Advancing Beach Tourism
The Role of Smart Technology in Enhancing Attractiveness
Keywords:
Smart Beaches, Tourism Management, Smart Tourism Destination Scale, Sustainable Development, Beach Tourism
Abstract
This study explores the implementation of Smart Beach Parameters in Goa’s tourism industry to enhance the beach experience and support effective management and planning. As tourism evolves globally, the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) is crucial for sustaining competitiveness and promoting sustainable development. The research aims to develop a tailored Smart Tourism Destination Scale for Goa, focusing on five key factors—Amenities, Accessibility, Activities, Available Packages, and Ancillary Services—and their impact on the Attractiveness of beach destinations. A mixed-method approach, including a primary field survey, semi-structured interviews, participatory observation, and data analysis through SPSS, was employed to assess the significance of these factors. Findings indicate that Amenities, Accessibility, and Activities are pivotal in enhancing beach attractiveness, while Available Packages and Ancillary Services contribute to overall tourist satisfaction. The results provide practical insights for improving beach tourism management in Goa, offering a framework for integrating smart solutions that can attract both domestic and international tourists. The implications emphasize the need for dynamic technological platforms to improve beach management and tourist experiences. Future research is recommended to validate the developed scale using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and explore the integration of emerging technologies like AI, AR, and VR. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of smart tourism and provides actionable recommendations for enhancing the sustainability and competitiveness of beach destinations.
References
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Matthews, Y., Scarpa, R., & Marsh, D. (2018). Cumulative attraction and spatial dependence in a destination choice model for beach recreation. Tourism Management, 66, 318-328.
Mayordomo-Martínez, D., Sánchez-Aarnoutse, J. C., Carrillo-de-Gea, J. M., García-Berná, J. A., Fernández-Alemán, J. L., & García-Mateos, G. (2019). Design and development of a mobile app for accessible beach tourism information for people with disabilities. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(12), 2131.
Muthuraman, S., & Al Haziazi, M. (2019, March). Smart tourism destination-new exploration towards sustainable development in sultanate of Oman. In 2019 5th International Conference on Information Management (ICIM) (pp. 332-335). IEEE.
Needham, M. D., & Szuster, B. W. (2011). Situational influences on normative evaluations of coastal tourism and recreation management strategies in Hawai’i. Tourism Management, 32(4), 732-740.
Öztüren, A., Kilic, H., Olorunsola, V. O., & Osumeje, B. O. (2021). Managing natural tourism attractions based on visitor reviews: a case study of Golden Beach, Karpaz. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 13(4), 535-544.
Pantiyasa, I. W., & Prabawati, N. P. D. (2020). Tourism Satisfaction Analysis of Tourism Packages as Tourism Products in Paksebali Village, Klungkung, Bali. Journal of Business on Hospitality and Tourism, 6(2), 390-400.
Pascoe, S. (2019). Recreational beach use values with multiple activities. Ecological Economics, 160, 137-144.
Perch-Nielsen, S. L. (2010). The vulnerability of beach tourism to climate change—an index approach. Climatic change, 100(3), 579-606.
Polnyotee, M., & Thadaniti, S. (2015). Community-based tourism: A strategy for sustainable tourism development of Patong Beach, Phuket Island, Thailand. Asian Social Science, 11(27), 90.
Pröll, B., Retschitzegger, W., & Wagner, R. R. (1999). Holiday packages on the Web. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 1999: Proceedings of the International Conference in Innsbruck, Austria, 1999 (pp. 108-118). Springer Vienna.
Rajan, B., Varghese, V. M., & Pradeepkumar, A. P. (2013). Beach carrying capacity analysis for sustainable tourism development in the South West Coast of India. Environmental Research, Engineering and Management, 63(1), 67-73.
Rosselló, J., & Waqas, A. (2016). The influence of weather on interest in a “sun, sea, and sand” tourist destination: The case of Majorca. Weather, Climate, and Society, 8(2), 193-203.
Rutty, M., & Scott, D. (2014). Thermal range of coastal tourism resort microclimates. Tourism Geographies, 16(3), 346-363.
Sahoo, D. (2014). A Case Study On ‘Beach-Tourism potential of Odisha. Journal of Kashmir for Tourism and Catering Technology, 1(2).
Salam, F., Ingkadijaya, R., & Hermantoro, H. (2018). Strategies to Develop Sawahlunto Old City in West Sumatera as Tourism Destination. Tourism Research Journal, 2(2), 78-93.
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Tian, W., Bai, J., Sun, H., & Zhao, Y. (2013). Application of the analytic hierarchy process to a sustainability assessment of coastal beach exploitation: a case study of the wind power projects on the coastal beaches of Yancheng, China. Journal of environmental management, 115, 251-256.
