Application of Smart Tourism to Nature-Based Destinations

Introduction

Tourism has become one of the largest economic sectors in the world, carrying new challenges in managing its impacts on society. The management of the tourism sector is at a crucial moment of its development, being essential to answer effectively to the profound changes felt in diverse fields. Increasing competition among destinations, technological evolution, globalization, improved accessibility, strong growth and diversification of demand and changes in tourist profiles, among others, have led to new challenges and consequent review of planning towards more sustainable development models (Chazaud, 2004). This new development paradigm is based on sustained changes within the pillars of sustainability (Hall & Lew, 1998), innovation (Florida, 2002), technology (Cernat & Gourdon, 2007), competitiveness (Ritchie & Crouch, 2000), and tourism experiences (Pine & Gilmore, 1998).

The increasing competitiveness between destinations promotes the urgency of new and restructured models, leading destinations to value their quality and authenticity, and investing in both product diversification and specialization, depending on the potential of the territories and their strategic products (Silva, 2013). In this context, it is important to stimulate flexibility, segmentation and customization of supply and competitiveness within territories, products and businesses.

Among the greatest challenges of tourism development is the response to tensions between the strong growth of tourist demand and the emergency of a supply driven to satisfy the needs of individual visitors or small groups as an alternative to large-scale models (Novelli, 2005), while reinforcing the link between tourists and socio-cultural and natural heritage (Kastenholz, 2009). In this sense, the increased tourist pressure on main destinations, also creates an opportunity to low density and demand territories to affirm as escape spaces of more authentic experiences. Niche markets emerge as an opportunity for innovation and empowerment of the territorial development process, suggesting the segmentation of a sophisticated set of practices that distinguish and differentiate tourists and products (Lopes, 2018; Novelli, 2005).

This segmentation emphasises the opportunity for development of many low-density peripheral territories that during the second half of the twentieth century saw their economy and demographic dynamics strongly altered. The emergence of tourism as an opportunity for development in many of these territories has become a reality and has brought new challenges. The rural and natural territories saw an opportunity to differentiate themselves by promotion customized products, while nature tourism became more attractive to urban societies. This premise was further valued with the growth of the ecological movement, the rising demand for nature and adventure sports and the increased culture of well-being among societies.

The growing interest in nature conservation and cultural heritage in recent decades has been expanded from small analysis focuses to an increasingly global and urgent expression (Pröbstl et al., 2010). These dynamics have been developed in parallel to a transformed tourism industry, assuming continued growth and expansion and justifying an interrelation between both areas, resulting in both negative and positive impacts felt by destinations. In fact, history and established practices have justified two opposing paradigms in protected areas’ management strategies – if the environment may suffer from visitation impacts, justifying conflicts and unbearable consequences, it may also gain from a productive and symbiotic work (Newsome, Moore & Dowling, 2013).