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A broad agreement exists that tourism is an effective instrument for social and economic development. However, there is no specific theoretical or practical framework of tourism for development to be found. Even the key issues have remained unformulated: concept of development, tourism's contributions to development, and tourism policy and governance for development. This chapter first summarizes the development paradigms held in the last decades (modernization, neoliberalism, dependency, and sustainability) vis-à-vis tourism, and then goes on to consider proposals emanating from New Institutional Economics and the Theory of Social Capital. It concludes with the results of a 2011 enquiry, involving some 60 international experts.

One of the challenges in global sustainable tourism development is knowledge flow and sharing among development assistance donors and recipients in developing countries. This chapter integrates the concepts of knowledge management and consensus building to construct a virtual network, leveraging information communication technologies for identifying global tourism priorities and sharing knowledge for sustainable development. The factors and relationships that influence the effective use of professional virtual communities for knowledge sharing are identified and examined. They are integrated for proposing a conceptual framework to study effective knowledge sharing in virtual communities for global sustainable tourism development.

Tourism policy is a generic term with many interpretations. For too long time tourism policy has been identified with promotion of the public sector. Nowadays the content is much more embracing. The first section of this contribution briefly describes the evolution in this content and deal with the present meaning that is given to tourism policy. “Competitiveness” and “sustainability” are the the two key terms in the modern view. The situation of Bruges with respect to those two core notions is the central theme of this contribution. For the analysis of competitiveness the Porter approach is an interesting instrument. This leads to the strenghts and weaknesses of Bruges with respect of competitiveness. Sustainability was always a major element in the tourism policy of Bruges.

The first part of the book is dedicated to the complex issue of development and the role tourism can play in its achievement. In the first chapter, Fayos-Solà, Fuentes, and Muñoz Mazón set the stage by examining various development theories and approaches from the last 50 years. It becomes evident that the intensely pro-development policies following the end of World War II and the emergence of the United Nations group of organizations were replaced, beginning in the 1970s, with a surge of institutional theory and practice advocating the market as the almost sole purveyor of prosperity, or, supposedly, development. In this context, it was argued, all tourism needs is a free-market environment to create employment, income, modernization, and economic growth, and these all were equated with development.

Overtourism is a problem of social and psychological perspective which is aggravated by the mismanagement of the destination. It can also be understood as an umbrella term which incorporates the unfavourable conditions created by means of several tourism activities. The present scenario of overcrowding by tourists, displacement of local population and loss of authenticity can be assumed that overtourism is a consequence of increasing volume of tourism industry in the twenty-first century. There are strong uncorroborated beliefs around overtourism formed by media and literature which are not concrete and need to be busted. Several impressions have been generated around the phenomenon of overtourism and overcrowding which has hampered the administration of a destination. This chapter identifies 11 myths of overtourism with the help of literature review and supporting examples have been given with each myth. The authors attempt to decipher the underlying stereotypes of overtourism in context of it being a recent phenomenon, its existence in the popular part of the cities and the realities of the solutions and perceptions of the concept.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate through a case study, how a tourist destination plan can contribute to the management of the destination, via the development of sustainable, coherent, integrated and efficient tourism actions.

The methodology incorporates a literature review on tourism planning and a case study, where the models and tools presented are applied to the Douro Valley region.

The Douro Valley Tourism Plan (DVTP) is based on an integrated and global perspective (by taking into consideration all the elements of the tourism system) and has been designed with the close and active involvement of the stakeholders. The goal is to ensure that all future actions will be pursued through a high commitment from the community and institutions of the region.

Aware of the interest that the Portuguese Government has in the region, as well as the financial resources that can be deployed, attracting private investment and promotion can be facilitated. These tasks, essential to the development of the region, are more easily facilitated as the DVTP gives a positive sign to the markets (investors and travel operators) and consequently to potential tourists.

The paper reports on the Douro Valley as the first destination in the World that has been assessed by the World Centre of Excellence for Destinations. The System for Measuring Excellence on Destinations, helping destinations to achieve sustainable development objectives, constitutes a tool for a better implementation of the “Douro Valley Tourism Plan” and so is an excellent example for other destinations.

The purpose of this chapter is to critically evaluate the development of technological infrastructure and the propensity of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) destinations to adopt digitalisation in their hotel sectors. This paper focuses on technological readiness, the types of digitalisation and its influence on the hotel sector in a post-pandemic environment.

The chapter is a critical and conceptual overview of digitalisation in the Latin America and the Caribbean hotel sectors, the contribution of the hotel sector to tourism economies, and digitalisation in LAC post COVID-19. A comprehensive examination of the academic literature is combined with the Network Readiness Index (NRI) and Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) on several LAC countries focusing on different scopes including ICT readiness, ICT environment and business usage from 2010 to 2020. The paper uses empirical data collected from NRI and TTCI on several LAC countries examining changes in development of information and communications technology (ICT) by conducting a longitudinal analysis over a ten-year period.

The chapter argues that digitalisation in the hotel sector has been given a lot of attention regarding the adoption of digitalisation during the pandemic by a continuation of activities involving check-in and check-out, providing safety for guests and staff and the recovery of the hotel sector by both hoteliers and academics. Yet, LAC have been slow when it comes to the development of ICT. This is shown on the NRI and the TTCI by their position on ICT infrastructure, ICT environment and business usage. Nevertheless, while their positions on the indexes are less than favourable, their scores are improving, but at a very slow rate.

Limited academic literature is available on digitalisation in LAC countries. There is no consistent data on the NRI and TTCI year to year for some of the countries examined in this study.

This study provides a comprehensive review of technological infrastructure development of countries of Latin America and Caribbean countries with an emphasis on digitalisation in a hospitality context. The chapter is a critical examination of digitalisation in the hotel sector in a post-pandemic environment.