• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.561-576
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• 2016

This paper aims to develop a conceptual model of smart tourism destination competitiveness to provide implications in terms of smart tourism destination realization and smart tourism destination competitiveness development. A literature review on tourism destination competitiveness and smart tourism destination is performed. A conceptual model is suggested on the basis of the model of destination competitiveness developed by Crouch and Ritchie (1999). The suggested conceptual model integrates the traditional concepts of comparative advantages and competitive advantages, seven core resources and attractors, and five destination management factors. Smart technology is included as a new core resource and attractor in the model. This study is the first to comprehensively conceptualize smart tourism destination competitiveness. Moreover, this study has practical value in the sense that it focused on the convergence between smart technology and other factors.

• Journal of Smart Tourism
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.5-14
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• 2022

In recent years, UNWTO and academics have called for the development of responsible, sustainable, and universally accessible tourism to promote equal human rights and social inclusion. Prior studies have also revealed the potential and value of smart technologies in reducing, if not removing, barriers to people with access requirements during travel and in their everyday lives. However, a guiding framework of how smart technologies assist in building an accessible destination is still absent, thereby hindering the progress of building accessible tourism. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap. A conceptual model of smart accessible destination (SAD) was proposed drawing from the intersection of accessible tourism and smart tourism. With the guidance of this conceptual model, tourism destinations and stakeholders can recognize and utilize the synergies of accessible and smart tourism to enhance the social inclusion, competitiveness, and sustainability of a destination.

• Journal of Smart Tourism
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.7-18
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• 2024

This study examines Natal in Brazil as a Smart Tourism Destination (STD) based on the perception of public and private managers who are members of the City Tourism Council. The research utilizes a systemic perspective of STD proposed by Ivars-Baidal et al. (2016), consisting of three interconnected levels: Strategic-Relational, Instrumental, and Applied. The findings reveal that Natal faces challenges in terms of infrastructure, accessibility, security, connectivity, and sensoring, which hinder its progress as STD. The study also identifies opportunities in the form of governance structures with smart destinations and the inclusion of smartness guidelines in the City Master Plan. The research aims to contribute to the theoretical understanding of STD and its application in destination development. It highlights the need for innovative planning and management in Natal, emphasizing that adopting the STD from a systemic perspective can enhance competitiveness and elevate the level of smartness in the destination.

• Journal of Smart Tourism
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.21-32
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• 2022

This paper shows light on the concept of smart tourism destination as a future of tourism development, especially in the context of problems associated with developing countries. This study substantiates the case of smart tourism development in mountain destinations as an affordable and needed future of the contemporary era. This conceptual study is based on secondary literature on Smart Cities, Smart Tourism Destinations, and Tourism in Himachal Pradesh. The Indian state of Himachal Pradesh has been considered as a study area to acknowledge major tourism-related challenges, especially in mountain locations. Consequently, the dots are connected between existing challenges and solutions that smart tourism holds. It turns out that for the development of mountain tourism destinations such as Himachal Pradesh in the Indian Himalayas, investments in smart infrastructure are required. By developing smart infrastructure, a new USP can be made, a supportive environment for new local businesses, new employment opportunities, enhanced tourist experience and an overall raised standard of living for locals. Considering all factors, it leads to a highly competitive tourism destination. All tourism destinations located in the Himalayan mountains show somewhat the same tourism challenges as Himachal Pradesh, India. Therefore, this paper brightens the path of destination planners towards the development agenda of smart tourism destinations and shows how smart tourism infrastructure can be deployed for better management of tourism destinations.

• Journal of Smart Tourism
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.15-21
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• 2023

This paper presents a conceptual approach to Smart Tourism Design based on semiotic affordances theory. This conceptual approach repositions smart tourism from a techno-centric perspective that frames a seamless connection between the device and its software, to a more human-centric perspective that favors the user's needs, desires as perceived through the senses. An updated Smart Tourism Design emphasizes the aesthetic dimension of smart tourism that presents the objects of the travel experience as destination specific rather than universal, through representations as digital artifacts. This theory is based on an empirical and objective understanding of representations and how they can be identified as useful in the digital augmentation of travel experiences. Using Peirce's sign systems and Gibson's theory of affordances, smart tourism can transcend a prefabricated device-oriented experience to a closer dynamic and direct interaction between the user and the travel destination. Researchers and developers can use semiotics as a structural approach to recognizing objects as sign-types, and they can use affordances to better identify the immediacy of digital artifacts and purpose-driven by users' spontaneous and immediate motives.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.163-178
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• 2015

