Smart tourism to take part in sustainable development

By Gozde Bayar and Fatih Hafiz Mehmet

ANKARA (AA) - Smart tourism will enable tourist destinations where sustainable development will be possible, an expert said on Thursday.

Speaking in a seminar in Ankara's Bilkent University, instructor Mustafa Siyahhan addressed a newly emerging phenomenon called smart tourism.

"A smart tourism destination can be defined as an innovative tourism destination based on an extremely developed technological infrastructure," he explained.

A retired personnel of Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry, Siyahhan said a smart tourism destination will enable the creation of tourist sites where sustainable development is possible.

He said these sites will be open to the access of anyone and make the communication and integration of visitors with their environment easier.

At these sites, quality of tourists' experience with the destination will be increased, according to Siyahhan.

He also said that the sites will also help to increase the life quality of the local population.

The smart tourism includes smart tourism experiences which enable tourists to communicate and interact more during their trip, said the instructor, adding, tourists can enrich their smart tourism experiences by using technology.

Giving an example, Siyahhan said active tourists share their photos on Instagram by using hashtags of the destinations which they visited.

Tourists can also use the information about the destinations which they obtained from their smart devices, he added.

An active tourist is the main actor of this experience, according to Siyahhan.

In this context, an active tourist is not only the user of the information but also the producer, interpreter and the supporter of the knowledge, he said.