eTourism: ICT and its role for tourism management

Purpose: This paper aims to present innovative information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure specifically designed and optimized for the tourism sector. The case presented, “La Valle del Pensare lungo il corso del Potenza”, has been conceived with the aim of providing a digital infrastructure to ten municipalities in the Marche Region (Italy), nestled among the valley of the Potenza River. This research project is aimed at developing an important communication system that facilitates the tourist routes of mining attractions and specific thematic routes across the territory, promoting historical centers, cultural heritage, green areas and interesting places. Design/methodology/approach: “La Valle del Pensare” information system has the main feature of being scalable and multi-purpose, as the contents can be managed and conveyed through the website, app mobile, totem touch screen and standard tourist signage. It is integrated and modular and allows to manage multiple information, ensuring an interoperable and multi-channel approach. It is designed for small municipalities in the province of Macerata to connect the territory’s resources and activities through a network. Findings: This work represents an important communication system, i.e. innovative ICT infrastructure that facilitates the tourist routes of mining attractions and specific thematic routes across the territory. Thanks to the collection of user-generated data, the platform allows monitoring of usage statistics and performances. In this way, the municipalities can infer useful information about user’s preferences and needs. The paper also discusses how “La Valle del Pensare” gives identity to the territory, which is not identified as a simple summation of the Common, but as a recognizable system that intends to implement the level of competitiveness through the creation of a real territorial logo able to identify vocations and specificity of the Valley of the Potenza. Originality/value: The value of the project lies in the ICT system, able to convey information at different scales, providing the users with updated contents; at the same time, administrations can constantly monitor its performances, being able to infer useful information about tourists’ needs, habits and preferences. The main contributions are the creation of a single cloud-based architecture for the management of multiple multi- media contents, to be exploited in various platforms; the design of a unique content management system used by several small municipalities of a same territory; the monitoring user’s preferences and needs by collecting users’ generated data; and the analysis of meaningful statistics about the tourists, tested and verified in real scenario with real users.