In the context of smart tourism, evaluation of applications in Istanbul in terms of sustainability

Today's cities, faces a lot of problems that threatens the sustainability. So, to solve these kind of problems, some smart technologies have been developed and started to be applied in cities. With this, smart cities emerged. From smart city concept, smart tourism concept has been formed. Smart tourism is influential in the formation of travel with the help of information technologies in guests, offers personalized and diversified service to guests, adds a digital dimension to tourism and attaches importance to the sustainability of the destination. The aims of this study is to determine the status of smart tourism and smart city applications in Istanbul in terms of ensuring destination sustainability. In this context, 9 participants were interviewed including tourism stakeholders, academics and people responsible for digital and technical infrastructure. In this study where qualitative methods are used, Istanbul's situation on this issue, data obtained from the interviews with the participants were evaluated and analyzed according to this 7 different criteria: The sustainability criteria and the adequacy of the digital and technical infrastructure in the city, the conformity of the city for the smart city and smart tourism and the adequacy of existing applications, existence of smart applications based on sustainability in the city, the susceptibility of tourism businesses in the city to smart applications, presence of smart applications that can adapt to changing visitor profiles in the city, conformity of smart technologies in the city in terms of sustainability criteria, smart tourism and smart city future of the city. This research concluded as, the smart tourism and smart city applications in Istanbul are at the very beginning of the way to reveal and solve the problems related to sustainability but a city that historical, cultural, social and enviromentally significant image as Istanbul will achieve significant success in the future in smart tourism and smart cities and will be able to become a sustainable destination.