Creating value in cross-border data management: a case study from Switzerland and Italy

What is it about?

The study of smart cities highlights the crucial role of big data, driven by extensive technology use. Data provide valuable insights but are challenging to manage due to their volume, variety, speed, and complex stakeholder relationships. This complexity increases when we consider smart cities as smart destinations, where international tourists bring additional data and challenges. In fact, although data flow across borders seamlessly, their legal and administrative management does not, posing issues for government and tourism agencies. Existing research highlights the benefits of smart technology and data management in tourism but lacks applicable implementation guidelines, especially for cross-border situations. This paper addresses this gap by presenting findings from a Switzerland-Italy project that applied a smart destination model, providing practical insights on how to manage data flows in cross-border contexts to create public and private value in smart cross-border destinations.

Featured Image

Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash

Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This research is important because it expands academic literature on smart destinations and introduces new concepts like ‘data estate’ to describe an organization’s data assets and their related infrastructure and data storage system. Additionally, it provides practical guidance for industry practitioners on managing data flows and fostering collaboration among stakeholders, and on interpreting and applying models in real-world scenarios, especially in cross-border smart destination projects.

Perspectives