The present study examined generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) adoption intention's impact on post-GenAI-usage tourist satisfaction (TS) in tourist cities, where tourists used GenAI for planning, navigation, and itinerary management. The stimulus-organism-response framework (S-O-R) was employed to investigate how the perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived trust-based risk (PTR) of post-GenAI-usage acted as cognitive stimuli, shaping tourists' affective emotions (EMOs) towards GenAI (organism) to subsequently influence overall TS as the behavioural response. A structural equation modelling-based analysis of 858 tourists in Malaysia revealed that PU directly enhanced both EMOs and TS, while PTR only negatively influenced tourists' EMOs post-GenAI-usage, but did not directly affect TS. These results confirmed that in the S-O-R sequence, where EMO partially mediated the correlation between both stimuli (PU) and TS, tourist type (TT), be it domestic tourists (DTs) or international tourists (ITs), moderated these S-O-R framework pathways, whereas gender did not. This study contributes to urban tourism research by extending the S-O-R framework to explain how GenAI reshapes tourists' EMOs towards the trip, thereby transforming TS outcomes in tourist cities, while also identifying TT as a key moderating factor. For tourism practitioners, AI developers, and policymakers, the findings underscore the need to prioritise GenAI's functional utility over trust-building alone, to tailor interfaces for DTs and ITs, and to embed GenAI tools into urban destination ecosystems to enhance real-time visitor experiences.
Urban tourism competitiveness increasingly depends on the reliability of everyday operational systems rather than on promotional imagery alone. This study examines how Perceived City Tourism Experience Quality (P-CTEQ) - reflected in evaluations of safety, transport, and leisure infrastructure - shapes City Brand Image (CBI), City Brand Attitude (CBA), and Intention to Visit (IoV). Drawing on the experience-economy perspective and applying the cognition-affect-conation progression of the Theory of Planned Behavior (without modelling its full triadic structure), the study develops a sequential framework explaining how operational experience quality is cognitively encoded into brand beliefs, consolidated into affective orientation, and translated into behavioural intention. Survey data from 379 visitors and prospective visitors to major Indian metropolitan cities were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The findings demonstrate that P-CTEQ influences visitation intention primarily through a layered mediation process (P-CTEQ -> CBI -> CBA -> IoV), indicating that operational excellence becomes behaviourally consequential only after psychological internalisation. By positioning urban operational systems as experiential belief antecedents rather than background service inputs, the study extends city-branding research by clarifying how operational experience quality contributes to image and attitude formation within urban tourism contexts. The results offer actionable implications for urban destination managers, emphasising systemic reliability, cross-departmental coordination, and perception-based evaluation of operational subsystems to strengthen sustainable destination competitiveness.
Urban tourism increasingly turns mobility into a consumable experience, yet transport as attraction research rarely explains how staged experiential cues interact with service governance under peak demand. This study examines Bandung's city sightseeing bus as an urban tourism product whose value depends on both on-board experience design and the organisation of access, capacity, scheduling, and information. Drawing on 457 Google Reviews from five Bandros-related Google Maps listings, it applies netnographic analysis and hybrid thematic coding to examine how tourists attach meanings to service attributes. Personal, destination, systemic, and technology domains are used as sensitising analytical layers operationalised from prior literature and refined through coding, rather than as an exhaustive classification. Findings show that route atmospherics, iconic vehicle design, and narration turn movement into sightseeing, heritage learning, and mood uplift. However, these meanings become unstable when peak demand exposes weak queue rules, uncertain departures, limited capacity, and inconsistent information. Procedural justice, operational certainty, and information reliability shape affective responses, value-for-money evaluations, and electronic word-of-mouth. The study argues that staging is necessary but insufficient unless participation thresholds and visitor expectations are stabilised, showing how governance arrangements condition experiential staging and make urban mobility attractions fair, predictable, and intelligible.