Tukamushaba, E. K., Xiao, H., & Ladkin, A. (2016). The effect of tourists’ perceptions of a tourism product on memorable travel experience: Implications for destination branding. European journal of tourism, hospitality and recreation, 7(1), 2-12.
Yang, W., Cai, F., Liu, J., Zhu, J., Qi, H., & Liu, Z. (2021). Beach economy of a coastal tourist city in China: A case study of Xiamen. Ocean & Coastal Management, 211, 105798.
Alam, M., Ferreira, J., Mumtaz, S., Jan, M. A., Rebelo, R., & Fonseca, J. A. (2017). Smart cameras are making our beaches safer: A 5G-envisioned distributed architecture for safe, connected coastal areas. IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, 12(4), 50-59.
Aliyeva, Z., Sakypbek, M., Aktymbayeva, A., Assipova, Z., & Saidullayev, S. (2020). Assessment of recreation carrying capacity of Ile-Alatau national park in Kazakhstan. Geo Journal of Tourism and Geosites, 29(2), 460-471.
Arif, Y. M., Nurhayati, H., Kurniawan, F., Nugroho, S. M. S., & Hariadi, M. (2020). Blockchain-based data sharing for decentralized tourism destinations recommendation system. International Journal of Intelligent Engineering & System, 13(6), 472-486.
Bombana, B., Garcia-Lozano, C., Pintó, J., & Ariza, E. (2021). Multi-Dimensional assessment of beach systems on the Catalan coast from a pragmatic and epistemological perspective. Ecological complexity, 45, 100907.
Botero, C. M., Cabrera, J. A., & Zielinski, S. (2018). Tourist beaches. Encyclopedia of Coastal Science. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer.
Boto-García, D., & Leoni, V. (2023). The Economic Value of Coastal Amenities: Evidence from Beach Capitalization Effects in Peer-to-Peer Markets. Environmental and Resource Economics, 84(2), 529-557.
Bruinsma, F. R., Kourtit, K., & Nijkamp, P. (2011). Tourism, culture and e-services: Evaluation of e-services packages. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit.
Buhalis, D., & Amaranggana, A. (2013). Smart tourism destinations. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2014: Proceedings of the International Conference in Dublin, Ireland, January 21-24, 2014 (pp. 553-564). Springer International Publishing.
Camilleri, M. A., & Camilleri, M. A. (2018). The tourism industry: An overview (pp. 3-27). Springer International Publishing.
Cardoso, J., & Lange, C. (2007). A framework for assessing strategies and technologies for dynamic packaging applications in e-tourism. Information Technology & Tourism, 9(1), 27-44.
Chen, C. L., & Teng, N. (2016). Management priorities and carrying capacity at a high-use beach from tourists’ perspectives: A way towards sustainable beach tourism. Marine Policy, 74, 213-219.
Conover, W. J. (1999). Practical nonparametric statistics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
da Costa Liberato, P. M., Alén-González, E., & de Azevedo Liberato, D. F. V. (2018). Digital technology in a smart tourist destination: the case of Porto. Journal of Urban Technology, 25(1), 75-97.
Dessai, A. G. (2023). Sustainable tourism. In Environment, resources and sustainable tourism: Goa as a case study (pp. 187-228). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.
Dwyer, L. (2017). Coastal and marine tourism in the Indian Ocean rim: Challenges and opportunities. Journal of Indian Ocean Rim Studies, 1(1), 38-55.
Frampton, A. P. (2010). A review of amenity beach management. Journal of Coastal Research, 26(6), 1112-1122.
Ghosh, P. K., & Datta, D. (2017). Coastal tourism and beach sustainability–An assessment of community perceptions in Kovalam, India. Geografia-Malaysian Journal of Society and Space, 8(7).
Girau, R., Ferrara, E., Pintor, M., Sole, M., & Giusto, D. (2018, July). Be right Beach: A social IoT system for sustainable tourism based on beach overcrowding avoidance. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things (iThings) and IEEE Green Computing and Communications (GreenCom) and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing (CPSCom) and IEEE Smart Data (SmartData) (pp. 9-14). IEEE.
Gomis-López, J. M., & González-Reverté, F. (2020). Smart tourism sustainability narratives in mature beach destinations. Contrasting the collective imaginary with reality. Sustainability, 12(12), 5083.
Hailuddin, H., Suryatni, M., Yuliadi, I., Canon, S., Syaparuddin, S., & Endri, E. (2022). Beach area development strategy as the prime tourism area in Indonesia. Journal of Environmental Management & Tourism, 13(2), 414-426.
Hansen, L., Hoffman, J., Drews, C., & Mielbrecht, E. (2010). Designing climate‐smart conservation: guidance and case studies. Conservation Biology, 24(1), 63-69.
Irigüler, F., & Güler, M. E. (2016). Tourist guiding:“Cinderella” of the tourism. Global issues and trends in tourism, 203, 203-220.
