A smart destination initiative: The case of a 2014 FIFA world cup host city

Hosting a world cup puts severe pressure on the urban infrastructure and services related to transportation and safety of any city. In order to address such pressure, the city of Natal (Brazil), a 2014 FIFA World Cup host city, in partnership with a local university have engaged in an initiative to create a smart tourism destination. This paper describes the implementation of this initiative and some initial results. First, this paper presents the Find Natal, a smart tourism application which aims to enhance tourists´ travel experience through software programs designed to leverage the infrastructure mechanisms behind the city. We have detailed the architecture and its components. Finally, we analyzed the data gathered by Find Natal application to show how such application can be used during any big event.