence TextGuide
Mozarteum InfoGuide
App On site
destination
Post-travel
Attractions Interaction
Visitors can directly interacting with
providers of services related to the
Austrian composer, by immersing
themselves in virtual reality spaces
Active participation
Each visitors can personalised our visit,
choosing the favourite lyrics and music
to listen during the tours
Sharing
It’s possible to share the visit experience
through easy-access to social media
Salzburger Mittagsplaner App Pre-travel
On site
destination
Post-travel
Amenities Interaction
Users interact with the providers
(restaurants, pubs, bistros, cafes)
collecting information about location,
menu and prices
Active participation
Users can build their experience, by
choosing seats and deciding what to eat
Sharing
Users can exchange opinions and
preferences with other users
Toozla App On-site
destination
Activities Active participation
Each tourists have to choose among
several tales that characterize the
different places to visit, basing the
choice on personal preferences
The experience co-creation in smart tourism destinations… 307
123
ancillary services that ﬁt their speciﬁc needs. It is also possible to select routes and
activities on the basis of the available time, the interests and the type of trip, and
access to several virtual tours over the city at 360°. The website provides tourists
also with the opportunity to register themselves in a newsletter to be always updated
about events and news, and allows the activation of the RSS feed, thanks to which
each device automatically detects new articles posted. Finally, users may share
pictures, videos, opinions and judgments with easy access to generalist and thematic
social media. These functions affect the active participation of tourists and their
need to share the experience with other, positively acting, consequently, on their
experience co-creation. Access to the website can be from any type of End-User
device, from traditional PCs to last generation tablets and smartphones, conﬁrming
that the tool can be used during all the phases of the experience process.
A similar architecture is used also for http://www.salzburgcongress.at/de/, a
website totally dedicated to business tourism. Cloud services that are the basis of
this front-end instrument include data on how to access to the conference centre and
the hotel services, on how to attend a meeting or scheduled conferences. The
website is designed to be used by any device and the real innovation is the use of 3D
technology to show in virtual reality the centre and its many features. A similar
smart tool is able to improve the experience co-creation: the use of virtual reality
fully involves the potential user in the tourism product and the website allows each
user to create his own experience by choosing the meeting room and several services
to support the event: equipment, catering, etc. The website also allows the
sharing of photos and video accessing to Facebook via the website link or using the
speciﬁc App.
Another technological tool that contributes to the smartcitization process of
Salzburg is the SalzburgCard, a smartcard with a microchip that stores the services
purchased. It is a tool developed in the Available Packages dimension, but acts also
on Access, Attractions and Activities dimensions, as is based on a paymentintegration
system which includes integrated tickets for public transport and the
main attractions of Salzburg; in addition, the smartcard allows to beneﬁt of
discounts on tourism tours, events and exhibitions. The SalzburgCard is based on
the use of Cloud Services, which are essential to favour the integration of services
and the exchange of information among the actors involved in the system. Tourists
may not only choose from a wide range of basic services of the card, but may also
integrate them with other custom services, actively participating in the deﬁnition of
their visit and in the co-creation of their experience while are on-site.
The third category of tools that improve smart tourism in Salzburg is represented
by the applications (Apps), as in many smart cities.
The strategic choice of Salzburg’s tourism governance is based on the provision
of a wide range of Apps (almost 50)—not only institutional—among which the
tourist may express her/his preferences, taking into account both the moment of use
and her/his needs.
On Table 4, Apps have been grouped into ﬁve groups. The ﬁrst group is about
interactive maps of the city; the second group contains Apps of interactive travel
guides; the third group contains Apps exclusively dedicated to the ﬁgure of Mozart;
308 P. Buonincontri, R. Micera
123
ﬁnally, the last two Apps are analysed separately, as they may not be classiﬁed as
maps or travel guides.
Seven Apps are dedicated to maps and contain geo-referred artistic and cultural
sites, as well as geographical information on accommodation and other amenities.
