408 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM 3.3. The use of ICT to reach higher levels of sustainability and tourist quality The importance of the use of ICT to improve tourism management by companies and the tourist’s experience in the destination has already been highlighted, but we cannot stay there. The use of these technologies should be presided over by a broader objective: to achieve a tourism development in which the fundamental idea is quality and tourism sustainability. In this sense, the use by smart tourist destinations of all the technologies mentioned above allows more effectively control tourism growth and, therefore, increase the quality and sustainability of tourism. Below are mentioned, without intending to be exhaustive, the main benefits that we can obtain from these technologies in order to increase the levels of sustainability. 3.3.1. DESTINATION’S SUPPORT CAPACITY One of the essential concepts regarding sustainable tourism is the destination’s support capacity, that is, the maximum number of visitors that a given territory can sustain without damaging the natural environment or social environment. That being the case, an increase of the tourist demand without the corresponding administrative control corresponding can be, in the medium or long term, counterproductive, because, in the first place, itwill be subjecting the corresponding territories to very high levels of environmental stress and/or social and, secondly, because the quality of the destination perceived by the client will decrease, which may put the survival of that territory as a tourist destination at risk. Of course, trying to increase the number of tourists at any price without taking into account other considerations can not be considered a sustainable tourism development. In this sense, ICT applied to tourist destinations can serve as a tool to reduce these risks. Thus, it can help competent public administrations to determine, with a lower margin of error, which is the number of visitors that a given destination can assume without negatively affecting other goods susceptible to protection. Also, these same public administrations can be provided, always respecting the principle of legality, of course, instruments and control tools that improve the effectiveness of administrative intervention without increasing, or even decreasing, the administrative burdens that companies must endure and professionals of the sector32. 32 BAUZÁ MARTORELL, F. J., “Big data y open data en la administración turística: acceso y reutilización de la información”, op. cit., p. 26: “Being that the reality of the tourism sector is drifting towards the digital world, administrative intervention cannot remain anchored in the inspection visits and the documentation requirement, because in that case it does not reach the fullness of the legal-administrative relationship. The analysis of the networks becomes essential to ensure compliance with tourism regulations and macro data analysis of course allows for massive and automated verification of compliance or non-compliance (fraud). Otherwise, we find the paradox that the applicable regulations are not required of a large number of obligors, because they simply do not exist for the tourism administration, because there is no evidence of their involvement in themarket as tour operators, and control over they are given exclusively in case of an eventual complaint”.
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