Open data in Valencian smart tourism destinations

The question

How mature are smart tourism destinations in publishing open data, what barriers hold them back, and what opportunities do their managers perceive?

The method

Mixed methods on the case of the Valencian network of smart destinations: literature review, focus group with the network's managers and an online questionnaire (7-point Likert scale; Cronbach's α = 0.868) run in May-June 2023, with 58 responses; descriptive analysis, correlations and comparison by destination type.

What the study finds

42.9%of strategic plans that include open dataOf the 58 responding destinations, 96.6% have a strategic tourism plan; 64.3% of these use it to prioritise data management, yet fewer than half (42.9%) include publishing open data in it.

67.2%of responding destinations with no open tourism dataTwo in three responding destinations (67.2%) publish no open tourism data; those that do mostly use municipal websites or other platforms, and only one uses the city's open data portal. The link between having a tourism strategy and actually publishing open data is not statistically significant.

5.60 out of 7lack of resources, the most felt barrierThe most felt barriers are lack of budget and technical capacity (mean 5.60 out of 7), predominance of small firms (5.57), poor knowledge of data users' needs (5.48) and lack of public-private collaboration (5.33); restrictive legislation is not seen as an obstacle (3.95).

6.34 out of 7flow management, the top-rated opportunityThe opportunity most endorsed by managers is better management of tourist flows and control of overcrowding (mean 6.34 out of 7), followed by developing tailored smart solutions (6.29); financial savings rank lowest (5.36).

Respondents strongly agree that supra-municipal administrations should take part in publishing tourism data (mean 6.09 out of 7). The authors link this to open tourism data having so far been handled at a wider territorial scale: among EU 'high-value' datasets, tourist flows are set at NUTS2/NUTS3 level, not at single-destination level.
As a recommendation, the authors suggest destinations make each dataset available in two forms: an open one anyone can reuse, and one shared in data spaces under specific agreements, with access restrictions and terms of use set by the destination; both following FAIR principles.
Among the hypotheses offered for the low uptake of open data, the authors suggest stakeholders may be aware of its value but judge costs to outweigh benefits, or fear losing competitive advantages.

Why it matters for ports and cities

Even in a region that pioneered the smart destination model, two in three destinations publish no open tourism data, and the use managers see as most promising is precisely managing flows and overcrowding. For ports and coastal cities, the message is that opening up data needs dedicated resources, supra-municipal coordination and arrangements with private actors; legislation is not perceived as the main obstacle.

Limitations

A single regional case (Valencian Community) with heterogeneous destinations; data self-reported by destination staff on a Likert scale, which the authors themselves describe as not very stable; actual uses or benefits of open data are not measured.

Full reference and source

Celdrán-Bernabéu, M.A., Mazón, J.-N., Giner-Sánchez, D., Morales-García, J., Peñarrubia-Zaragoza, M.P. (2026). Smart tourism destinations as open data providers: Barriers and opportunities. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 40, 101065 (Elsevier).

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Summary written by the ODYBOAT Observatory in our own words. Tables and figures belong to the authors.