Information Technology for Management and Promotion of Sustainable Cultural Tourism

This paper suggests that many of the negative effects of globalization and inadequate tourism growth can be compensate by the use of intelligent ICT solutions in the development of heritage tourism. The encounter between cultural tourism and information and communication technologies represents an opportunity to preserve national culture, create partnership and enhance destinations value in information society. To this aim, we propose a model for local Destination Management Systems of heritage destinations (DMS) which could help to achieve a more globally responsible paradigm for the tourism industry and facilitate the management of destinations and the coordination of the local suppliers. DMSs provide interactive demonstrations of local amenities and attractions and enable consumers to build their own itinerary based on their interests and requirements. All the stakeholders within the destination are linked with each other in order to create collaborative action and a genuine, sustained growth in heritage tourism. An example is given of the Croatian World Heritages Sites and their status on the Web.