Tourists’ willingness to adopt government-led smart tourism platforms: A mixed-methods study

Abstract

The diversity of demands in the mass tourism market together with the complexity of innovative technologies makes promoting smart tourism a challenge. In recent years, government-led smart tourism platforms have become a representative product of smart tourism in China, but tourists do not seem ready to embrace innovative products. The current research adopted a mixed-methods approach by employing a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method followed by a survey-based study to explore key factors driving Chinese tourists’ adoption of government-led smart tourism platforms. The results revealed that the elements influencing tourists’ willingness to adopt are complex and include tourists’ innovativeness, performance expectancy, perceived cost, perceived risk, and perceived playfulness. Among them, tourists’ innovativeness showed a positive impact on tourists’ willingness to adopt through the mediation effects of performance expectancy. Meanwhile, the positive effect of performance expectancy on their willingness to adopt can be mediated by perceived playfulness. The findings enhance our understanding of which factors impact tourists’ adoption theoretically thereby practically helping the government provide better tourism service experiences in both online and offline contexts.