Smart Tourism Destinations—Reminder to the host community

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the construction of critical thinking on tourism, providing reflections on the concept of Smart Tourism Destinations, which should, in the author’s opinion, be considered for its timely reconstruction. The concept of intelligence that sustains it is basically questioned, as well as some dangers related to its competitive and commercializing simplification. The methodology is based on argumentative bibliographic research, and is complemented with results of previous empirical research, which are inspired by critical epistemology, which questions the traditional tendency in the construction of knowledge about tourism. It concludes by substantiating a much more encompassing conception of human intelligence and reafirming the need for a methodology aimed at developing all the intellectual, emotional and spiritual potentialities of the people who inhabit the destinations.