Culture and tourism play a pivotal role in driving growth, employment, and social cohesion within a country, particularly in its rural and isolated inner areas and historical small towns, which possess abundant cultural and natural riches (Brandano & Crociata, 2022; Richards, 2021). Investments in culture hold significant value due to their far-reaching positive impacts on health, innovation, and social cohesion (European Commission, 2018; 2019), making them a crucial concern for national policymakers. This importance is accentuated in our current socio-economic climate. The recent pandemic has generated several challenges in culture and tourism sectors, though the severity of these challenges has differed among different sub-sectors. Furthermore, the ongoing energy crisis is exacerbating the recovery and growth struggles of these sectors.
In this context, and in alignment with the new EU industrial strategy (EU Commission 2020), the tourism ecosystem must embark on a dual transition towards a greener and more digitized industry. This transformation is essential to enhance the ecosystem’s resilience and attain the objectives outlined in the Green Deal and the EU digital decade (EC JRC 2022).
Achieving this transition necessitates a collaborative, bottom-up approach involving stakeholders in crafting a path forward for the sector.
Public and private entities operating within cultural and tourism ecosystems face numerous challenges and must redefine their development paradigms, embracing principles such as sustainability, smartness, resilience, and safety (e.g., Demartini et al., 2021; Duran & Uygur, 2022; Gretzel et al., 2015; Najda-Janoszka & Kopera, 2014).
Among the pivotal challenges there are the establishment of more resilient, circular, and sustainable models for cultural tourism companies, the enhancement of tourism destinations through effective urban management, and the formulation and implementation of intelligent and sustainable tourism policies and promotion strategies (e.g., Hjalager et al., 2018; Topal et al., 2020). Therefore, actors within cultural and tourism ecosystems should prioritize enhancing the quality of life for both citizens and tourists, improving the quality of cultural, creative, and tourism services, and embracing intelligent and sustainable practices that leverage the emerging digital and green transitions.
Digital technologies represent a pivotal means of addressing the challenges mentioned. They can be exploited to enhance the quality of the tourism and cultural experience, facilitating more inclusive socio-economic growth for all stakeholders in cultural tourism ecosystems (Ammirato et al., 2021; Dredge et al., 2018; Fereidouni & Kawa, 2019; Goodwin, 2018; Hjalager, 2010; Santarsiero et al., 2021; Schen et al., 2016; Scorza et al., 2018; Xiang & Fesenmaier, 2017). Digital technologies offer myriad opportunities to strengthen the foundations of a more resilient and sustainable tourism ecosystem while bolstering the local competitiveness of cultural tourism offerings.
The development of these offerings involve some key strategic actions aimed at fortifying cultural heritage through the promotion of sustainable tourism options, such as long-term stays, to combat seasonality. These actions should encompass experiential exploration of cultural heritage and comprehensive itineraries spanning lesser-known or marginalized areas (Scorza and Gatto, 2023). The objective is to make minor cultural destinations attractive and competitive by establishing cross-regional thematic networks or projects that amplify local uniqueness.
Promoting co-creation and enriching tourism experiences at a destination hinges on the creation of collaborative ecosystems. This entails involving a wide array of stakeholders, including authorities, tourists, local businesses, and governmental bodies (Pencarelli, 2020). Collaborative ecosystems share characteristics with complex adaptive systems, such as self-organization and scalability (Senyo, Liu, and Effah, 2019). From this perspective, the tourism ecosystem must be viewed as a multifaceted relational phenomenon that must be understood not solely from an economic standpoint but also from a spatial perspective, emphasizing the role of “place” (Scorza et al., 2019). In this regard, utilizing digital technologies and AI systems to map the value chain of the tourism ecosystem could be valuable in identifying positive synergies between the territory and SMEs and inform sustainable strategic plans.
This special track welcomes both conceptual and empirical submissions that explore innovation and sustainable development in cultural tourism ecosystems in the digital age. Research topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Managing knowledge to build innovative, resilient, and intelligent cultural tourism ecosystems.
• Approaches, models, and tools for analyzing and evaluating the digital transformation of cultural tourism ecosystems.
• Digital transformation strategies for cultural tourism ecosystems.
• Artificial Intelligence models and tools for identifying and mapping micro/macro tourism systems.
• Business model innovation for sustainable cultural tourism ecosystems.
• Tourism models, guidelines, and best practices for sustainable and inclusive urban approaches in tourism destinations.
• Spatial data infrastructure: production, use, and exchange of spatial knowledge for sustainable development.
• Enhancing competitiveness and building resilient cultural tourism ecosystems through digital transition.
• Innovation and sustainable development of cultural tourism ecosystems: case studies and best practices.
• Society 5.0 and the development of cultural tourism ecosystems.
• Policies and strategies to promote sustainable management and development of cultural tourism in alignment with the Agenda 2030.

Daniela Carlucci, University of Basilicata, Italy
Francesco Scorza, University of Basilicata, Italy
Beniamino Murgante, University of Basilicata, Italy
Antonio Lerro,University of Basilicata, Italy
Giovanna Andrulli, University of Basilicata, Italy
Mauro Fiorentino, University of Basilicata, Italy
Francesco Santarsiero, University of Basilicata, Italy
Rosaria Lagrutta, University of Basilicata, Italy
Simone Corrado, University of Basilicata, Italy
Rachele Vanessa Gatto, University of Basilicata, Italy