The popularity of TikTok has reshaped tourism practices, yet its role in driving urban visitor flows remains relatively underexplored. This exploratory qualitative study examines how TikTok content shapes gastronomy tourism practices in Amsterdam, where policies aimed at visitor dispersal increasingly intersect with digitally amplified concentrations at specific locations. Building on Shin and Xiang's (2020) framework, the paper introduces the concept of social-media-induced food tourism. A combination of netnography, field observations, and visitor interviews reveal a cycle of consumption experiences: tourists consume digital content, reproduce it through physical visits and queuing, and then share new content that is amplified by the algorithm. This cycle produces performative participation, algorithmic temporality, spatial amplification, and reflexive ambivalence. The TikTok queue is revealed as a key performative space, where algorithm-created performance, aesthetic desire and sensory imaginaries produce a merging of the physical and digital space of the city. The study contributes theoretically by extending Shin and Xiang's model with these four dimensions. It also demonstrates the need for tourism managers to anticipate and respond to platform-driven cycles of demand and micro-overtourism in order to better understand and manage urban tourism flows.
This study develops and applies a framework for assessing smart tourism readiness (STR) in emerging urban destinations, using Almaty, Kazakhstan, as an empirical case. A mixed-method design integrates qualitative expert-based indicator selection with quantitative Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) weighting. From 179 indicators identified across established frameworks, 90 were consolidated and 25 prioritised through Focus Group Discussions (n = 18) and AHP analysis across six dimensions: digitalisation, accessibility, attractiveness, sustainability, management systems and collaborative partnership. Selected indicators were evaluated using binary expert scoring supported by open-access data. Digitalisation emerged as the dominant readiness dimension (w = 0.46), driven by broadband connectivity and smartphone penetration. Accessibility and sustainability revealed structural gaps, including zero scores for traffic congestion and inclusive information access. The readiness profile indicates an asymmetric trajectory in which digital capacity outpaces institutional integration. Expert-based weighting and binary scoring may limit cross-destination comparability. The study conceptualises STR as an asymmetric multidimensional configuration. Findings support policymakers in prioritising digital integration, accessibility infrastructure and sustainability governance within emerging tourism cities. This study offers a replicable indicator reduction and prioritisation procedure for STR assessment, adapted to data-constrained urban contexts underrepresented in smart tourism research.
We investigate the effect of AI, social media, and influencers on destination knowledge and tourists' destination intention towards Da Lat as a tourism city. We find that AI, social media, and influencers positively affect city destination knowledge, which in turn positively influences tourists' destination choice intention. AI shows a comparatively modest effect relative to other predictors. Region of origin moderates the relationship between city destination knowledge and destination choice intention. We contribute to the existing literature by examining the effect of AI, social media, and influencers on city destination knowledge, which in turn affects destination choice intention. We provide a framework in which city destination knowledge functions as a mediating role. By focusing on a city destination context, we highlight how digitally mediated information environments affect travellers' decision-making in city destinations. Exploring the moderating effect of the region of origin is another contribution.
This paper aims to examine the Tokyo Toilet Project (TTP) as a product for architourism and to identify the project details that attract tourists to visit TTP. This study is a qualitative research based on the hermeneutic analysis. To assess TTP as a potential new product for architourism, we compared the project descriptions shared by the designers of the 17 toilets with the four themes of architourism defined by Ockman and Frausto (2005). In architourism, a building is noteworthy not only for its visual impact or historical significance but also for the unique experiences it offers and its connection to local culture. This makes even a public toilet appealing to tourists. This study emphasises the strong potential of TTP as a product for architourism. This paper is one of the first attempts to explore the potential shift of Tokyo's new public toilets into architourism. The lack of input from potential archilovers is a limitation of the paper. As architourism is a new trend in tourism, the results may help tour guides redesign the tours they offer based on the identified motives of tourists in this paper. At the same time, urban planners and policy makers might also recognise that well-maintained and publicly available sanitation options can enhance the city's image, foster placemaking, and boost its appeal as a tourist destination.
