Stakeholders’ Synergies in Developing Smart Tourism Destination. A Phenomenographic Study

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the stakeholders' synergies in realising smart tourism destination. This study uses a qualitative method with a phenomenography approach. We adopted stakeholders' theory to valued stakeholder roles and perception in pursuing sustainability, competitiveness and managing smart tourism destination in Wonosobo, Indonesia. In-depth interviews with five main stakeholders' namely local government, media, tourism business, tourism community, and travel bloggers followed by three phenomenography qualitative data analysis stages. The findings have revealed some obstacles in implementing smart tourism from stakeholders' perspectives, such as human resource's ability, stakeholders' synergy, and government support. This study has also revealed six factors: public system development, digital promotion, Internet infrastructure, public and private sectors partnership, and human resources development to support smart tourism. This study has proposed the strategic plan for the local government to support smart tourism destinations, namely: partnerships, government support, human resource’s ability, and tourism business competitiveness, that will lead to smart tourism destinations. This study has provided a framework and managerial implication accordingly.

Smart tourism: the role and synergies of stakeholders

“…Synergy between stakeholders when implementing smart tourism Hidayah et al (2022) argues that cooperation in smart tourism destination development should occur between internal stakeholders, e.g. tourism and hospitality companies (i.e.…”

“…The following six categories are subordinate to the four dimensions: cooperation leadership and government compactness (partnership); government involvement; knowledge of the development of smart tourism and human resources (human capacity) and tourism business competitiveness. The micro-environment, which includes social and cultural conditions and the macro-environment of the destination, including technologies, ecology, economic and political conditions, are also likely to influence the pace of smart tourism adoption in the future (Hidayah et al, 2022). Buhalis (2020) and Hidayah and Suherlan (2020) suggested that the use of smart tourism destination concepts requires stakeholders that are interconnected with supportive technology platforms.…”

“…neurosystems. In addition, tourism destination management requires the involvement of stakeholders such as private companies, the government, the community and residents (Hidayah et al, 2022). Synergy between tourism stakeholders involves the necessary elements, benefits, product characteristics, operational approaches, resources and competitive capabilities to survive and thrive (Deardorff and Williams, 2006;Feyers et al, 2020;Ye et al, 2021).…”

“…Implementing the concept of a smart tourism destination faces many obstacles, e.g. a lack of synergy between stakeholders whose interests are not always consistent with each other (Hidayah et al ., 2022). In smart tourism, any stakeholder is a player whose goal is to interact and assess resources with other actors for the purpose of value creation.…”

“…the public and private sectors, the community, residents and tourists. The stakeholders pursue different goals and at the same time are interdependent, recognizing their common interests, creativity and benefits from developing and implementing their ideas (Hidayah et al ., 2022).…”