Touristic Stakeholders’ Perceptions about the Smart Tourism Destination Concept in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

This original research paper analyses interesting and actual topic: Touristic Stakeholders’ perceptions about the Smart Tourism destination concept in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico. This article aimed to: highlight the perception that different tourism experts in Puerto Vallarta have about intelligent tourism destinations. The working method of this research was through a Delphi study to analyze the responses of local experts on the status of STD´s and their future trends. The experts’  perceptions on the concept's definition, regional capacity for innovation, technological components,  linking, and sustainability was analyzed. Authors note, that experts of study perceived an optimistic scenario for STD in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco México. So, the paper is the contribution to challenging smart tourism destiantions research of nowadays.

And I would like to share with authors some doubts too: maybe it would be better to structure the chapter of „Results and Discussion „to two seperate chapters „Results“ and „Discussion“. As well, it would be importantt to discuss the Limitations of study more clearly, maybe presenting them in a seperate paragraph (discussing critical aspects of used methodology and various limitations more deeply). As authors write „The Delphi belongs to a class of in-depth interviews, specifically, that of the in-depth group  interview“, so I would like not to agree that Delphi method belongs to a class of in depth–interviews, as here were used the prepared questionnaires, as author write „The conventional Delphi method was used, in which a team coordinator administered the questionnaire to the experts to complete“.

 

Author Response

Review letter

 

Dear Reviewer 1

I want to thank you for your comments and observations; we believe those are very good in order to enriching the paper.

Observations:

Maybe it would be better to structure the chapter of “Results and Discussion” to two separate chapters “Results” and “Discussion”

The authors purposefully wrote the Results and Discussion sections together as they think that is more concise and works better together for understandable reading. Neither of the other two reviewers mentioned that this should be done.

It would be important to discuss the Limitations of study more clearly, maybe presenting them in a separate paragraph (discussing critical aspects of used methodology and various limitations more deeply).

The limitations of the study are already in a separate paragraph near the end of the paper (lines 458-465). However, we have edited the paragraph thus:

This research provides an initial approach to the perception of actors in the tourism sector in Puerto Vallarta about the possibility of designing a Smart Tourism Destination. It should be noted that this analysis presents some limitations. The most important is that it is based on perception of the participants in the study; it also should be noted that technological issues in establishing a STD in Puerto Vallarta is an important consideration, since ICT coverage is currently poor in the city; finally, the current study is focused on Puerto Vallarta and may not be transferrable to other destinations; however, this work is considered as a preliminary baseline and starting point for future research.

 

With regards to limitations of the methodology, we don’t really see anything to discuss and Reviewer 3 considers that the adopted Delphi method is suitable for the intended purpose.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Touristic stakeholders’ perceptions about the Smart Tourism destination concept in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico

 

The subject is interesting, the methodology is solid and the sample analysed is considerable. For my part, I'm just doing some recommendations to improve the quality of the paper:

 

Abstract: At the end of the abstract, you should inform readers about the main research findings

 

Keywords (Three to ten pertinent keywords): It is necessary to include some more keywords to make it easier for search engines to locate the article. For example, smart city; social participation; information and communication technologies (ICT); qualitative research; in-depth interview; Delphi technique; Puerto Vallarta. Moreover, "collaboration" is a term little accurate, it would be better to put “stakeholder collaboration”

 

Background: The literature review section is insufficient. It is necessary to include other methodologies for the analysis of smart destinations. We need to comment at least on major articles about smart destinations: China's “smart tourism destination” initiative (JDMM, 2013); Tourism analytics with massive user-generated content (JDMM, 2015); and Building sustainable smart destinations (Sustainability, 2019).

 

Line 48: You need to close the quotes in the Buhalis's reference

Line 305: pointsof-view => point-of-view

Line ???: In general, you should review typos

 

References: There are many readers who do not understand the Spanish language. It would be interesting to add, in brackets, the translation into English of titles

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2

I want to thank you for your comments and observations; we believe those are very good in order to enriching the paper.

Observations:

Abstract: At the end of the abstract, you should inform readers about the main research findings

We add:

The participants in this study value the factors that determine the implementation of STDs as determinants; there are at least three of them: Training, Investment and Governance.

 

Keywords (Three to ten pertinent keywords): It is necessary to include some more keywords to make it easier for search engines to locate the article. For example, smart city; social participation; information and communication technologies (ICT); qualitative research; in-depth interview; Delphi technique; Puerto Vallarta. Moreover, "collaboration" is a term little accurate, it would be better to put “stakeholder collaboration”

We add:

Governance; stakeholder collaboration; smart tourism destination; smart city; social participation; information and communication technologies (ICT).

Background: The literature review section is insufficient. It is necessary to include other methodologies for the analysis of smart destinations. We need to comment at least on major articles about smart destinations: China's “smart tourism destination” initiative (JDMM, 2013); Tourism analytics with massive user-generated content (JDMM, 2015); and Building sustainable smart destinations (Sustainability, 2019).

