Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SMARTOURISM (SMART TOURISM CHALLENGES: THE EFFECTS OF DIGITAL REVOLUTION ON CONSUMER EXPERIENCE AND BUSINESS COMPETITIVENESS)
Reporting period: 2021-07-01 to 2022-06-30
Research on smart tourism to date has partially ignored tourists’ role from a holistic perspective, usually focusing on the adoption and use of particular technologies. Furthermore, the employee and manager' perspective regarding the use of STs has not been analysed in the literature. Thus, a global interpretative framework in this regard for the smart context was missing. To tackle this shortcoming, this paper has contributed first, by proposing a deeper conceptualisation that characterises smart tourists through a description of their attitudes and behaviours, and second, by defining the role of technology infusion and mindfulness in the tourism SMEs scenario. The paper concludes that the role of the tourist must be central in smart tourism and calls for a better strategic decision making. The findings offer several critical implications for research, DMOs and businesses operating in the smart services setting, and highlight possible research lines for a topic that is still in its infancy.
Regarding the organisational model in Europe, researchers found that smart technology infusion and mindfulness towards digital transformation appears to be positive and significant on service advantage, value co-creation, employee job satisfaction, employee perception of service cannibalisation, and competitiveness. The findings show also that these last variables have a significant influence on competitiveness. When the model is applies to the US context, the relationship between smart technology infusion, and employee job satisfaction is not supported. The mindfulness has a significant influence on service advantage, value co-creation, employee job satisfaction, employee perception of service cannibalisation, and competitiveness. Finally, these variables have a significant influence on competitiveness. Nevertheless, the relationship between value co-creation and competitiveness is not supported. The findings showed that there were no significant differences between the American and European tourism SMEs, only in the relationship between value co-creation and competitiveness amongst both groups.
During the period of developing of this project, Dr. Díaz has exploited and disseminated the resulted of this research with the publication of 2 book chapters, a research paper in a top international journal related to marketing, a report which analyses smart destinations, the presentation of 18 communications in international conferences, 4 interviews in audiovisual media, 9 articles in press, 1 website of the project and other outreach activities.