402 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM environment to people”11. Likewise, the Technical Standardisation Group 128 of AENOR (AEN/CTN 178/SC2/GT1 N 003) defines it as “(…) the holistic vision of a city that applies ICT to improve the quality of its life and the accessibility of its inhabitants and ensures a sustainable economic, social and environmental development in permanent improvement. A smart city, allows citizens to interact with it in a multidisciplinary way and adapts in real time to their needs, efficiently in quality and costs, offering open data, solutions and services aimed at citizens as people, to solve the effects of the growth of cities, in public and private spheres, through the innovative integration of infrastructures with intelligent management systems”. From these definitions, it is worth highlighting an idea that seems essential to the author: the use of ICT and technological advances to improve the quality of life of citizens and achieve sustainable development of cities. Of course, a city needs an adequate business and economic fabric to achieve these objectives, but the focus is mainly on citizens12. This is a good starting point for what will later be defined as intelligent tourist destination. The idea that supports this concept, in the author’s opinion, should be the same, which is to say, the use technological advances to achieve a sustainable tourism development, focused on the quality of services provided to tourists, but without forgetting other interests that are essential for the development of tourism itself, such as the protection of the environment and respect for local culture and identity and its residents, among others13. However, it should be noted that the fact that smart tourist destinations are based on the development of smart cities does not imply that they have to be 11 PIÑAR MAÑAS, J. L., “Law, technique and innovation in the so-called smart cities”, in Smart Cities. Derecho y técnica para una ciudad más habitable, PIÑAR MAÑAS, J. L. (Dir.), SUÁREZ OJEDA, M. (Coord.), Reus, 2017, p. 18. 12 CANTÓ LÓPEZ, M.ª. T., “Public Administration and active participation of the citizen in the management of the city”, in Smart Cities. Derecho y técnica para una ciudad más habitable, op. cit., p. 39. 13 On the importance of people in the development of smart cities and intelligent tourist destinations, see GÓMEZ OLIVA A., SERVER GÓMEZ, M., JARA, A. J., & PARRA-MEROÑO, M.ª. C., “Turismo inteligente y patrimonio cultural: un sector a explorar en el desarrollo de las Smart Cities”, International Journal of Scientific Management and Tourism, no. 3, 2017, p. 394: “Cities increase their population progressively and therefore the pace of life in them accelerates. The need for interaction between people and different sectors of the city grows and with this increases the social and intellectual capital of the population. This means that a Smart City, making use of pioneering technologies, needs a nucleus based on the people in which education, culture and commerce interact. This factor has been the least developed despite the fact that any change or improvement in the infrastructure of a city must be based on communities and people. The transformation of a city into an intelligent city should aim to improve the quality of life of the individuals who make use of it”.
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