We add:

STD consists of three main components: Cloud Services, the Internet of Things (IoT), and End-User Internet Service System [16]. First, according to [17], the cloud services are designed to provide convenient and scalable access (e.g. measurable for payment per use) to applications, software, and data through web browsers. For example, a sophisticated tour guide system can serve a large number of tourists without being installed on any personal device [18]. The STD initiative, coined officially by China's State Council of Chinese Central Government in 2009, refers to a platform on which information relating to tourists activities, the consumption of tourism products, and the status of tourism resources can be instantly integrated and then provided to tourists, enterprises, and organizations through a variety of end-user devices [19].

The spectacular growth of social media and user-generated content (UGC) on the Internet provides a huge quantity of information that allows for the firsthand ascertaining of the experiences, opinions, and feelings of tourism 'users' or customers [20, 21]. In the field of tourism, most authors agree on the importance of UGC [22, 23] in the construction of destination image through the eWOM effect [24, 25], and consider travel blogs, online travel reviews (OTRs), or online consumer reviews as rich sources of UGC data [26, 21].

The Spanish approach to smart tourism development was conceived on a local scale basis and smart initiatives were focused mainly in cities [27]. As an example Barcelona is leading smart city, and was chosen in 2011 as the GSMA Mobile World Capital from 2012 to 2018, and was granted European Capital of Innovation ('iCapital') status by the European Commission (2014) for introducing the use of new technologies to bring the city closer to its citizens [28]. According to Wang, Li, and Li [18], the use of big data by smart tourism destinations can support business decision-making and optimal resource allocation, and can assist in the discovery of new insights in ways that affect markets and organizations.

 

Line 48: You need to close the quotes in the Buhalis's reference

Corrected

Line 305: pointsof-view => point-of-view

Corrected

Line ???: In general, you should review typos

Corrected

References: There are many readers who do not understand the Spanish language. It would be interesting to add, in brackets, the translation into English of titles

1. González Reverté, F.; Díaz Luque, P.; Gomis López, J.M.; Morales Pérez, S. Reflexiones sobre la percepción de los Destinos Turísticos Inteligentes españoles por parte de los actores turísticos (Reflections on the perception of Spanish Smart Tourist Destinations by tourism actors). ARA Rev. de invest. en tur. 2018, 8, 21-35.
2. INVAT-TUR. Destinos turísticos inteligentes. Manual operativo para la configuración de destinos turísticos inteligentes. (Smart tourist destinations. Operational manual for the configuration of intelligent tourist destinations). 2015, Valencia, INVAT-TUR.
3. Cobo Romaní, J. C. El concepto de tecnologías de la información. Benchmarking sobre las definiciones de las TIC en la sociedad del conocimiento. (The concept of information technologies. Benchmarking on the definitions of ICT in the knowledge society). Zer: Rev. de est.de com. = Komunikazio ikasketen aldizkaria, 2009, 27, 295–318.
4. Buhalis, D. Tendencias y retos de turismo electrónico en la era de las redes sociales. In Turismo y nuevas tecnologías – Seminario técnico, San José (Costa Rica), (Trends and challenges of electronic tourism in the era of social networks. In Tourism and new technologies - Technical seminar, San José Costa Rica). 14 y 15 de mayo de 2013 (pp. 5–17).
5. Cerezo, A. y Guevara, A. El papel estratégico de las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones en el turismo. (The strategic role of information and communications technologies in tourism). Int. Jour. of Inf. Sys. and Soft. Engin. for Big Comp. (IJISEBC), 2015. Vol. 2, Num. 2, pp. 52-69. Consultado el [15/06/2019] en ijisebc.com
6. Jiménez Quintero, J.; Aldeanueva Fernández, I. Las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación en las PYMES turísticas andaluzas: una perspectiva estratégica de clúster. (Information and communication technologies in Andalusian tourist SMEs: a strategic cluster perspective). de Cien. Econ. y Emp. 2012, 62, 37-48.
7. Parra López, E.; Santana Talavera, A. Tecnologías de la información y la comunicación en turismo. In 20 años de la actividad turística en España. (Information and communication technologies in tourism. In 20 years of tourism activity in Spain). (pp. 279–293).
8. Celdrán-Bernabeu, M. A.; Mazón J.; Ivars-Baidal, J. A.; Vera-Rebollo J. F. Smart Tourism. Un estudio de mapeo sistemático, (Smart Tourism A systematic mapping study), Cuad. de Turis. 2018, 41, 107-138.
9. Puerto Vallarta, diagnóstico municipal. Instituto de Información Estadística y Geográfica de Jalisco, (Puerto Vallarta, municipal diagnosis. Jalisco Institute of Statistical and Geographic Information), 2019, Gobierno del Estado. Pp. 37.
10. Estadísticas del sector turístico. Anuario estadístico. (Tourism sector statistics. Statistic yearbook). 2017, Gobierno del Estado de Jalisco.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Smart tourism is an important component of smart city. Tourism is one of the major components of economic growth for communities worldwide. The article is an attempt to assess the possibilities of using smart tourism solutions in Puerto Vallarta, a holiday resort in Mexico. In my opinion there was no information (lines 121 - 124) about attractions and functions of this destination as well as the scale of tourism development and the number of visitors. The adopted delphy study method is suitable for the intended purpose.

