Searching for sustainability : tourism 4.0 on the Sunny Side of the Alps

Abstract

Technological advancement has directly contributed to the exponential growth of the global tourism industry. This growth has led to tourism scholars, practitioners and local communities calling for sustainable tourism development. However, technologies, especially those of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, can also contribute to the sustainable development and management of the global tourism industry. Slovenia’s pioneering Tourism 4.0 initiative is perhaps the newest and most cutting-edge examples of how technology can be used in order to more sustainably develop and manage tourism to the advantage of a destination’s local communities. This initiative, said to be the future of tourism, makes use of the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to provide a highly innovative and technologically enhanced tourist experience as well as to turn tourism into a driver of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, there is a distinct lack of accessible academic publications in the English language on this initiative. This dissertation therefore draws together several disciplines and foci to make Tourism 4.0 accessible, relevant and more apparent to the broader tourism domain by unpacking and considering the initiative’s potential for destinations beyond Europe and the global North. This is done by conducting a best practice assessment of Tourism 4.0 using criteria that have been developed to align with the UN SDGs.