Sustainable Cultural Tourism Strategy and Promotion: An ICT Management Platform

Cultural Tourism (CT) is a significant element of today’s economy, accounting for around 37% of the total tourist industry and expanding at a pace of over 15% each year. This function and economic impact can benefit some EU and non-EU locations and areas with high cultural, social, and environmental potential. Other synergistic variables such as know-how, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), gastronomy, identity, local culture, values, intangible legacy, or other characteristics also contribute to this influence. The work presented in this paper is part of the Social Innovation and TEchnologies for Sustainable Growth through Participative Cultural TOURism (TExTOUR) project, which brings together partners from the quintuple social innovation helix (knowledge, business, society, government, and entrepreneurs) to co-design, validate, and scale up policies and strategies that have a positive impact on socioeconomic territorial development based on cultural tourism. TExTOUR collaborates with eight CT Pilots in lesser-known destinations to develop collaborative work methodologies for developing CT strategies for local sites, utilizing ICTs and social innovation tools. The CT-Labs assist stakeholders in putting CT ad hoc strategies and action plans into action, monitoring them, and validating them. As a result, a technological platform (ICT tool) is presented in this paper, with its components outlined.