The experience co-creation in smart tourism destinations: a multiple case analysis of European destinations

In the last years, destinations have started to redefine their role and theirentrepreneurial logics, involving tourists as active co-creators of their own experiencesand considering new technologies as the main tools for defining tourismproducts. It implies the birth of a new kind of destinations, the smart tourismdestinations (STDs), in which new technologies are so extensively embedded toinfluence tourism experiences, enhance destinations' competitiveness and favourtourism development projects. Starting from these considerations, the main purposeof this paper is to contribute to the recent debate on innovation in tourism, byproposing an interpretative framework able to explain the way in which technologicalcomponents 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 approachadopted by STDs improves the co-creation of tourism experiences by encouragingthe 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 makerson how they should use innovative technologies in STDs to improve the experienceco-creation.