This study aims to identify the key attributes that shape Generation Z's perceptions of urban tourism destinations. A literature review was conducted to map destination image-shaping factors, followed by a large-scale survey (n = 2,427) targeting Gen Z travellers. Sixteen city attributes identified in the literature were analysed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), which resulted in five distinct destination image dimensions: physical readiness and material value, natural environment and safety, authenticity, experience intensity, and international reputation. Additional statistical analyses revealed how these factors vary across traveller profiles. The findings highlight Gen Z's strong emphasis on practical urban attributes such as accessibility, cleanliness, and value for money, while also confirming their interest in authentic experiences and environmental sustainability within tourism city contexts. The results further suggest that Generation Z evaluates tourism cities primarily through functional and experiential dimensions rather than through long-term emotional attachment or loyalty-oriented mechanisms. Interestingly, traditional destination image elements such as revisit intention and emotional attachment were found to be less relevant for this cohort. Three traveller segments were identified (Seasoned Green Seekers, Casual Nature Seekers, and Insightful Voyagers), each with distinct preferences and information behaviours. The study contributes to urban tourism research by demonstrating how destination image dimensions structure the evaluation of tourism cities among younger travellers and by highlighting the growing importance of experiential and symbolic urban attributes in destination evaluation. The results offer valuable insights for urban destination managers, city marketers, and tourism stakeholders seeking to engage this digitally native, value-conscious, and experience-driven generation.
This study examines how everyday recreational activities contribute to the formation of urban tourism. While tourism is often conceptualised as an activity separate from daily routines and associated with travel to specific destinations, routine small-scale recreational activities in urban contexts remain underexplored. This paper introduces the concept of micro-leisure as a form of recreational practice embedded in daily mobility, capturing leisure episodes within multi-purpose urban trips and representing a 'hidden layer' of urban tourism. Using longitudinal GPS-based mobility data from 1,093 individuals over more than 150 days (over 673,000 trips) in Makassar City, micro-leisure activities are identified based on location, duration, and temporal context. The findings show that micro-leisure is episodic yet significant, occurring on approximately 38% of observed days and accounting for around 19% of total daily-trips. These activities are associated with temporal factors, individual characteristics, and urban spatial structure, particularly density and land-use diversity. The results suggest that urban tourism is not only shaped by exceptional travel but also by everyday practices embedded within urban life.
This study investigates the influence of food-centric television programs on destination imagery and the intentions of urban tourists to visit the featured locations. It aims to explore how culinary shows enhance perceptions of destinations and spark a fascination for travel among urban audiences in developing nations. The research focuses on key factors such as the uniqueness of food culture, variety in culinary offerings, perceived enjoyment, and the cultural and local aspects showcased in food-based programs. Empirical data were collected from tourists who visited various locations in India. The quantitative data were analysed using SmartPLS and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Additionally, qualitative interviews were conducted with tourists and travel experts and analysed using Atlas.ti. The study reveals that the uniqueness of food culture plays a crucial role in shaping destination perceptions and significantly influences urban tourists' intentions to visit. The findings underscore the importance of food-related tourism as a primary driver in destination selection. This research contributes to the growing body of knowledge on the role of media in tourism by highlighting how food-centric TV programs impact destination imagery and travel intentions, specifically in the context of urban travellers from developing nations.
Digital platforms have transformed urban tourism markets by restructuring the interaction between accommodation providers and consumers. While existing research has tended to examine individual platforms or cities in isolation, this study investigates how platform-associated price differences vary across urban contexts. The analysis is based on 6,058 accommodation listings obtained from Airbnb, Booking, and Hotels.com across five European capitals: Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, and Rome. Ordinary least squares regression with robust standard errors and quantile regression techniques have been employed to test whether platforms function as neutral intermediaries or as active mechanisms of market segmentation. The findings reveal significant platform-based price premiums, with hotel platforms charging approximately 50% to 55% higher prices than peer-to-peer platforms. These premiums persist even after controlling for accommodation ratings, indicating that platforms are associated with market segmentation beyond observable quality differences. Moreover, platform-related pricing patterns vary considerably across cities. Rome exhibits a pronounced divergence between Airbnb and hotel platforms, whereas London demonstrates increasing premiums across both hotel channels. Platform segmentation is found to operate across the entire price distribution rather than being concentrated solely within premium segments. The results suggest that digital intermediation channels are associated with distinct market structures in urban tourism, shaped by local contexts, and challenge simplified models of platform competition and convergence.
