Smart tourism destinations really make sustainable cities: Benidorm as a case study

Purpose Tourism sustainability is a challenge for 21st-century destinations – this paper aims to analyse smart destinations' sustainability through a case study of Benidorm, the first world destination to be certified under the UNE 178501 standard as smart tourism destination (STD). Design/methodology/approach The methodological component has been divided into developing a framework for measuring sustainability through economic, social and environmental open data. Moreover, studying the plan's contribution “Benidorm, Destino Turístico Inteligente y Sostenible” to the city's sustainability through a time series analysis. Findings The main contribution shows that Benidorm's transformation into an STD leads to more sustainable cities. Thus, the conversion of Benidorm into an STD has a sustained effect in the medium and long term, contributing to the sustainability of the city. Research limitations/implications An open question as a limitation is the subjectivity of the distribution of the relative weight of each indicator. However, statistical analyses are developed to explore the relationship between indicators and global sustainability. Practical implications The debate to contextualise this paper is bridging the gap between sustainability and tourism intelligence, giving an original framework for measuring destination sustainability that provides a reasonable starting point for comparing tourism sustainability in different destinations. Social implications Tourists in the 21st century prefer environmentally friendly tourism. Marketing campaigns based on destination sustainability must be based on data rather than mere slogans. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the originality of this paper provides a flexible framework for measuring sustainability from open data sources, being one of the first empirical analyses to study the effects on the sustainability of converting a mature destination into an STD.