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This chapter explores some examples of good and not-so-good practices implemented worldwide, especially in Southern Europe, in Creative Tourism activities developed by entrepreneurs. The case studies used in the present chapter are located either in urban territories, small cities or rural areas. The global market introduces some difficulties in achieving good practices, highlighting the need to improve solid partnerships. The support from private and public sectors to institutions and enterprises developing creative tourism activities is analysed. Administrative and economic difficulties are also considered, and some proposals for the future survival of institutions and enterprises. In a global market, the definition of clusters is playing an increasing role in the survival of local and regional economies. In the tourism market, where seasonality is also a significant problem with difficult resolution, creating clusters can also be a great tool to contradict this. However, the success of implementing clusters in the tourism market depends on strong leadership and in-depth monitoring of results planned to be achieved. The present chapter considers clustering in Creative Tourism and the difficulties of implementing it in South Europe. Cultural and organisational issues are highlighted, as well as the need to construct thematic clusters that feature the needs of tourists.

The aim of this research is to explore the relationship between destination supply-side factors, visitor demand-side factors and the role of local government authorities in supporting the drive tourism market with effective interventions. A mixed methods approach was used to gather qualitative data from 14 destination stakeholders, which informed the development of a survey of 397 drive tourists to the Atherton Tablelands, in the far north of Australia. The findings identified stakeholder concerns about fragmented regional promotions by different regional entities, weakened destination branding and infrastructure needs. Drive tourist surveys indicated that although the destination provides a competitive tourism experience, there were concerns about the availability of information. This research highlights the danger of destination disunity, and the theoretical and practical contributions of the learning destination concept to understanding the importance of destination-wide, stakeholder collaboration, although it may be difficult to implement.

This research is to identify how user-generated contents (UGC) affect a pre-trip decision on the booking of a guesthouse among international travelers. Online surveys are conducted among social network users who have booked an ecolodge in the past year. A snowball sampling is used, which posts a questionnaire link in social networks including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram in addition to travel blogs. This study indicates a positive relationship between UGC and lodging selection. UGC is considered as a significant predictor of booking an environmentally friendly guesthouse. Among the UGCs, travelers' review is the most important one influencing guesthouse selection. Future studies may focus on other IT potentials such as “Gamification” or other types of content such as “Podcasts” or “live videos” to engage independent travelers.

Purpose: The current chapter presents the Bulgarian town of Elena as a tourist destination and the local food festival that provides an image of the researched place. In the course of the report, some literature sources are screened and the main ideas concerning authors’ viewpoints about events and food festivals are presented. Some of them reveal theory statements on events as a whole but the author’s search concerns those revealing characteristics of local food festivals.

Methodology: The authors prepared and conducted a purposeful survey; cross-analysed the appropriate questions from the survey; carried out a mode analysis of the value frequencies and empirical research.

Findings: The analysis reveals the need for contemporary digital approaches that could lead to more precise targeting the visitors of the festival, to increasing levels of quality of this specific tourist product as well as to raising the tourist satisfaction.

This chapter aims to contextualize smart rural development in Slovenia. It does so by presenting the current state of the art, addressing new interdisciplinary approaches in understanding the problems of rural areas, applying new approaches to smart rural development, and introducing a new concept.

We start our chapter by addressing the main problems of Slovenian rural areas and their inhabitants. We have made a review of initiatives and practices elsewhere and therefore here they are only summarized briefly to emphasize the most important achievements/improvements. Further, the chapter describes the state of the art in Slovenia in connection with smart and sustainable rural development, and analyzes the results contextually. It looks at the solutions and practices that local communities found to answer the existing challenges. Three promising examples are presented, related to different sectors: tourism, mobility, and innovation. The last part of the chapter contextualizes our findings and further explains our approach to smart rural development. Finally, the chapter introduces a new concept – that is, Smart Fab Village. The concept of Fab Village is built upon the concept designed for urban areas and then carefully adapted to the needs and specific requirements of rural areas.

Local natural and cultural resources should be the basic elements to differentiate destinations through innovative products and services, in order to ensure both their competitiveness and sustainability in the long run. This chapter covers a critical literature review on the topics of innovation, differentiation, competitiveness, and sustainability in tourism. A panel data model is developed in order to define regional demand functions for regions in Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy, estimating the influence of natural and cultural heritage, innovation, and other “traditional” factors of competitiveness on the attractiveness of tourism destinations.

Advances in information and communication technology have revolutionized the tourism industry. This development has blurred geographical boundaries, facilitated low transaction costs by directly connecting travelers to hosts and service providers, and improved service quality and distribution. The tourism industry, however, is in the midst of another massive change. The emergence of sharing economy platforms, such as Airbnb and Uber, is disrupting business models and is providing opportunities for microentrepreneurship. The goal of this chapter is to study how the changing nature of tourism business models and the increasing importance of microentrepreneurship are impacting value creation, capture, and delivery in tourism.