Conceptual framework of smartness of urban tourism destinations; A meta-synthesis approach

The rapid development of technology in tourism and the emergence of smart tourism, has attracted the attention of managers and policy makers of tourism destinations to the opportunities created by implementing smart strategy at the tourism destinations. Accordingly, a new typology of destinations has emerged that is referred to the smart tourism destination. This research seeks to provide a conceptual framework in which the components and factors of smartness at urban tourism destinations are identified and explained. Therefore, in order to create a deep understanding of the characteristics, factors and how to implement smartness in urban tourism destinations, a qualitative and interpretive approach was adopted and a meta-synthesis method was used to collect and integrate previous researches. The results showed that the concepts of smartness in tourism destinations can be categorized into three categories: macro factors, micro or system factors and smartness attribute aspects. Another finding of this research that distinguishes it from other researches is the identification of three key features in providing a smartness framework for tourism destinations. These three features include considering the intelligent components in the tourism system, considering the urban dimension of urban tourism destinations that is also the place of residence of residents, in addition to providing services to tourists, and finally, considering the smart features of urban destinations in two aspects, including effectiveness, sustainability, equity and greater viability of cities, and being instrumental, interconnected and smarter with the use of technology basis to improve the performance of all stakeholders in urban tourism destinations.