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This study aims to examine and analyse data relating to cultural heritage, smart tourism and smart tourism tools for preserving cultural heritage in the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The paper is based on a qualitative review of data from National tourism board web sites, the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, and the European Heritage Label sites. The paper analyses various sources in terms of cultural heritage and smart tourism and examines different ways of applying smart tourism tools to cultural heritage.

The findings show that smart tourism, and especially the preservation of cultural heritage in the Baltic states, is not a new thing, and it is rapidly progressing by inventing new technological tools for tourists to use and as well by digitising cultural heritage. Comprehensive examination of three countries shows that there is significant potential already and that there is a way to grow further for each of the countries by applying new technological tools for preservation of a cultural heritage.

The paper reviews data on cultural heritage and smart tourism tools in the Baltic states where it already plays a steady and significant role. Specifically, it contributes to recognition of each of the states on a global level in terms of variety of cultural heritage that is being preserved and digitalised. The originality of the paper is determined by the assessment of the smart tools used for cultural tourism.

This study aims to provide a summary of the key outcomes and reflections related to the theme issue question, “Smart tourism: what developments and issues are important to the Baltic states?”

This study utilizes a descriptive approach to summarize the key outcomes of the theme issue. The theme issue focuses on the problems, trends and developments of smart tourism in the Baltic states, namely, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

The papers in the theme issue explore the emerging concept of smart tourism and the challenges associated with its implementation at the destination level. They also provide updated data on the adoption of smart tourism and aim to engage academics and industry professionals to identify future developments.

This theme issue provides unique perspectives from a variety of stakeholders, including academics, practitioners, industry professionals and policymakers on the key issues, trends and developments shaping the emergence of smart tourism in the Baltic states.

This study aims to describe the concept of smart tourism, placing emphasis on the smart tourism ecosystem and value co-creation concept within the system at a destination level. The work also summarizes the key challenges associated with smart tourism implementation and development.

The study was conducted as a critical literature review, discussing the outcomes of a wide range and scope of relevant academic literature on the chosen concepts.

Smart tourism can be described as the use of information and communication technology (ICT) technologies to facilitate and enrich tourism products, services and experiences. Within the smart tourism ecosystem, all stakeholders – customers, suppliers, intermediates, the public sector, service providers, destination management organizations and others –participate in the synergies and value co-creation, also share the benefits from it. The ultimate aim of a smart tourism ecosystem is to create sustainable economic, social and environmental benefits for all and promote destination competitiveness. Smart tourism implementation is also associated with several challenges, of which the most important are participation, an overwhelming amount of data, data privacy and technology adoption.

The paper provides a critical review of the recent and relevant literature in order to define and discuss the mechanisms of value co-creation in a smart tourism ecosystem and the challenges associated with it.

The study aims to identify the opinions of rural tourism service providers on synergy between rural and smart tourism in Latvia, Zemgale region.

The research is of a qualitative nature and it profiles possibilities for and the necessity of synergy between rural and smart tourism. As part of the study, a survey was conducted to identify the opinions of 63 rural tourism service providers from the Zemgale region.

The study found that rural tourism service providers use digital tools mainly for payment, communication with customers as well as marketing activities, which revealed that the level of digitalization of rural tourism in Latvia is low. The survey data indicates the respondents' dual vision of synergy between rural and smart tourism, recognizing that IT progress was rapid and its influence was inevitable, while at the same time emphasizing an argument for maintaining the basic value and nature of rural tourism.

The paper is an original study of the opinions of rural tourism service providers on synergy between rural and smart tourism in Latvia and specifically, the Zemgale region.

Tourist guides, one of the important service providers of tourism, have effected greatly by smart tourism technology during the COVID-19 period. It is thought that this trend will continue to increase in the future. Also, there are some challenges of smart tourism post pandemic on tour guides. In this context, the study aims to examine the levels of utilization of smart tourism applications by tourist guides, their activities in the COVID-19 period, and the transformation that tour guiding will undergo in the future. Within the scope of the study, existing smart tourism applications used in tours were examined with opportunities and challenges sides. In addition, the reflection of the guided cultural tours in the future was evaluated.

This study analyses the role of tourism in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as the need to integrate sustainability into tourism policies, which contribute to the development and accessibility of technologies and the quality of society.

