Smart Cruise Destination: an innovative network governance framework

In a period of economic, environmental and resource crisis, the flow management in the port city region allows the passage from an uncontrolled growth to a circular and sustainable development. The port-city relations have historically been a complex system and this became even more evident with the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This paper expands on the current debate by focusing on an innovative soft category of intervention, aimed at rebalancing the port-city relation connected to the boom of cruise tourism. In this context, the paper firstly focuses on the need to change perspective due to the globalisation and technological development in the port-city relations. Secondly, a set of good practices to rebalance the relations between cities and cruise ports are collected. Finally, a Smart Cruise Destination concept is proposed, based on the evolution of the smart tourism destination, with the aim of emphasizing the residents’ wellbeing and tourist vacation enjoyment. The main contribution of this paper is the introduction in this context of a Decision Support Systems (DSS) devoted to the above-mentioned issues. The proposed framework consists of a combination of distributed knowledge and data that can give stakeholders the opportunity to base all decisions concerning policies, infrastructure development and managing system on sound and rational basis.