Sustainability-oriented Innovation in Smart Tourism: Challenges and Pitfalls of Technology Deployment for Sustainable Destinations

This book combines research on technology-driven and social-driven innovation in tourism destinations and the multifaceted concept of sustainability, providing an integrative understanding of the nexus between smartness and sustainability within destinations. It engages theoretically and empirically with the research question of how, and to what extent, smart technologies drive tourism innovation focussed on sustainability. Although innovation and technology are widely considered the way to sustainable tourism growth, further studies need to size the role of technology and critically address modalities, challenges, opportunities and pitfalls of technology deployment in rebalancing tourism disequilibria within local systems. Local, national, and supranational policymakers’ attention to technology investments, the widening technological frontiers, and the enthusiasm for new technological opportunities to build, manage, and market destinations suggest the relevance of this research agenda.  

This book provides scholars, postgraduate students, and practitioners with conceptual and empirical insights into smart solutions and innovative destination models for multi-stakeholder engagement to manage and address tourism impacts and imbalances. The book outlines scenarios of sustainability-oriented innovation, encompassing and intertwining technological, social, human, and cultural co-drivers as the necessary conditions for smart technologies to enhance sustainable destinations effectively and improve human wellbeing and societal development. 

Cecilia Pasquinelli, PhD (e-mail: cecilia.pasquinelli@uniparthenope.it), is an Associate Professor of Economics and Business Management at the Department of Management and Quantitative Studies, University of Naples Parthenope, Italy. She obtained her PhD in Management, Competitiveness and Development at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Italy). She previously worked as a researcher in the GSSI Cities, Gran Sasso Science Institute in L’Aquila, Italy and in the Department of Social and Economic Geography at Uppsala University, Sweden, where she joined the Centre for Research on Innovation and Industrial Dynamics. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Place Management and Development (Emerald). She is a senior fellow at the Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) and an affiliate professor at the Institute of Management, Scuola Sant’Anna (Italy). She developed several action research projects on tourism development, local sustainable development and innovation policies in collaboration with local, regional and national authorities. Her research interests include place branding, sustainable tourism and urban overtourism, sustainable destination management, smart tourism, place of origin, local and regional development. Her work was published in various international peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Urban Studies, Cities, Environment Planning Studies, Regional Studies, Marketing Theory, and Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management. She co-edited the book Tourism in the City. Towards an Integrative Agenda on Urban Tourism, Springer. She developed experience as a consultant in place marketing and foreign direct investment promotion, working at OCO Global Ltd. in Paris (France). 

Mariapina Trunfio, PhD (e-mail: trunfio@uniparthenope.it), is Associate Professor of Economics and Business Management and Director of the Master in Tourism & Hospitality Management at the University of Naples “Parthenope” in Italy. She teaches Management of tourism enterprises and International Service Management. She was Scientific Director of several Innovative Tourism Research Projects and Tourism Strategic Plan and Member of diverse Scientific Advisory Boards in Tourism and Hospitality Innovation, including the Advisory Boards of BTO (Be Travel Onlife)-Digital Strategy. Her current research focuses on tourism innovation, smart destination, destination management and governance, local development, overtourism and sustainable development, cultural heritage and creativity, augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality, metaverse, cultural diversity and entrepreneurship. She extensively published over 100 papers in leading journals, monographs, book chapters and conference papers in these areas. She received several international best papers awards.