SMART CITIES TO SMART TOURISM DESTINATIONS: A REVIEW PAPER

The terms smart cities and smart tourism destinations has become extremely popular in the last decade. The study explores the buzzwords smart cities and smart tourism destinations and the relationship between them. The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on smart cities and smart tourism destinations. The study specially focuses on reviewing concepts of smart cities and smart tourism destinations and also the linkages between them. The author has adopted the literature review approach for the fulfillment of the objective of the study. Various journals, books, research work and reports were studied for reviewing the current research and to also reflect on the future research. The detailed literature discussed in this paper suggests the concept of smart city does not stand on its own and is closely associated with smart tourism. In fact smart cities act as a ladder for the establishment of smart tourism destinations. Smart tourism destinations are smart cities which utilize the information technology and innovations to enable pleasure, and experiences for the tourist. The findings of the study imply that smart tourism is a fundamental part of the smart cities. This study will help in understanding the present scenario of growing popularity of smart cities in India, as it is the need of the hour to make and execute sustainable plans for the development of smart cities, which will ultimately lead the way to smart tourism destinations.