As historic urban centres evolve into tourism cities, Fez faces challenges in maintaining its global competitiveness amidst the digital revolution. This study investigates the integration of traditional tourism guidance with AI and IoT to foster smart heritage tourism. Employing a mixed-methods approach - including field observations, surveys with 100 tourists, and interviews with officials and licenced guides - the research evaluates a hybrid model of heritage interpretation. The findings reveal that tourists overwhelmingly favour hybrid solutions that combine human mediation with digital tools, confirming that augmentation strategies are more effective than substitution in heritage contexts. By operationalising hybridity, the study advances theoretical debates on smart tourism ecosystems and extends them to Arab heritage cities. The relevance of this study to urban tourism is established through its practical addressing of critical urban challenges, such as spatial navigation within dense historic fabrics and the management of visitor flows to mitigate the physical degradation of fragile heritage sites. Rather than assuming full automation as the dominant path, this study shows how AI and IoT can be strategically combined with the irreplaceable expertise of human guides. In doing so, it positions smart tourism as a context-sensitive augmentation strategy that strengthens competitiveness while safeguarding the city's sense of place and cultural identity.
This paper presents a longitudinal, multi-scalar analysis of organisational resilience in urban tourism. Drawing on organisational ecology perspectives, it explores how political-ecological undercurrents and power asymmetries shape the adaptive trajectories of upscale hotels in the post-crisis business environment of Dhaka, a Global South megacity. A longitudinal qualitative study embedded temporal layering, iterative engagement, and evolving context as core components of its methodological architecture and followed 15 upscale hotels, four trade bodies and two government agencies across five phases (2020-2025). Document analysis and a hybrid inductive-deductive thematic analysis of forty-three interviews with senior executives, informed by organisational ecology and crisis governance, traced niche disruption, reconstruction and capability reconfiguration. An empirically grounded, temporally sensitive analysis reveals that urban upscale hotels diverged into distinct trajectories and emerged as both organisational survivors and infrastructural anchors of destination resilience, actively stabilising and reconfiguring tourism flows, markets, and urban space. However, fragmented governance and contested policy priorities produced uneven adaptive capacity, reinforcing market and spatial inequalities in recovery. The study advances an ecological-political account of resilience in urban tourism by demonstrating, longitudinally, how niche reconstruction unfolds under uneven governance conditions. It extends urban tourism resilience debates beyond cross-sectional 'bounce-back' narratives towards a temporally grounded understanding of how urban tourism systems are reconstituted through organisational adaptation and governance negotiation. Findings offer actionable insights for practitioners and policymakers in tourism cities, emphasising the need to reframe resilience as a strategic orientation, anchored in adaptive routines, diversified market portfolios, strategic risk management, and forward-looking governance.
This study extends the Values-Attitudes-Behaviour (VAB) model by examining the complex relationships among international tourists in Can Tho City, Vietnam. PLS-SEM analysis of 336 responses reveals a hierarchical impact structure with varying strengths. The strongest direct effect emerges from personal values to revisit intention (beta = 0.671), followed by quality of experience to revisit intention (beta = 0.642). Moderate effects are found from personal values to quality of experience (beta = 0.486) and personal values to attitudes (beta = 0.464). Quality of experience demonstrates multifaceted roles through: (1) direct influence on attitudes (beta = 0.298) and revisit intention, (2) moderating effects on personal values-attitudes relationship (beta = 0.123) and personal values-revisit intention relationship (beta = 0.032). The model exhibits robust explanatory power with all hypotheses supported. These findings advance tourism behaviour theory by revealing the comprehensive mechanism of quality of experience as a predictor, mediator, and moderator in tourist decision-making.
