Enhancing Tourist Satisfaction through Smart Tourism: Evidence from Urban Cities in China

Abstract

Background:
Smart tourism represents a paradigm shift in urban destination management, integrating advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics, and mobile applications to optimize the tourist experience. Despite China's global leadership in deploying smart tourism infrastructure, a disconnect persists between technological implementation and actual tourist satisfaction—raising questions about the effectiveness of current digital strategies.

Methods:
This study adopts a quantitative, causal-explanatory research design to investigate the influence of five core smart tourism technology attributes—information availability, personalization, accessibility, interactivity, and security—on perceived value and tourist satisfaction. Data were collected from 450 tourists in Beijing and Shanghai using a structured questionnaire, of which 420 valid responses were analyzed. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to test the hypothesized relationships.

Results:
The analysis reveals that personalization (β = 0.32, p < 0.001), interactivity (β = 0.21, p < 0.001), and information availability (β = 0.27, p < 0.01) significantly enhance perceived value (R² = 0.62), which in turn strongly predicts tourist satisfaction (β = 0.46, p < 0.001; R² = 0.68). Furthermore, satisfaction positively influences revisit intention (β = 0.38), word-of-mouth (β = 0.34), and willingness to pay a premium (β = 0.29), all at p < 0.001. Mediation analysis confirms that perceived value partially mediates the relationship between smart tourism attributes and satisfaction.

Conclusion:
This study contributes to smart tourism theory by extending the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) framework and enriching the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with post-adoption constructs such as perceived value and satisfaction. The findings offer actionable insights for tourism stakeholders, emphasizing the importance of aligning technological innovation with user-centered design, trust-building mechanisms, and inclusive accessibility. These strategies are vital to narrowing the expectation–experience gap and enhancing the overall effectiveness of smart tourism initiatives in urban contexts.