Tel Aviv was awarded Smartest City in the World in 2014 and was ranked the #1 startup ecosystem outside of the United States in 2015. In addition, the city was recently ranked as one of the top tourist destinations by Lonely Planet.
 
Nowadays, Tel Aviv is investing in becoming a Smart Tourism City, combining its specialties in the field of tourism and technology.

IMTM 2016 (International Mediterranean Tourism Market), the 22nd annual international tourism exhibition, will be held in Tel Aviv on February 9-10, 2016. The fair provides tourism professionals with an opportunity to meet colleagues, buyers, suppliers and exhibitors from Israel and overseas.

Delegations from 48 countries will attend this year's IMTM, a record number of foreign representatives in recent years, including the first delegations from the US, Lapland, Taiwan, as well as a delegation from Egypt’s Air Sinai and the Moscow Tourism Board. Representatives from Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, India, France, Ecuador, Japan, Nepal, Vietnam, Greece, Serbia, Belarus, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, South Africa, Tanzania, Morocco, Ethiopia, Panama, Peru, and other countries will also participate.

IMTM features exhibitors representing just about every aspect of Israel’s tourism market - incoming tourism, domestic tourism and outgoing tourism, alongside a significant number of exhibitors from overseas. The fair is highlighted by professional workshops, seminars and press conferences.
 
IMTM 2016 will feature two major events in the field of Smart Tourism:

• Futurism.com: an Innovation conference, featuring panels with fascinating and prominent keynote speakers from around the world, relating to Smart Tourism. During the conference the winner of Tel Aviv Mayor's Smart Tourism Award will be announced.
• The Digital Travel Dome: an exhibition featuring technological breakthroughs and startups with the latest innovation in the field of tourism.
  

 
Here are some examples of Smart Tourism Apps, all made in Tel Aviv:
 

• Sidekix: helps you make the most of each walk by personalizing your route based on what you want to see or do along the way.
• Eatwith: a global community that lets you enjoy authentic and intimate dining at a local's home.
• LocalYoo: enables you to explore your destination from the local perspective: to discover all the little secrets that are known only to the ones living in the city.
• Jettaplus: an online marketplace that allows travelers to trade their non-refundable plane tickets and get paid by people who look for cheap flights.
• Roomer: connects travelers that have to cancel and who are stuck paying for an empty hotel room with the travelers looking for a last minute sweet deal.
• FairFly: enables travelers who’ve already purchased an airline ticket to rebook their ticket when a better priced option becomes available.
• Bossee: provides a fast way to build an itinerary around the schedule of business travelers in order to create a unique experience that they can hold on to while also accomplishing their business-needs.
• Booksonmap: connects between book quotes, and places on the map where they took place.
• Dotz: connects between those countless Dotz that make a city: parks, restaurants, galleries, shows, cool spots & amazing people.
• Kiki: A unique platform for the international gay community combining a designated social network with upscale tourism and exclusive nightlife packages.
  

The Israel Tourism Ministry will hold a conference within the framework of IMTM. The conference will host a 24 hour Hackathon, in which 15 groups will compete to develop tourism apps. This event, taking place for the first time, is an initiative of the Tourism Ministry and the ICT Authority in the Office of the Prime Minister. The teams, who will be given a work space at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds, will develop unique tourism apps based on new Tourism Ministry databases open to the public with nearly 6,000 pieces of information within 18 different categories. Tourism Ministry Director-General Amir Halevi and Head of the ICT Authority in the Office of the Prime Minister Yair Frank will head the team of judges, which includes senior representatives from the tourism industry in Israel and overseas. Tourism Minister Yariv Levin will present the prize to the winning team.

Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, who will lead the conference, stressed that "The challenges for the tourism industry grow every year, but, at the same time, so do the opportunities. Israel will continue to develop the tourism industry and I am convinced that, with innovation and creativity, we will achieve results that will improve the tourist experience in Israel and will expose the country as an attractive tourism destination. I believe that the strategic changes we are spearheading in marketing, planning, construction and technology will positively impact on the industry's development and will serve to promote Israel tourism."

In another innovation for the conference, for the first time, directors of the Israel Government Tourist Offices overseas will participate in the conference via video-conferencing, each presenting the marketing activities and market data for the country in which they operate. The Digital Information and New Media department in the Tourism Ministry has developed the infrastructure for Skype for Business, connecting across all ministry offices in Israel and overseas.