Danang, Vietnam, is renowned worldwide for its luxurious resorts and opulent hotels. However, what truly sets this city apart is the foresight of its tourism authorities in recognizing that without embracing digitalization and developing digital marketing for small tourism businesses, the destination’s growth could stagnate.

Tourists rarely interact directly with tourism departments. Instead, they primarily engage with local tourism and hospitality businesses. Therefore, no amount of initiatives or innovations by tourism departments and DMOs will lead to the growth of smart tourism in this destination or significantly enhance the tourist experience unless these innovations are implemented within the sphere of businesses that serve tourists.

This can be likened to an apple orchard, where merely watering or fertilizing the entire orchard is insufficient. To produce delectable apples, one must pay attention to each tree, monitor its health, adjust its growth as needed, provide fertilizer, and so on.

Similarly, tourism is a highly fragmented and segmented industry, with interactions between tourists primarily occurring with small businesses from various sectors, ranging from transportation to food and beverage.

Consequently, the level of smart tourism should be evaluated based on the state of local tourism businesses such as accommodations, transportation companies, tour operators, and so forth.

Danang’s authorities, therefore, provide extensive support to small business initiatives, recognizing that digitalization and building smart tourism are only possible through building smart tourism within individual businesses that serve as the city’s tourism ambassadors and provide tourist services.

In our opinion, training and consulting assistance are the most significant aids for small tourism businesses. This is because small business owners and managers often lack the time to keep up with the latest digital marketing and online technologies and frequently lack the expertise to apply them effectively.

Financial assistance is also crucial, as small businesses, by definition, lack the substantial resources required for development.

We are delighted to share this positive experience with our readers, as we witness a growing global understanding of true smart tourism and the numerous efforts undertaken by tourism destination leaders to promote its development.

This contributes to achieving the primary goal of smart tourism: enabling tourists to effortlessly and conveniently obtain positive experiences through tourism, excursions, and hospitality services via the internet.

We hope that this example will inspire the leadership and marketing teams of other destinations to provide more resolute support to local tourism businesses in their digitalization and adoption of online tourism marketing technologies.

Read more.