The Making of Data-Driven Sustainable Smart City Communities in Holiday Destinations

Cities are often multi-cultural and multi-ethnic melting pots with strong ecological resources that make them dynamic urban tourism destinations. Driven by digital and green technologies, today’s cities are becoming smarter and sustainable, attracting a new generation of digitally savvy yet ecologically conscious travellers. This study provides a conceptual overview of the connection between technology and sustainability in urban tourism contexts. Firstly, it provides an understanding on the mainly identified dimensions of sustainability in urban tourism contexts—urban ecotourism, food tourism, urban culturescapes and smart transport. These dimensions encompass types of attractions that reflect ecological and social sustainability in urban tourism contexts. Secondly, the dimensions of technologies applied in urban tourism contexts have been discussed, which includes Wi-Fi- and data-connectivity-enabled social media and user-generated content at attraction sites, gamification opportunities in urban tourism sites, mobile-based learning opportunities, green energy technologies and green/soft mobility technologies. The underlying strong interconnections and inter-relationships between technology and sustainability in terms of digital learning experiences for tourists, soft mobility technologies and state-of-the-art green technologies embedded in urban ecotourism attractions, as well as collaborative and co-creative tourist practices enabled by social media, have been broadly discussed.