This paper specifically delineated the methodological application of constructivism in smart tourism studies. It explained what constructivism is and how this methodology could be applied in the study of smart tourism. In this study, residents of Seoul participated in constructivist research using the Q method to identify their subjectivities toward Seoul based on photographs most commonly found in tourism promotional material. Residents are concerned with good governance and cultural integrity, and they are aware of their role as stakeholders in tourism in their communities. However their potential contribution to destination image formation has been usually overlooked by researchers and marketers. Three clusters of subjectivities were revealed after 42 photographs of Seoul were sorted by 37 respondents. The results show how respondents perceived Seoul's destination image. The three clusters agreed that symbolic monuments were the key representations of Seoul. The paper recommends that tourism marketers and policy makers should focus on understanding and coordinating with residents' perceived image of Seoul as a destination when planning and decision making, especially in promoting Seoul as a destination market. This study, in conjunction with other constructivist research offers insight into how destination image is, especially with the rise of smart tourism, a complex social construction.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.93-113
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• 2018

Destination attributes represent the attractiveness of destinations that pull tourists to visit them. Destination marketers must understand what motivates tourists to choose certain destination attributes before they travel. Considering religious tourists plays an important aspect in influencing travel decisions, especially destination choices. For instance, the appearance of Islamic religious attributes in destinations can delight Muslim tourists and stimulate their satisfaction and loyalty. This study examines smart tourism city. In particular, it investigates the effects of Seoul's destination attributes on Muslim tourists' satisfaction and loyalty to South Korea. Results show that non-Islamic destination attributes (conventional attributes) have positive relationship with Muslim tourists' satisfaction, and their satisfaction is positively related to their loyalty toward South Korea as a travel destination.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.26-48
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• 2024

Data plays an ever greater part in the tourism industry. While the platform-based sharing of open public data, private-sector intermediary platforms, and the use of social media to understand consumer trends are already well recognized, more potential for innovation exists in sharing private data among organizations in Smart Tourism Destinations. Research into the factors enabling and hindering coopetition in this kind of data sharing platforms is still in the nascent stage of development. Our case study of Sapporo, a major Japanese city endeavouring to create itself as a Smart Tourism Destination, sheds light on the initial approaches to involve organizations to such a data sharing agreement. Founding on seven interviews with ten participants of Sapporo Smart City project organization (SARD), we derived enablers and impediments that promote coopetition in data sharing as part of Smart Tourism Destination development. We also present practical recommendations and future research opportunities for such initiatives.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.101-132
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• 2019

In order to enhance the competitiveness of tourism destinations, it is important to manage tourist products considering the characteristics of tourist destinations and the characteristics of tourists. In this study, we divided Seoul's tourism products into four parts (shopping, food, culture, and natural landscape) to explore if there are some direct connections between tourism product involvement, self-congruity, and functional congruity. The other research question is if the degree of tourism product involvement reaches a certain intensity, will the place attachment be generated and the destination satisfaction be fulfilled. The survey was the focus on the international visitors in smart city, Seoul by using the random sampling and convenience sampling and collected 250 data. Finally, we found that destination personality significantly affects both self-congruity and functional congruity. If self-congruity and functional congruity are formed, tourism product involvement will be stimulated which will finally satisfy tourists and arouse their place attachment. The implications of these findings contribute to destination marketers to develop more effective destination management.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.103-118
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• 2015

Smart tourism is a social phenomenon arising from the convergence of information technology with the tourism experience. New ways of doing business, new patterns of experience and new problems concerning tourism destination image management and marketing are emerging due to the ubiquitous presence and influence of the internet and mobile devices. New conceptual tools are also available to enable researchers to further understand the social implications as well as the practical implementation of these new virtual and augmented smart tourism ecosystems. To this effect this paper introduces the constructivist paradigm and associated research methodologies as another toolbox for interpreting how smart tourism works as a form of soft power. The implications revealed by constructivism are that through smart tourism ecosystems, destination commodification and commoditization, experience and image formation are increasingly self-perpetuating, autonomous and organic social constructions. Researchers in information technology can use constructivist research to further explore these dynamic developments in smart tourism.