Smart tourism and local heritage: phygital experiences and the development of geotourism routes

Abstract

Contemporary society is sustained by a growing digitalization of social processes, with exponential growth in the uses of ICT, which opened up new interaction possibilities with objects and places. In the field of tourism, these technological developments have given rise to the emergence of new concepts: smart tourism, smart destinations, smart experiences, and smart heritage. These concepts and their implications for the success of tourist activities are discussed first, and then the focus of analysis is shifted to the local tourism resources and characteristics. The case study focuses on the municipality of São Pedro do Sul, an area located in the Viseu Dão Lafões subregion, within the Central Region of Portugal. Several low-cost digital strategies are proposed to enrich tourism activities based on endogenous cultural and natural resources and empower route tourism as a relevant strategy for diversifying tourism and support the sustainable development of local communities based on a digital application that aims to integrate storytelling in the territorial context under study.