Innovation Management for the development of Smart tourism destinations

2023 was the year of definitive recovery for the tourism sector, with the return of international travelers and sales shares higher than in 2019. According to a study on companies, as many as 7 out of 10 say they closed the year with balance sheet profits. Nevertheless, today it is necessary to work on the continuous regeneration of the existing, through the involvement of all the players in the tourism system and in a logic that takes into account the base, height and depth of the organizations involved in the tourism supply chain. For this reason, the tourist offer must continuously adapt to changes, welcoming suggestions and enhancing territorial resources. Puglia, in particular, must be able to innovate and offer the traveler emotions and experiences that convince him to prefer it, as a destination, to any other region, and in this phase of territorial production and promotion, tourist semantics plays a role of fundamental importance, storytelling through which to communicate villages, places and products of excellence, Because around our heritage of resources there is a world to tell, emotions to communicate, unknown locations to discover and tourist services to use. In this context, Innovation Management is fundamental, a discipline that deals with managing and promoting innovation within an organization, which plays a key role in the development of Smart Tourism Destination by helping to identify and implement innovative solutions that improve the tourist experience and make destination management more efficient. In addition, through the technological innovation of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, innovation management generates numerous opportunities to review the processes and methods of providing services to end users. For this reason, the ITS course “Innovation Management for the development of Smart tourism destinations” intends to provide both the methodological approaches and the practical aspects to ensure this continuous process of regeneration of tourism proposals, starting from the understanding of the customer, through data preparation skills, data analysis and identification and enhancement of technological and digital solutions useful for the integration of resources and services of companies and territories. The goal is to make tradition and innovation coexist, recalling the European strategy of Smart Villages, which has taken on a value “as an opportunity for economic, social and cultural development that makes innovation the pivot of its organization, leveraging the issues of the environment, accessibility and sustainability”.

the Technician is a sort of “developer and harmonizer of services in the wider network of tourism organizations” of differentiated and collaborative offer, he/she intervenes by homogenizing the processes, the methods of the offer between the different structures involved in the network and the proposed image, with the aim of making the experiences of fruition of the tourist resources of an area emotionally attractive and narratable, helping to build an evocative image of places and paths. He/she is a multifunctional figure, characterized by a deep knowledge of the territory in which he operates, by strong communication and relational skills and by the ability to meet the needs of the tourist, creating the most favorable situations. The figure to be trained is able to apply specialized information technologies that allow first of all the acquisition, management, analysis and visualization of territorial or geographical data, andmust know how to use enabling technologies, such as those related to Augmented and Virtual Reality, in order to make the story of heritage and culture more immersive, sensory and customizable through the development of information and tourist reception processes in the context of new generation info points.

Course participants will be able to:

• collect the information necessary to identify the possibilities of collaboration in the local area
• raise awareness and involve institutional partners and stakeholders
• communicate the value of networking, organize the provision of services and their promotion
• facilitate the implementation of actions in the field
• apply context-aware technologies to offer services at the basis of e-tourism,
• set up a network of people/companies and work in consultation
• coordinate animation and product policies on the territory
• evaluate the internal processes of the network to improve its performance and management efficiency
• support industry and consumer behavior forecasting and analysis processes through knowledge of data preparation and data-driven design activities
• carry out economic and financial management activities and take care of administrative and bureaucratic aspects
• plan and implement online communication and digital marketing strategies and use tools related to the most advanced 4.0 technologies
• manage relationships with the various distribution channels, marketing and suppliers