Promotion of destinations through interactive digital marketing: collaborative model for smart cities

Abstract

Smart cities are, by nature, spaces with a richness and diversity of technologies incorporated in their physical spaces, in such a way that they can be seen as a single intelligent and collaborative space. As technological pillars, two important layers arise – the sensory layer and the actuator layer, both of which are strongly interconnected with each other, emerging as a large Internet of Things network. This scenario reveals an enormous potential for marketing science and for the creation of innovative strategies to promote territories as touristic destinations. Within the multiple opportunities, there is space for the development of an interactive marketing experience, revolutionizing, through creative rethink, the way destinations interact with their visitors, and make known all their potential. Although in the context of tourism, there are three main moments in the visit process – the before, the during and the after, this work focuses on the moment of the destination visit – the during.

In order to understand how creative rethink can be carried out to create innovative strategies to promote touristic destinations, an introduction is carried out, substantiating the concepts of digital marketing, smart cities and Internet of Things.

Then, the methodology that governed the creation of a collaborative model for smart cities is clearly defined, being contextualized the importance of destinations-communication, the concept of a smart city and some of the major technology that support this concept.

After contextualization and methodological aspects, this article presents a conceptual model where its components are described and where it is discussed how the model can take advantage of the variety of technologies that exist in a smart city, in order to allow innovative digital marketing strategies and innovating in the interaction between the city and the visitant, and vice versa – the vision of interactive digital marketing. In the model discussion, some interaction-scenarios and their main benefits are highlighted, which serve as examples for validating the proposed model. Finally, we present the work limitations and mains conclusions.