Towards Smart Trends for Tourism Development and its Role in the Place Sustainability- Karbala Region, a Case Study

Abstract

Tourism is currently considered one of the most important economic sectors that directly or indirectly affect societies and have a positive role in achieving spatial development, whether on (the country, regions, or cities) and its sustainability, and one of the modern trends in the field of achieving sustainability is adopting Elements of (intelligence) in development activities, the most important of which is smart tourism, which has the potential to make a qualitative and quantitative transition in the life of the local community in various aspects (economic, social, environmental, and environmental urban) if smart variables (smart governance - sustainability - technology - innovation - accessibility and smart mobility - communication and information technologies - social capital - cultural heritage - creativity) are taken more seriously in applying them to the reality of the situation in planning, implementation and management, allowing the investment of strengths and positive disks to overcome risks, challenges and weaknesses. This study was distinguished from the previous studies on the topics of smart tourism in that it relied on all indicators that contribute to the development of smart tourism in the field of sustainable spatial development by relying on the development potential of the regions, which greatly encourages the introduction of smart technology mainly in development. As is the case in the province (Karbala) in Iraq, which was chosen as a study area because of its great tourism development potential to find the available and latent opportunities in the transition to smart tourism, as well as to assess its role in sustainable development. The study reached important results through the use of statistical methods, including SPSS, represented in the presence of a strong correlation between smart tourism indicators and sustainable spatial development. Tourism supply and demand directly interact intimately, whose results are reflected on the entire Karbala region in the short and long term.