Kammler, M., & Schernewski, G. (2004). Spatial and temporal analysis of beach tourism using webcam and aerial photographs. Coastline Reports, 2, 121-128.
Liao, C. S., & Chuang, H. K. (2020). Tourist preferences for package tour attributes in tourism destination design and development. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 26(2), 230-246. Houston, J. R. (2013). The value of Florida beaches. Shore and Beach, 81(4), 4-11.
Liew, S. L., Hussin, S. R., & Abdullah, N. H. (2021). Attributes of senior-friendly tourism destinations for current and future senior tourists: An importance-performance analysis approach. SAGE Open, 11(1), 2158244021998658.
Matthews, Y., Scarpa, R., & Marsh, D. (2018). Cumulative attraction and spatial dependence in a destination choice model for beach recreation. Tourism Management, 66, 318-328.
Mayordomo-Martínez, D., Sánchez-Aarnoutse, J. C., Carrillo-de-Gea, J. M., García-Berná, J. A., Fernández-Alemán, J. L., & García-Mateos, G. (2019). Design and development of a mobile app for accessible beach tourism information for people with disabilities. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(12), 2131.
Muthuraman, S., & Al Haziazi, M. (2019, March). Smart tourism destination-new exploration towards sustainable development in sultanate of Oman. In 2019 5th International Conference on Information Management (ICIM) (pp. 332-335). IEEE.
Needham, M. D., & Szuster, B. W. (2011). Situational influences on normative evaluations of coastal tourism and recreation management strategies in Hawai’i. Tourism Management, 32(4), 732-740.
Öztüren, A., Kilic, H., Olorunsola, V. O., & Osumeje, B. O. (2021). Managing natural tourism attractions based on visitor reviews: a case study of Golden Beach, Karpaz. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 13(4), 535-544.
Pantiyasa, I. W., & Prabawati, N. P. D. (2020). Tourism Satisfaction Analysis of Tourism Packages as Tourism Products in Paksebali Village, Klungkung, Bali. Journal of Business on Hospitality and Tourism, 6(2), 390-400.
Pascoe, S. (2019). Recreational beach use values with multiple activities. Ecological Economics, 160, 137-144.
Perch-Nielsen, S. L. (2010). The vulnerability of beach tourism to climate change—an index approach. Climatic change, 100(3), 579-606.
Polnyotee, M., & Thadaniti, S. (2015). Community-based tourism: A strategy for sustainable tourism development of Patong Beach, Phuket Island, Thailand. Asian Social Science, 11(27), 90.
Pröll, B., Retschitzegger, W., & Wagner, R. R. (1999). Holiday packages on the Web. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 1999: Proceedings of the International Conference in Innsbruck, Austria, 1999 (pp. 108-118). Springer Vienna.
Rajan, B., Varghese, V. M., & Pradeepkumar, A. P. (2013). Beach carrying capacity analysis for sustainable tourism development in the South West Coast of India. Environmental Research, Engineering and Management, 63(1), 67-73.
Rosselló, J., & Waqas, A. (2016). The influence of weather on interest in a “sun, sea, and sand” tourist destination: The case of Majorca. Weather, Climate, and Society, 8(2), 193-203.
Rutty, M., & Scott, D. (2014). Thermal range of coastal tourism resort microclimates. Tourism Geographies, 16(3), 346-363.
Sahoo, D. (2014). A Case Study On ‘Beach-Tourism potential of Odisha. Journal of Kashmir for Tourism and Catering Technology, 1(2).
Salam, F., Ingkadijaya, R., & Hermantoro, H. (2018). Strategies to Develop Sawahlunto Old City in West Sumatera as Tourism Destination. Tourism Research Journal, 2(2), 78-93.
Sigalat-Signes, E., Calvo-Palomares, R., Roig-Merino, B., & García-Adán, I. (2020). Transition towards a tourist innovation model: The smart tourism destination: Reality or territorial marketing? Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 5(2), 96-104.
Suman, R. K., & Kumar, V. (2023). Litter free beach tourism in India: challenges and solutions. Journal of Tourism, 24(1), 83.
Tian, W., Bai, J., Sun, H., & Zhao, Y. (2013). Application of the analytic hierarchy process to a sustainability assessment of coastal beach exploitation: a case study of the wind power projects on the coastal beaches of Yancheng, China. Journal of environmental management, 115, 251-256.
Tukamushaba, E. K., Xiao, H., & Ladkin, A. (2016). The effect of tourists’ perceptions of a tourism product on memorable travel experience: Implications for destination branding. European journal of tourism, hospitality and recreation, 7(1), 2-12.
Yang, W., Cai, F., Liu, J., Zhu, J., Qi, H., & Liu, Z. (2021). Beach economy of a coastal tourist city in China: A case study of Xiamen. Ocean & Coastal Management, 211, 105798.