Twelve Apps are, instead, dedicated to interactive guides, allowing the access to
geo-referred points of interest (POI); the Apps allow also to create and book custom
itineraries. These applications act on the access, attractions, activities and amenities
dimensions and increase the level of tourism experience co-creation thanks to the
use of IoT (in particular, QRcode and RFID technologies), a cloud computing
service which allow to share information, and the opportunity to access to them by
mobile end-user devices.
These technological tools encourage the interaction between the user and the
destination, providing the opportunity to co-create a custom experience with
tourism and cultural actors on the territory. Some Apps also allow the use of 3D
technology, encouraging a total immersion in the experience both in the pre-travel
and on-site phases. Furthermore, the Apps about maps allow to book trips and tours
by comparing different possible solutions, and Apps about interactive guides allow
to include or exclude POIs depending on tourist’s own needs. Both the typologies of
Apps provide the opportunity to share tips and recommendations; some Apps have
the ‘‘travelogue’’ function, which allows to create and share pictures, videos and
emotions about the lived experience.
The third group of Apps is dedicated to Mozart and develops on the Attractions
dimension; these Apps can be downloaded using QRcodes, and all the content is
stored on-line thanks to a cloud computing service. Tourists may be involved in the
co-creation of their experiences by directly interacting with providers of services
related to the Austrian composer; by immersing themselves in virtual reality spaces;
by choosing the favourite lyrics and music to listen during the tours; by sharing the
experience through easy-access to social media. Finally, other two Apps have been
investigated. The Salzburger Mittagsplaner App is an application developed in the
Amenities dimension; it is dedicated to restaurants, pubs, bistros and cafes of the old
town of Salzburg. It may be accessible by several mobile end-user devices, is based
on a cloud platform and involves the use of QRcodes and RFIDs. It has a positive
role on the experience co-creation, as allows to tourists to directly interact with the
providers and to actively intervene in the experience, by choosing seats and
deciding what to eat. Furthermore, the application contains functions to share the
experience, exchanging opinions and preferences with other users.
The last App, named Toozla, is not institutional but is equally interesting for the
study of experience co-creation since encourages an immersive approach, allowing
tourists to walk streets and visit places accompanied by tales. This App, developed
on the Activities dimension with a smart approach—with cloud computing services
and IoT—stimulates active participation in the experience thanks to the opportunity
that tourists have to choose among several tales that characterize the different places
to visit, basing the choice on personal preferences.
In the study of tourism experience co-creation, it is also important to include, in
addition to these technological innovations, the fundamental role of the infrastructure
provided by public and private actors: ‘‘We have implemented free WLAN on
The experience co-creation in smart tourism destinations… 309
123
various tourism hot spots and in various sights and museums’’. There are, in fact,
many places in the city that allow free access to the public on line network without
the need to enter personal data and ensuring maximum safety.
4.3 Comparison between Venice and Salzburg as STDs
Venice and Salzburg have been chosen for the empirical analysis due to their
relevant positions (respectively, 1 and 2 out of 77) in the ranking of smart cities
classiﬁed on the basis of the domain Touristic Attractiveness, which is part of the
smart living dimension according to the European Smart City Index. Although their
good positions in this ranking, the two cities present very different positions in the
European Smart City Index by the Wien University of Technology, the Delft
University of Technology, and the University of Ljubljana. According to this
ranking, which is the result of a standardized combination of six dimensions of
smartness divided into 28 domains and measured by 81 indicators, Salzburg ranks
10 out of 77, while Venice ranks 46 out of 77. Salzburg, therefore, is one of the
top10 European smart cities of medium size, while Venice is in the medium–low
positions of the ranking. It underlines a more advanced commitment of Salzburg in
the development of smart strategies able to encompass multiple aspects of the city,
from the mobility, to the governance, to the environment, to the economy, to the
people and the general aspects of life. Venice, instead, is not still strong in the
development of a smart approach able to encompass all the aspects of the city: it
presents negative value of smartness in the dimensions Smart people, smart
governance, and smart environment. Its importance as cultural tourist destination
reﬂects in the adoption of a smart approach almost exclusively in the dimension
smart living, associated to the domains touristic attractiveness and cultural facilities.
Despite that, results show that, also in the tourism context, Salzburg presents a
more advanced level of smartness compared to Venice.
