Smart Tourism as a Pillar for Sustainable Urban Development: An Alternate Smart City Strategy from Mauritius

Abstract

Mauritius, a small island developing state (SIDS), has an approved government-issued smart city framework geared at facilitating the development of smart cities through an application of Internet of things. In an attempt to move away from privately-operated urban developments in the form of newly built smart cities, an alternate framework has been proposed by Allam and Newman to redefine this timely concept for existing cities with the main dimensions being metabolism, culture, and governance. This new framework focuses on liveability and sustainability that builds on the cultural and historical dimensions of existing cities. This study adds to the redefined smart city paradigm by proposing a new pillar in the form of smart tourism for the city of Port Louis, Mauritius. This paper reviews models of smart tourism and explores how this can be grafted to the Allam and Newman’s smart city model. The findings of this study seek to inform policy makers on alternate and the more relevant economic potential of smart tourism for the city of Port Louis.