In this study, Akyaka - one of Turkey's prominent Cittaslow destinations - was selected to examine the perceived effects of Cittaslow practices on the destination. Data were collected through in-depth interviews. The positive impacts identified include improvements in urban planning, social development, economic growth, ecological balance, psychological well-being, sustainable development, and the preservation of gastronomic heritage. However, findings also indicate that the implementation of Cittaslow principles can lead to certain challenges. These challenges were categorised under the themes of urban planning, social development, ecological sustainability, socio-psychological issues, and management control.From the perspective of urban tourism, Cittaslow practices contribute to the formation of destinations that prioritise urban liveability, local identity, and quality of life over mass tourism growth. In this context, Akyaka stands as a representative example of small-scale tourism cities striving to balance tourism development with sustainable urban management.The study provides an original contribution to the existing body of knowledge in urban tourism by integrating the Cittaslow concept into the analytical framework of tourism cities. It expands the understanding of how 'slow city' practices influence urban transformation, spatial development, and destination image in emerging tourism cities. The data were collected through in-depth interviews conducted in Akyaka and analysed by coding themes within a phenomenological framework. The findings also emphasise the importance of developing integrated urban tourism strategies that align slow living principles with urban competitiveness and sustainability goals.
This study investigates how tourists and residents morally and emotionally respond to unethical practices in cannabis-related hospitality and tourism businesses and how these responses shape resistance behaviours. Drawing on the dual-process theory of moral judgement, we conceptualise affective and cognitive appraisals as antecedents of ethical evaluations (moral equity, relativism, contractualism, utilitarianism) and resistance in cannabis tourism cities. Survey data were collected from international tourists and residents in three major Thai tourism cities (Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket), where cannabis businesses are densely clustered in entertainment and visitor areas. Using partial least squares structural equation modelling and necessary condition analysis, we identify probabilistic and necessary conditions for resistance to emerge. Findings reveal that while tourists' resistance is primarily cognitively driven, residents' resistance requires the convergence of emotional and rational engagement. Contractualism and cognitive appraisal emerged as sufficient and necessary across groups, while utilitarian concerns were critical enabler for residents. By integrating dual-process moral reasoning with necessity logic, this study extends urban tourism scholarship in two ways. First, it theorises resistance to cannabis-related businesses as a morally grounded response to perceived harms in tourism cities. Second, it offers an analytically comprehensive account of how tourists and residents differentially regulate urban cannabis tourism through everyday acts of resistance behaviour. Practical implications are discussed for the ethical governance of cannabis-related businesses in tourism cities.
Urban night tourism has become a strategic pillar of tourism-city night-time economies. This study tests the Stimulus-Organism-Response model in an urban night tourism setting, examining the mediating role of tourist satisfaction between memorable tourism experience, quality of service, revisit intention, and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intention. A mixed-method design combined a survey of 276 night tourists in Can Tho City (Vietnam) analysed using PLS-SEM with 30 in-depth interviews. Memorable tourism experience significantly increases tourist satisfaction, revisit intention, and eWOM intention, while quality of service increases tourist satisfaction and eWOM intention. Quality of service shows no direct effect on revisit intention but influences revisit intention indirectly through tourist satisfaction. Tourist satisfaction partially mediates most paths, but its mediating effect in the relationship between memorable tourism experience and revisit intention is relatively weak, implying that designed city-at-night atmospheres can motivate revisitation beyond satisfaction alone. Practically, tourism-city managers should co-design lightscape, perceived safety, and night services to strengthen memorability and stimulate repeat visitation and online advocacy.
This paper investigates how cultural capital embedded in informal urban practices shapes tourism-led transformation in Indian metropolitan cities and proposes rethinking models that integrate rather than marginalise informality for equitable and sustainable outcomes. Drawing on Bourdieu's cultural capital theory intersected with urban informality perspectives (Roy, Simone), the study analyzes recent policies (Swadesh Darshan 2.0 with 53 projects at Rs. 2208.31 crore and PRASHAD with 54 projects at Rs. 1726.74 crore as of 2026) and illustrative cases from Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru using secondary data and government reports. Findings show informality as a source of authentic cultural capital - embodied in local skills, objectified in markets/festivals - driving tourist appeal amid growth (56 lakh foreign arrivals and over 300 crore domestic visits till August 2025), yet formalisation causes displacement, exclusion and authenticity loss. The work offers an interdisciplinary synthesis of Bourdieu's cultural capital theory with urban informality perspectives, applied to Indian metropolitan tourism cities, to critique formalisation processes and propose hybrid governance models for more inclusive urban tourism. This study contributes to urban tourism research by examining how informal practices in metropolitan gateways shape authentic tourist experiences and sustainable development in tourism cities.
