Tourists’ Experiences with Smart Tourism Technology at Smart Destinations and Their Behavior Intentions

Hypothesis 1a
: STTs’ accessibility has a positive relation-
ship with tourists’ memorable experience at smart tourism 
destinations.
Hypothesis 1b
: STTs’ informativeness has a positive rela-
tionship with tourists’ memorable experience at smart 
tourism destinations.
Hypothesis 1c
: STTs’ interactivity has a positive relation-
ship with tourists’ memorable experience at smart tourism 
destinations.
Hypothesis 1d
: STTs’ personalization has a positive rela-
tionship with tourists’ memorable experience at smart 
tourism destinations.
Security and Privacy
Besides the aforementioned four attributes of STTs, protect-
ing and securing personal and private information is a 
required feature in the technology-mediated environment. 
Previous studies (e.g., Huang et al. 2017; Xiang et al. 2015) 
discuss potential risks of data breach and imminent issues 
related to security and privacy as key factors that can affect 
usage of STTs. If a tourism destination cannot accommodate 
individual tourists’ needs for security and privacy, it would 
present a serious inhibitor to tourists for visiting the destina-
tion. Thus, STTs’ ability to perform and protect personal 
information has been a key factor for travelers’ use of STTs 
to enhance their travel experience at smart tourism destina-
tions. However, this study considers security/privacy as a 
conditioning variable rather than a core attribute of STTs, 

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Journal of Travel Research 00(0)
because each individual’s perceptions of security/privacy 
would be highly subjective. Such subjective evaluations may 
vary the strength and nature of the relationships between the 
attributes of STTs and their consequences (Y. Wang, So, and 
Sparks 2017). For example, tourists who are sensitive to the 
issues of security/privacy may consider their SST experi-
ences less memorable than those who are insensitive to secu-
rity/privacy. Thus, this study proposes that the security/
privacy attribute can moderate the relationship between the 
four STT attributes and tourists’ memorability of travel expe-
rience. This reasoning leads to the following hypotheses.
Hypothesis 2a
: Security/privacy has a moderating effect 
on the relationship between accessibility and tourists’ 
memorable experience at smart tourism destinations.
Hypothesis 2b
: Security/privacy has a moderating effect 
on the relationship between informativeness and tourists’ 
memorable experience at smart tourism destinations.
Hypothesis 2c
: Security/privacy has a moderating effect 
on the relationship between interactivity and tourists’ 
memorable experience at smart tourism destinations.
Hypothesis 2d
: Security/privacy has a moderating effect 
on the relationship between personalization and tourists’ 
memorable experience at smart tourism destinations.
Relationships of Memorable Experience with 
Satisfaction and Behavior Intentions
In light of the memorability of tourist experiences at smart 
tourism destinations, this study examines two potential con-
sequences: satisfaction and behavior (revisit) intention. 
Satisfaction is defined as an individual’s positive evaluation 
of an experience (J. Singh, Goolsby, and Rhoads 1994). In 
the tourism context, satisfaction indicates the tourist’s posi-
tive assessment of his or her psychological state resulting 
from a travel experience. According to balance theory 
(Heider 1946), individuals change their attitudes when they 
perceive contradiction. In other words, individuals tend to 
maintain their attitude in accordance with their perceptions. 
Tourists tend to feel satisfied when they have a positive expe-
rience with activities they participate in at tourism destina-
tions. When tourists perceive their experience at a destination 
to be memorable and valuable, therefore, they tend to feel 
satisfied. Otherwise, dissatisfaction is in order.
Studies (e.g., Carbonell and Escudero 2015; Ozturk and 
Hancer 2015; X. Wang et al. 2016) have investigated how 
technology affected consumers’ memorable experience, sat-
isfaction, and behavioral intentions. Carbonell and Escudero 
(2015), for example, identify customers’ negative techno-
logical experience has a significant negative effect on their 
satisfaction and intentions to use the technology again. 
Additionally, customers’ past experience appears to have a 
strong positive relationship with their satisfaction with the 
use of technology as well as their behavior intentions (Ozturk 
and Hancer 2015).
Ajzen (1991) argues that behavior intentions are the best 
way to predict a person’s behavior and to reflect his or her 
willingness to perform a behavior. In the study by Kwok and 
Gao (2005), individuals tend to engage in a particular behav-
ior when they have a positive intention to perform the behav-
ior. Thus, a strong intention to perform a behavior is highly 
predictive of an execution of that particular behavior (Ajzen 
1991). According to the theory of planned behavior, behav-
ioral intentions are an antecedent to actual behavior in gen-
eral (Moutinho 1987). Behavior intention in this study refers 
to tourists’ intent or commitment to visit and recommend a 
focal smart tourism destination.
Memorable experience has also been recognized as a driv-
ing factor for future decision making (J.-H. Kim 2014; Hoch 
and Deighton 1989), indicating that memorable experience 
affects behavior intention directly (J.-H. Kim 2018). 
Memorable experience shapes positive behavioral intentions 
(Oh, Fiore, and Jeoung 2007; Hosany and Witham 2010). The 
significant impact of memorable experience on tourists’ inten-
tions is found to be positive (Loureiro 2014). Furthermore, 
memorable experience at a tourism destination has a signifi-
cant impact on word of mouth (Zhong, Busser, and Baloglu 
2017). Previous studies have found that satisfaction has a 
direct effect on behavioral intention (Oliver 1980; E. W. 
Anderson and Sullivan 1993; Chen 2008; Chen and Chen 
2010). Tourists tend to revisit a tourism destination or to rec-
ommend the destination to others when they are satisfied with 
the destination (Yang et al. 2015; Chen and Chen 2010; J.-H. 
Kim 2018; Prayag et al. 2017). Conversely, tourists are less 
likely to revisit the destination or spread positive word of 
mouth when they are dissatisfied with their travel experience 
(Reisinger and Turner 2003; Chen and Chen 2010). In essence, 
satisfaction plays as a mediator in the relationship between 
experience and intention (Hosany and Witham 2010).
The literature is replete with studies that investigate how 
technology affects an experience, satisfaction, and intention. 
Ozturk and Hancer (2015) find a significant relationship 
between past technology experience and intention to adopt 
radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology in the hos-
pitality industry. The experience with mobile technology 
positively moderates an intention to adopt technology while 
traveling (Rivera, Gregory, and Cobos 2015). Technological 
competence has a significant, positive impact on individuals’ 
intention to use mobile hotel reservation systems. However, 
the complexity of the mobile application negatively influ-
ences the adoption of mobile hotel reservation systems 
(Y. Wang et al. 2016). Technological turbulence negatively 
influences usage of the information and experience produced 
by, in part, technologies (Carbonell and Escudero 2015). 
These studies confirm that technology could significantly 
affect individuals’ behavior intentions in both positive and 
negative ways. The significant impact of technology on indi-
vidual behavioral outcomes has motivated the tourism indus-
try to embed technologies in smart tourism destinations for 
the purpose of enhancing the travel experience.

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Jeong and Shin 
5
Building on these previous studies on the relationships 
between memorable experience, satisfaction, and behavior 
intentions, this study proposes the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 3
: Tourists’ memorable experience at smart 
tourism destinations positively affects their satisfaction 
with STTs.
Hypothesis 4
: Tourists’ satisfaction with STTs positively 
affects their behavioral intention to revisit the smart tour-
ism destination.
Hypothesis 5
: Tourists’ memorable experience at smart 
tourism destinations positively affects their behavioral 
intention to revisit the smart tourism destination.
Figure 1 depicts the study’s conceptual framework by 
incorporating key STT attributes into tourists’ behavioral 
outcomes.