Are Small Towns Smart Destinations?

Abstract

Like any other destination, small towns engage in strong competition with one another and with other destinations to attract investments, maintain and attract highly skilled employees, and become appealing and well-liked tourist destinations. Creativity and the adoption of innovations are crucial in such cases, as technology has directly influenced destination development. In their smart transformation journey, local economies need to expand their business environment, focus on sustainable development, and take advantage of the available new technologies, which, together, enhance local economic growth and job creation. The authors focus on assessing the smart development of 16 Romanian small towns, once the concepts “smart destinations” and “smart tourism” are defined. Several approaches were used to acquire data and verify the existence of a link between the destinations’ smart transformation and their tourism activity and performance. The main findings lead to the conclusion that in the case of small towns, their recognition as successful tourism destinations enhances their smart transformation. However, in these cases, the process is even more delayed than in the case of the Romanian county residencies and counties, which also lag behind other European destinations. The research findings lead to the following conclusions. The development of tourism and hospitality services generates more financial resources, which can support destinations to improve their quality of life and turn toward smart and sustainable development. Furthermore, tourism has the potential to enhance destination orientation in this respect exactly due to the smart and sustainable orientation of the tourists. Small-performing tourist destinations feature professionalized strategic thinking and planning.