Chapter 9: Public Policies for the Digital Transformation of the Tourism Industry Within the EU Tourism Transition Pathway: A Comparative Analysis

Enhancing the digital transformation of the tourism industry is increasingly becoming a strategic priority for governance to create opportunities for destinations and SMEs.

Digitalization gave rise to new trends in tourism demand, disrupted the tourism value chain and revolutionized the ways the tourism offer reaches potential clients. New distribution channels have emerged, which have resulted in better capacity utilization and have reduced the cost of travel, as they sell to independent, geographically sparse consumers (European Commission, 2021; Navío-Marco et al., 2018). Tourism businesses can thus reach scale without mass (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2020). Digital tools have changed the way tourism businesses communicate with their clients (Dionísio et al., 2022; European Commission, 2021; Navío-Marco et al., 2018); internal business operations have become more effective, while flexible home working by using the Cloud and digital collaboration tools reduces costs for businesses, permits the outsourcing of different tasks and adjusts staff employment to fluctuations of demand (European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), 2018). Data analysis provides new business opportunities to create innovative products for specific target markets and plan evidence-based policymaking (Boes et al., 2016; European Commission, 2021; Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2020; World Economic Forum (WEF), 2019; Zsarnoczky, 2018).