Are Smart Tourism Destinations more productive efficient? The Spanish case

The widespread adoption of information and communication technologies has led to the emergence of new business models and increased competition among tourist destinations. In recent years, Smart Tourism Destinations (STDs) have started to leverage information and communication technologies to enhance the overall tourist experience, allegedly improving operational efficiency. The goal of this study is to empirically examine whether transforming a destination into an STD has indeed an effect on its productive efficiency, understood as those that achieve a higher volume of overnights stays given a set of inputs. The analysis is performed using panel data on 137 destinations in Spain in the period 2005–2021. Using Stochastic Frontier Analysis, our results show that becoming an STD does not have a significant effect on productive efficiency. Our analysis thus casts doubt on the common belief that STDs are more efficient and offer relevant implications for destination managers and policy makers.