Drivers of Customer Experience (CX) in Smart Tourism - A Qualitative Study

Abstract

This study revolves around developing a better understanding of customer experience (CX) journey through smart tourism and investigating various factors that motivates and various factors that demotivate the tourists thereby impacting the usage of Smart tourism. The study employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) for conducting in-depth interviews with 25 tourists across different age groups. The findings reveal that adding smartness to the tourism destinations can enhance the tourists’ experience and also reduce the negative perceptions about the same. The major categories of motivators that have been identified are “User interface”, “Service Quality” and “Personalization”. While, on the other hand, “Information”, “Security” and “Customer Expectations” have been highlighted as the major demotivators for the usage of smart tourism. Qualitative nature of this study makes it one-of-a-kind, as it tries to study and deep dive into ‘lived experiences’ and perspective of tourists in India regarding smart tourism. The present research contributes to the literature in its unique manner by analyzing the tourist’s perceptions of smart tourism which is not much explored in Indian context. The study paves the way for the researcher to replicate the similar study by considering other dimensions and industries.