Conceptualizing Tourism Intelligence

The transformation of the tourism model stands as one of the most complex and pressing challenges facing contemporary destinations (Pollock, 2019a; Angelova and Ramírez García, 2024). Tourism, traditionally examined as a growth-oriented economic sector, has proven to exert profound effects on ecosystems, social structures, local cultures, territorial dynamics, and systems of governance. The multiple crises defining the present era (climate change, biodiversity loss, socio-economic inequalities, conflicts over land use, destination overcrowding, and vulnerability to global shocks) have exposed the shortcomings of conventional approaches to tourism planning and management. Within this context, the concept of tourism intelligence has gained prominence as a response to the need to understand, anticipate, and guide the transformation of tourism through an integrated, ethical, and long-term perspective (Bellato et al., 2022; Chen, 2024).
This chapter offers a rigorous and up-to-date conceptualization of tourism intelligence. It examines academic definitions and the conceptual evolution of the term, explores its relationship with territorial intelligence and collective intelligence, and delves into its core components: information, knowledge, and action. The chapter concludes with a discussion of implications for future research, as this field opens emerging lines of inquiry and poses important epistemological challenges. Its purpose is to move beyond a narrow sustainability framework toward regenerative approaches, acknowledging that current models have reached environmental and social limits, and that regeneration provides a pathway to generate tangible benefits for ecosystems, local communities, and territorial resilience.