Smart tourism is a new buzzword applied to describe the increasing reliance of tourism destinations, their industries and their tourists on emerging forms of ICT that allow for massive amounts of data to be transformed into value propositions. However, it remains ill-defined as a concept, which hinders its theoretical development. The paper defines smart tourism, sheds light on current smart tourism trends, and then lays out its technological and business foundations. This is followed by a brief discussion on the prospects and drawbacks of smart tourism. The paper further draws attention to the great need for research to inform smart tourism development and management.

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In cultural heritage sites around the globe, augmented reality (AR) is being utilized as a tool to provide visitors with better experiences while preserving the integrity of the sites. However, little research has examined the impact of AR on customers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the sites. By integrating the post-acceptance model of information systems (IS) continuance, balance theory, and the theory of reasoned action (TRA), we investigate the causal mechanism underlying consumers’ beliefs about AR (perceived advantage, aesthetic experience, and perceived enjoyment) and AR satisfaction in conjunction with the attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the destination. The results show that the perceived advantage and aesthetics of AR influence AR satisfaction. In turn, AR satisfaction affects behavioral intentions toward the heritage destination, indirectly via the attitude toward the destination through AR. Based on these findings, we present theoretical and practical implications as well as suggestions for future research.

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The online travel review has become one of the most influential information sources for travelers’ decision making. This research primarily aims to examine the relationship between review textual content concreteness and review helpfulness in the tourism context. In particular, we examine how this relationship plays out under two individual circumstances, namely, temporal distance and risk–benefit tendency. Based on the construal level theory and feeling-as-information theory, two experiments are conducted to test whether the influence of review concreteness is moderated by temporal distance and risk–benefit tendency. The results show that the main effect of review concreteness is significant; however, in contrast to the assumptions of theories and results of relevant studies, both interaction effects of temporal distance and risk–benefit tendency are not. Finally, we interpret the findings and discuss the implications and limitations of this research.

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