Residents’ Involvement in Urban Tourism Planning: Opportunities from a Smart City Perspective

In this paper, we speculate that new advances in technologies will reshape tourism planning and residents engagement in many ways which subsequently will help cities to work towards sustainable urban planning practices. The paper addresses the question how should destinations prepare themselves for being ‘smart’ and responsive to co-participative tourism planning? The paper reviews the most relevant literature on the topics of resident’s attitude towards tourism, residents’ involvement and smart cities. Furthermore, examples are provided of cities who through the implementation of smart principles, plan specific domains in their cities with their residents. Important questions related to managerial challenges and residents-related challenges and set a general research avenues are set out. City planners can use this paper to start designing their strategies to effectively involve and collaborate with residents at the intersection of ICT and tourism in their cities.