The smart strategy of Salzburg as STD is based on a unique tool—the ofﬁcial
tourism website—in which are gathered all the technological tools able to improve
the tourism experience, also those not managed by the city administration. The
technological tools are quite equally developed on the six dimensions of the
destination. In particular, the smart strategy applied by Salzburg focuses mainly on
the enhancement of activities, but great importance is also dedicated to access,
amenities, and attractions. Less attention, instead, is dedicated to ancillary services
and available packages. As regards Venice, the dimensions attractions and amenities
are currently insufﬁciently implemented from a technological point of view, making
the visit still related to a traditional approach. This weakness could be overcome
through technological tools that allow tourists to experience the cultural resources in
an innovative way, such as, for example, the augmented reality, the creation of
kinect stations, the use of innovative glasses in closed spaces, or the establishment
of touch-screen panels and innovative displays in open spaces. The main effort of
smart approach in Venice is concentrated on the dimension Access, with the
development of several technological tools. It is due to the fact that two of the most
relevant peculiarities of the city are its lagoon and its small streets, which reduce the
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use of cars, making necessary the use of ferry boats and bikes, and allowing the
development of smart strategies related to these more sustainable transports.
Findings show that Salzburg’s smart strategy is able also to cover all the tourism
experience process, supporting the experience before, during, and after the visit,
even if it devotes less attention to the pre-travel phase. This is due to the fact that
Salzburg has focused its strategy to a great extent on Apps, which are generally used
during the visit, or after it. Technology implemented in Venice, instead, is able to
enhance especially the on-site phase. The Municipality has ﬁrst of all realised its
proprietary network of ﬁbre optics, broadband, and WiFi, with the purpose of
allowing its tourists and citizens to be on line at each moment and in every place of
the city; secondly, it has realized and supported the majority of the technological
tools able to enhance the experience of visit in the city. However, Venice does not
pay sufﬁcient attention to the post-travel phase: only VeneziaUnica App and the
IRIS system are developed to share photos, information, and alerts also after the
visit. It is a big weakness in the smart approach of Venice: the post-travel is one of
the most important phases of tourism experience, being the moment in which the
tourist reﬂects, forms her/his opinions, creates her/his memories and decides to
come back and to spread a positive or negative word of mouth, which widely
inﬂuences the destination image.
With respect to the way in which the smart approach adopted by STDs may
improve the co-creation of tourism experiences, it is important to underline that
almost all the tools implemented by Salzburg support the experience co-creation:
almost all the Apps, websites, and other services favour a direct contact of tourists
with the local tourism providers, stimulate an active participation to the experience,
and encourage users to share the experience with other individuals, by posting
reviews and comments, uploading photos and videos, or allowing the geolocalization.
The smart approach implemented by the Municipality of Venice has
not yet a so strong impact on the experience co-creation level. Nevertheless, it has a
positive impact, especially as regards the active participation of tourists: almost all
the technological tools facilitate an active role of tourists, which may intervene in
the co-creation of a more personalized experience thanks to the opportunity to
choose among different options. Policy makers of Venice should favour the
diffusion of new technologies in the hospitality system able to promote a direct
interaction with the demand side, and should encourage the promotion of innovative
services related to souvenirs and local products. The case of Venice also revealed a
weakness in the use of technology related to the opportunity of sharing the
experience. It is a relevant problem, as sharing the tourism experience is a strategic
way to spread the image of the destination to other potential visitors: it is
fundamental that policy makers and DMOs of Venice consider tools enabling the
tourists to share in real time and also after the visit their experience, opinions and
emotions, both through text and images. In this way, they would become
testimonials of the tourism experience at destination and would collaborate to
strengthen its competitiveness. Furthermore, through the information and images
that tourists share with others, the DMOs could know more about the tourists’
behaviour and their level of satisfaction, improving the weaknesses and focusing in
the communication of the more valued resources and services.
The experience co-creation in smart tourism destinations… 311
123
It has to be underlined that both Salzburg and Venice are committing their efforts
and resources in the construction and promotion of a competitive STD and that the
analysed initiatives are not single and separated tools realized in a disorganized
way, but are the result of a careful and focused administrative strategy.
