Origin of the Spanish Smart Tourism Destinations Program

This chapter traces the development of the Smart Tourism Destinations program. We propose understanding the programme as the result of the convergence of two lines of work of the Spanish central government’s tourism administration: on the one hand, the development of tourism quality systems and their approach of working with indicators and, on the other hand, the design and implementation of programmes aimed at improving destination management. The development of the programmes relates to the spread of new concepts, such as total quality, or new programmes in other areas of public policy such as Agenda 21 for local sustainability. This chapter is structured from a historical perspective. The analysis allows for reaching several conclusions: firstly, that the government plays a major role in the promotion of innovative tools, or at least it has done so in terms of destination management; secondly, that the development of public policy programmes is more successful if it is based on the hybridization of ideas that arise from different contexts; and finally, that programmes experience more interesting and lasting growth if what they propose is useful to the parties to whom they are directed. These three characteristics are all fulfilled by the Smart Tourism Destinations program.