Malta Tourism plays an important role in the developing country’s economy and is considered one of the main industries for the growth of the country’s economy. Mass tourism is a thing of the past for tourism countries that want to develop their tourism in a good way and ensure sustainability in the future, and therefore alternative forms of tourism represent an essential orientation for the further development of tourism.
Unique tourism products (among which the rural tourism product is especially distinguished) have become highly valued by tourists who want to escape the uniformity offered by globalization and the modern way of life in urban city centres. In a large number of countries, considerable attention is paid to rural tourism, which records a constant growth rate of tourist demand and makes it an important component of the development not only of tourism, but also of rural areas as a whole.
Over the last two years, the advent of new technology has brought about the emergence of Blockchain friendly cities and tourist destinations. Various cities and countries developed technology-based solutions to serve the common good that is effective and efficient.
The two cities or rather called city-stated that are perceived as most Blockchain friendly destinations are Malta (La Valetta) and Singapore.
These two destinations widely adopted Blockchain technologies and become a hub for Blockchain enterprises and researchers. Accordingly, Smart / Digital tourism, including Blockchain, AI, IOT, Crypto etc….., has emerged over the past two years as a subset of tourism development. Malta adopted a highly positive and simulative environment for the Blockchain based companies and attracted a significant number of business entities working with Blockchain followed by capital investments, business people, researchers, and experts. OSA Digital Travel Services, licensed Destination Management Web based company was set up to identify best practices related to Malta Smart strategy and its relationship to the sustainable tourism development in order to identify key dimensions for the sustainable growth of this sort of the tourism while highlighting key resources and challenges. Notwithstanding the implementation of various specialised niche markets which could merge within this technological world, including LGBT+, Social, Smart, Academic, Sports, Corporate, Fashion and Cinematography Tourism.
Although Smart tourism might be considered as new buzzword applied to describe the increasing reliance of tourism destinations, their industries and their tourists on emerging forms of ICT that allow for massive amounts of data to be transformed into value propositions. However, OSA Digital Travel Services consider it as an ill-defined as a concept, which hinders its theoretical development. Smart / Digital tourism, sheds light on current smart tourism trends, which lays out its technological and business foundations.
Based on this concept OSA Digital Travel Services describes technological, economic and social developments fuelled by technologies that rely on sensors, big data, open data, new ways of connectivity and exchange of information, as well as abilities to infer and reason. In the context of tourism, OSA Digital Travel Services, consider digital smart tourism as one of its objectives, is used to describe a complex amalgam of all of the above.
OSA Digital Travel Services will focus more on innovation and competitiveness and developing smart end-user applications and tourism services at large that support enriched tourism experiences.