This study reviews the accessibility of the tourism industry and the expansion of smart tourism in terms of sustainability, reviewing a wide range of research papers and analysing the concepts, findings and approaches suggested by scientists from various countries, as well as examples from the Baltic States.

The results reveal that the tourism industry is capable of adapting to changing conditions in modern society in a short enough period, thus contributing to the expansion of smart tourism and their active implementation at tourist attractions. In view of the goals set by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the accessibility of tourist attractions to various social groups should be provided through cooperation between public and private organizations.

This study explores the accessibility of tourism attractions and the development of smart tourism in the context of sustainability. Further, the article analyses some best practice examples from the Baltic States, which underpin the adaptation of the tourism industry to the changing conditions, as well as indicating the adaptation of the industry to the demands of modern society.

The purpose of this study is to identify the knowledge gap and future opportunities for developing mobile recommender system in tourism sector that lead to comfortable, targeted and attractive tourism. A recommender system improves the traditional classification algorithms and has incorporated many advanced machine learning algorithms.

Design of this application followed a smart, hybrid and context-aware recommender system, which includes various recommender systems. With the recommender system's help, useful management for time and budget is obtained for tourists, since they usually have financial and time constraints for selecting the point of interests (POIs) and so more purposeful trip planned with decreased traffic and air pollution.

The finding of this research showed that the inclusion of additional information about the item, user, circumstances, objects or conditions and the environment could significantly impact recommendation quality and information and communications technology has become one part of the tourism value chain.

The application consists of (1) registration: with/without social media accounts, (2) user information: country, gender, age and his/her specific interests, (3) context data: available time, alert, price, spend time, weather, location, transportation.

The study’s social implications include connecting the app and registration through social media to a more social relationship, with its textual reviews, or user review as user-generated content for increasing accuracy.

The originality of this research work lies on introducing a new content- and knowledge-based algorithm for POI recommendations. An “Alert” context emphasizing on safety, supplies and essential infrastructure is considered as a novel context for this application.

Provides an overview of the article collection in this theme issue that explores the concept of “smart tourism” and in particular, developments and issues that are important for the Baltic States.

The article applies a thematic approach to exploring the factors affecting the development of smart tourism, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing the Baltic region. Overall, the collection reviews the literature, provides an analysis of data and a survey of experts, including tourism service providers. This combines with the practical solutions given in the articles.

The findings and conclusions of this theme issue focus on the factors affecting the development of smart tourism and smart villages, digitalization and innovation opportunities in the Baltic regions, and it provides an insight on the current situation in the smart tourism industry, the possibilities for using digital technologies, and the practical applications.

This theme issue explores the factors influencing and challenges facing smart tourism in the Baltic region, given that all the stakeholders actively want more sustainable and balanced tourism, as well as opportunities to develop innovative, technologically advanced solutions to the development of smart tourism.

The conceptualization of smart emerged by technological advancements penetrated the tourism industry with the pace of globalization transformed the destinations providing digitalized products. Even though smart tourism destinations are initiated by advanced technologies, the notion evolved in embracing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) project economic, social, and environmental proliferation. A tourism destination is counted as “smart” which provides advanced technologies to improve the quality of tourists' experiences and enhance the residents' quality of life. The structure of a smart tourism destination is established on four basic pillars that cover technology, innovation, accessibility, and sustainability issues. Designating the notion of smart into tourism destinations is extremely vital since the shifting paradigm of tourists’ demands concern sustainability. The development of smart in a tourism destination is a crucial concern for destination management organizations (DMOs) integrating key destination components with the dimensions of a smart city to enhance the tourists' satisfaction and competitiveness of the destination. Therefore, one aim of this chapter is to elucidate the association between key destination components with the dimensions of a smart city to reveal the related smart tourism destination applications. Moreover, cultural heritage in smart tourism destinations forms an important part of tourism both with its tangible and intangible resources which have been involved in the emergent era of digitalization inevitably with all parties and processes. Hence, another aim of this chapter is to examine the dimensional shift in cultural heritage tourism within the framework of digitalization. Sharing cases of digitization of cultural heritage from different parts of the world, this chapter also reflects that it is inevitable to benefit from digitization and ICTs in order to reach the SDGs on the scale of smart tourism destinations. Analysis of academic publications and the national and international reports of the related authorities sums the methodology used to conclude the study with suggestions of future research paths to develop the field.