Both the cities recognize technology a fundamental driver for tourism: ‘‘My
opinion is that if we do not use technology, we may also close with tourism [in
Venice]. Real and virtual elements have to talk to each other, it is no more possible
to develop only real or only technological aspects’’; ‘‘[…] we are living in a fast
world driven by new technologies offering new applications almost every day’’.
5 Discussion and conclusion
In an attempt to contribute to advancements in the smart destination and experience
co-creation literatures, the present work aims at explaining the way in which
technological components in a STD may improve the co-creation of tourism
experiences.
The study was conducted on two European STD best practices—Venice and
Salzburg—through a multiple cases analysis triangulating public documents,
information from tourism web sites, and in-depth interviews realized with keyinformants
involved in the development of smart tourism strategies of the
destinations.
The empirical analysis started from the individuation of the main features that
characterize the cities as destinations, by using the 6A’s framework by Buhalis
(2000). Subsequently, the smart strategies enabled by the cities have been
investigated, as well as the main technological tools according to a smart approach,
and their role in enhancing the experience co-creation.
The empirical analysis developed through the application of the elaborated
interpretative framework to the two case studies, reveals that Venice and Salzburg
used cloud computing services, IoT and end-user internet service systems to develop
several technological tools able to enhance the experience co-creation of their
tourists. Findings also show a positive inﬂuence of the smart approach adopted by
the two destinations on the tourism experience co-creation: the technological tools
implemented by Salzburg and Venice in the dimensions which characterize a
destination are able to improve direct interaction, to encourage active participation,
and to support the sharing of the experience with a wide network of subjects.
These results are interesting both at theoretical and managerial level.
Theoretical implications of the study are related to the investigation of the role of
smart technologies in inﬂuencing the experience co-creation in tourism. The
interpretative framework elaborated is useful to understand the link between the six
dimensions of the destination, the smart components of a destination, and the
antecedents of the experience co-creation: the active participation of tourists, the
interaction with service providers, and the sharing of the experience with other
subjects. It may be considered a starting point to better understand the role of smart
technologies in the experience co-creation: ﬁndings, in fact, reveal that the
experience co-creation may be implemented using the smart technological
312 P. Buonincontri, R. Micera
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components in one or more of the six’As destination dimensions, during one or
more phases of the experience process, and improving the interaction, the active
participation, or the sharing of their tourists. Destinations can also strategically
decide to focus on one of these co-creation antecedents, in order to generate positive
effects on the co-creation. However, the co-creation experience is strongest, if
destination supply system, in a coordinate way, decides to apply smart technological
components in all the six’As, during all the experience process, acting on all the
three co-creation antecedents. Furthermore, ﬁndings show also that a territory that
adopts a smart approach in all its aspects is able to develop a more successful smart
approach at tourism level.
The study presents also practical implications. The proposed interpretative
framework, in fact, may be considered a useful tool for policy makers and
destination managers to understand the level of smartness of a destination. Policy
makers may use it to individuate how dimensions of a destination may be improved
by a smart point of view, and which technologies have to be used to enhance a
speciﬁc co-creation antecedent. Furthermore, the framework may be used to
individuate the strengths and weaknesses of the smart approach implemented by a
destination and to compare the effectiveness of a smart strategy with those of
competitors.
Further research needs to be done in order to improve the proposed framework.
Due to the explorative nature of this study, quantitative studies will be carried out in
the future, aimed at investigating how much a smart approach inﬂuences the tourism
experience co-creation and at conﬁrming the direct interaction with tourism services
providers, the active participation, and the sharing of the experience as main
‘‘antecedents’’ of the experience co-creation. Also surveys on the tourists will be
conducted in the future, in order to compare the study results with the perceptions of
tourists and to demonstrate the role of smartness in inﬂuencing the tourism
experience co-creation. Furthermore, future research will be dedicated to study
other cases of STDs according to the proposed framework.
At any rate, this initial research hopes to open new paths of enquiry and to
generate advancements on experience co-creation in tourism, especially in STDs.
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