The conclusions drawn from the research are correct, but I suggest to enrich the literature review with other examples, smart tourism is often described, especially in European destinations, and the bibliography has only 26 items.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3

I want to thank you for your comments and observations; we believe those are very good in order to enriching the paper.

Observations:

In my opinion there was no information (lines 121 - 124) about attractions and functions of this destination as well as the scale of tourism development and the number of visitors

We add:

Puerto Vallarta is a coastal municipality and tourist city of Jalisco state, in Mexico. In 2020 Puerto Vallarta has an estimated population of 304,141 people [37] and 4,372,307 annual tourists in 2017 and more than five millions at 2020 [38]. It is the second most important economic zone in the state of Jalisco and the third most important port in Mexico. Currently, it is one of the most visited places in the country.

Puerto Vallarta, as a national tourist destination, ranks among the top three places in terms of receiving visitors, which explains why tourism is the basis of the local economy. In fact, there is an excessive concentration of economic activity around tourism, since close to 80% of Puerto Vallarta jobs are related to tourism activities. Its economy highly dependent on tourism activity makes it very vulnerable to possible contingencies in the sector [38].

 

1. Puerto Vallarta, diagnóstico municipal. Instituto de Información Estadística y Geográfica de Jalisco, 2019, Gobierno del Estado. Pp. 37.
2. Estadísticas del sector turístico. Anuario estadístico.2017, Gobierno del Estado de Jalisco.

 

The conclusions drawn from the research are correct, but I suggest to enrich the literature review with other examples, smart tourism is often described, especially in European destinations, and the bibliography has only 26 items

We add 13 references:

3. Zhang, L.; Li, N.; Liu, M. On the basic concept of smarter tourism and its theoretical system. Trib., 2012, 27(5), 66–73.
4. Dikaiakos, M. D.; Katsaros, D.; Mehra, P.; Pallis, G.; Vakali, A. Cloud computing: Distributed internet computing for IT and scientific research. Comp., IEEE, 2009, 13(5), 10–13.
5. Wang, D.; Li, X. R.; Li, Y. China's “smart tourism destination” initiative: A taste of the service-dominant logic. of Dest. Mark. & Manag., 2013, 2(1), 59–61.
6. Huang, C.; Li, Y. In the 12th five-year plan, the system research of smarter tourism under the background of smarter cities. In Proceedings of annual conference of tourism tribune, 2011, pp. 55–68.
7. Marine-Roig, E.; Anton Clavé, S. A method for analysing large-scale UGC data for tourism: Application to the case of Catalonia In: I. Tussyadiah, & A. Inversini (Eds.), Information and communication technologies in tourism 2015 (pp. 3–17). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
8. Xiang, Z.; Schwartz, Z.; Uysal, M. What types of hotels make their guests (un)happy? Text analytics of customer experiences in online reviews In: I. Tussyadiah, & A. Inversini (Eds.), Information and communication technologies in tourism 2015 (pp. 33–45). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
9. Koltringer, C.; Dickinger, A. Analyzing destination branding and image from online sources: A web content mining approach. of Bus. Res., 2015, 68(9), 1836–1843.
10. Lu, W.; Stepchenkova, S. User-generated content as a research mode in tourism and hospitality applications: Topics, methods, and software. of Hosp. Mark. & Manag., 2015, 24(2), 119–154.
11. Hidalgo, M. C.; Sicilia, M.; Ruiz, S. The effect of user-generated content on tourist behavior: The mediating role of destination image [Special issue]. & Manag. Stud., 2014, 10, 158–164.
12. Jalilvand, M. R.; Samiei, N.; Dini, B.; Manzari, P. Y. Examining the structural relationships of electronic word of mouth, destination image, tourist attitude toward destination and travel intention: An integrated approach. of Dest. Mark. & Manag., 2012, 1(1–2), 134–143.
13. Marine-Roig, E. A webometric analysis of travel blogs and reviews hosting: The case of Catalonia. of Trav. & Tour. Mark., 2014, 31(3), 381–396.
14. González-Reverté, F. Building Sustainable Smart Destinations: An Approach Based on the Development of Spanish Smart Tourism Plans, Sustain., 2019, 11, 6874, 1-24.
15. Marine-Roig, E.; Anton Clavé, S. (2015). Tourism analytics with massive user-generated content: A case study of Barcelona, of Dest. Mark. & Manag., 2015, 4(3), 162-172.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for corrections