European Capitals of Smart Tourism – A New Direction in Tourism Research

Tourism is an important activity both globally and in the European Union (EU). Although the COVID-19 pandemic hit tourism hard, the sector was able to recover in a relatively short period of time. Smart tourism took a strong lead during the pandemic, demonstrating that it is responding to new challenges and adapting quickly to change. In 2018, the EU launched the smart tourism capital competition, encouraging cities to find new solutions to help attract more tourists and improve the quality of life of residents. The city designated as a smart tourism capital can benefit from some advantages from EU specialists, such as more intense promotion through different media channels in order to make the destination better known and thus attract more tourists. The aim of this paper is to investigate possible correlations between the number of tourists visiting cities designated as smart tourism capitals and the popularity gained as a result of acquiring this status. The paper presents quantitative research based on secondary sources. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested using SPSS software. The main results that could have implications for the field revealed that: 1) the attractiveness of a destination is determined by its cultural heritage tourism potential; 2) higher investments in research lead to an increase in the number of patents in the field of new technologies (including smart technologies) and to improving tourism activity in EU cities to attract more tourists, grow the local economy and better the quality of life of residents.