Rural smart tourism destinations co-created by the local community The case of the Spain River Valley, Villaviciosa, Asturias

Abstract

The Spain River Valley with a marked rural character and recognized environmental and cultural value, deals with the challenge of depopulation and its multiple implications. Their economic diversification through the development of smart tourist destinations (DTI) can play a key role addressing these challenges. The objective of this work is to involve the local community in the creation of a DTI. Therefore, in this study, Territorial Intelligence was used as a method and territorial living labs as an application tool. The previous creation of an intergenerational space as a place for exchanging information and establishing new governance methods was key to recovering and digitalizing the Valley`s resources. In this sense, a collaborative web platform based on the information collected by neighbors was developed as a digital information repository. The implementation of the DTI was achieved by establishing a network that consists of tourist interest points with the most outstanding resources. These points are associated with a QR code that links to the information collected by neighbors on the collaborative web platform. In this way, neighbors become protagonists of their own history and scriptwriters of the territorial story that they want to tell the visitors of their Valley.

Keywords:

smart tourism, territorial intelligence, living lab, governance, intergenerational classroom, rural landscape

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