Connections between a tourist destination, the digital ecosystem, and ICT Actors

Abstract

The tourism sector and tourist destinations are undergoing a digital tran-sition in order to improve their resilience and competitiveness. The way in which tourist destinations address this digital transition differs, as some incorporate more technology in their ecosystem than others, giving rise to the emergence of different types of digital tourism networks. This study seeks to determine the different ways in which a tourist destination connects with a digital ecosystem, specifically focusing on the connections with ICT actors. It is based on the theoretical framework of tourism as an ecosystem. Using web crawling, network data have been compiled on 670 tourism actors and more than 36,000 websites to which they are connected through hyperlinks. The most frequently linked entities of the discovered digital ecosystem have been identified and classified (n = 447), distinguishing between 13 types of ICT actors. The results show how the online destination network has been incorporated into the digital ecosystem. The study reveals that the configuration of the digital ecosystem surrounding a tourist destination is characterised by the different levels of importance for the network of destination actors in which the ICT actors play a central role.