Smart Tourism Ecosystems

Dr. Ulrike Gretzel

Ecosystem Perspective

• Community of interacting organisms and their environment

• Death, birth, evolution• A digital ecosystem is a distributed, adaptive,

open socio-technical system with properties of:– self-organisation, – scalability and – sustainability

Systems Theory• Self-regulation• Adaptive: stimuli/feedback

• System boundaries• Size• Equilibrium

Actor Network Theory

• Maps relations that are simultaneously material (between things) and semiotic (between concepts)

• Assumes actors can be non-human• Agency located in heterogeneous associations

between human and non-human actors• Intermediary – input passes through; Mediator –

input is substantially transformed

Value Networks• Value co-creation and co-consumption• What value for whom? • With whom?

Smart• Quick thought, able, apt• Programmed to be capable of independent

action (smart weapon)

Smart Cities• Investments in human and social capital and traditional

(transport) and modern (ICT) communication infrastructure fuel sustainable economic development and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory action and engagement (Caragliu et al. 2009).

• Smart cities can be identified along six main dimensions:– a smart economy– smart mobility– a smart environment– smart people– smart living– smart governance