Samer Yaghmour

Abstract: Tourism is a multi-billion-dollar industry that supports economies worldwide at all stages of development. Tourism is, therefore, deployed by various countries to support their economic growth. Saudi Arabia is among the countries that are often visited by religious pilgrims and is known for religious tourism with its many historic and natural attractions. Recently, it has expanded its focus beyond religious tourism and invested billions of USD in the tourism industry. This study investigates the impact of smart tourism technology on traveller destination loyalty in the context of Al-Ula, an emerging tourism destination in Saudi Arabia. Previously validated measures were adapted to gather information from the city’s tourists. Of the total of 600 questionnaires that were distributed among tourists using convenience sampling, 445 completed questionnaires were found fit to be subjected to partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) for hypothesis testing. The results reveal that perceived smart tourism technology boosts its explorative and exploitative usage. Furthermore, findings suggest that the utilisation of explorative and exploitative smart tourism technology promotes experience satisfaction and destination loyalty. However, the results did not support the moderating role of tourist happiness in the relationship between experience satisfaction and destination loyalty.

Keywords: Smart tourism technology, Saudi Vision 2030, destination loyalty, travel experience satisfaction, tourist happinessurism, economic impact, impact evaluation, difference-indifferences (DID), DID estimation