Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Tourism Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman

How smart is your tourist attraction?: Measuring tourist preferences

of smart tourism attractions via a FCEM-AHP and IPA approach
Xia Wang a, *, Xiang (Robert) Li b, Feng Zhen c, JinHe Zhang a
a
School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
b
School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA
c
Department of Urban Planning and Design, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China

h i g h l i g h t s

The paper examines tourists' key evaluation factors of a smart tourist attraction.

We used the FCEM-AHP approach to evaluate tourist preferences of smart tourism attractions.

Our findings shed light on the theoretical investigation and practical development of smart tourist attractions.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Although smart tourism has gained increasing attention, empirical investigations of smart tourist
Received 29 January 2015 attraction (STA) from a tourist perspective are still limited. The purpose of this study is to explore a
Received in revised form methodological approach of assessing tourist preference of STA, and the strengths and weaknesses of an
2 December 2015
STA accordingly. First, factor analysis was used to determine tourists' key evaluation items of STA. Next,
Accepted 3 December 2015
Available online xxx
fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method and analytic hierarchy process were applied to the STA eval-
uation of Hongshan Zoo, a popular tourist attraction in China. Then, importance-performance analysis
was conducted to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of Hongshan Zoo's STA construction. Findings
Keywords:
Smart tourism
suggest that “smart information system”, “intelligent tourism management”, “smart sightseeing”, “e-
Tourist commerce system”, “smart safety”, “intelligent traffic”, “smart forecasting” and “virtual tourist attrac-
Tourist attraction tions” are tourists' key evaluation factors of STA. This paper extends previous research on smart tourism,
Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method and offers insights into the theoretical investigation and practical development of STA.
(FCEM) © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)
Importance-performance analysis (IPA)

1. Introduction applications of smart techniques in tourism have led to funda-

The rapid development of information and communication
technology (ICT) has made the term “smart” quite fashionable
recently (Caragliu, Del Bo, & Nijkamp, 2011). To date, smart sys-
tems have been introduced to many areas, including public safety,
health services, public education, infrastructure construction,
energy-saving, water supply, and environmental protection, aim-
ing for economic growth, sustainable development, and societal
progress (Hall, 2000). Tourism has always been at the forefront
in embracing technological innovations (Gretzel, 2011): the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: wangxia128@gmail.com (X. Wang), robertli@temple.edu
(X. Li), zhenfeng@nju.edu.cn (F. Zhen), zhangjinhe818@nju.edu.cn (J. Zhang).
mental changes in tourist behavior and demand as well as how
tourism industry functions and structures (Buhalis & Law, 2008;
Connell & Reynolds, 1999). In the foreseeable future, it seems
tourism will continue growing and changing significantly
with smart devices and technologies applied more widely
and frequently in various tourism sectors (Koo, Joun, Han, &
Chung, 2013).
With the increasing influence of smart technologies on the
tourism industry, more research has been conducted on smart
tourism. However, most studies on smart tourism focus on desti-
nations, hotels, restaurants, entertainment, and traffic. In contrast,
much less attention has been paid to tourist attractions. What's
more, many smart tourism studies stressed the deployment of
complex technological platforms, whereas in-depth research on

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2015.12.003
0261-5177/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
310 X. Wang et al. / Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320
smart tourism from a tourist's perspective is fairly limited. Huang,
Yuan, and Shi (2012) emphasized that the real sense of smart
tourism is to focus on tourists' needs by combining the ICT. Koo
et al. (2013) also suggested that the goal of utilizing smart sys-
tems in tourism is to maximize tourist satisfaction as well as
improve the effectiveness of resource management. Considering
the importance of smart tourism research from a tourist perspec-
tive, more research to understand tourist preference of the
“smartness” of a service provider is warranted.
This study aims at investigating tourists' preferences of smart
tourism quantitatively in a tourist attraction context. It is hoped
that this research can shed light on the theoretical investigation of
smart tourism on the whole, as well as give useful directions for the
diagnosis of strengths and weaknesses of smart tourist attraction
(STA) construction. The rest of the paper is organized as follows:
Section 2 reviews the literature related to STA and discusses STA
evaluation approaches; Section 3 describes the identification of
tourist evaluation factors of STA, the study-area selection, data
collection, as well as details about the analytical procedure; Section
4 determines STA evaluation factors using factor analysis. Then the
authors conduct the STA assessment of China's Hongshan Zoo using
fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method (FCEM) and analytic hi-
erarchy process (AHP), and perform importance-performance
analysis (IPA) to diagnose the strengths and weakness of STA in
Hongshan Zoo; the last section mainly discusses the theoretical and
managerial implications of the findings.
2. Literature review
2.1. Smart tourism
The concept of smart tourism is new both theoretically and
practically, emerging from the development of smart cities (Buhalis
& Amaranggana, 2013). It is defined as an ICT-integrated tourism
platform, which integrates tourism sources and ICT, such as artifi-
cial intelligence, cloud computing and internet of things (IoT), to
provide explicit information and satisfactory services to tourists
based on the development of innovative mobile communication
technology (Zhang, Li, & Liu, 2012).
Up to now, smart tourism-related research has been conducted
in a number of areas, such as: (1) smart tourism and smart city,
which describes the application of the “smart city” concept and
technologies into a tourism context (Lamsfus, Martín, Alzua-
Sorzabal, & Torres-Manzanera, 2015; Micera, Presenza, Splen-
diani, & Del Chiappa, 2013; Ronay & Egger, 2013; ); (2) smart
tourism destinations, which analyzes the definition (Zhang et al.,
2012), initiative (Wang, Li, & Li, 2013), conceptualizing framework
(Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2013; Zhang et al., 2012), critical tech-
nology (Zhang et al., 2012) and smartness dimensions (Boes,
Buhalis, & Inversini, 2015) of smart tourism destinations; (3)
smartphone applications on tourism, which focus on the function-
alities and adoption of smartphone apps (Dickinson et al., 2014; Liu
& Law, 2013), the role of smartphones in mediating the touristic
experience (Wang, Park, & Fesenmaier, 2012), and the key de-
terminants influencing travelers' intentions to adopt smartphone
technology to access travel information (No & Kim, 2014); (4) smart
hotels, which examines the utilization of information technology in
the hotel sector (Siguaw, Enz, & Namasivayam, 2000), and the
digital marketing resolutions of smart hotels (Starkov & Safer,
2013); (5)smart cards, which investigates the utilization of smart
cards in the tourism industry (Fleck, 1998; Main & O'Connor, 1998)
and meeting industry (Marie, Kasavana, & Knutson, 2000); (6)
gamification, augmented reality and smart tourism, which describes
the determinants of recommendations to use augmented reality
technologies (Jung, Chung, & Leue, 2015), and tourists'
requirements for a mobile tourism application of augmented reality
(Han, Jung, & Gibson, 2013); (7) smart recommendations for tourists,
which investigates personalized destination recommendation
system combining individual preference and GIS data (Martin,
Henk, Jappe, & Marjolijn, 2009), and a smart web-based recom-
mendation system for tourist agenda (Goy & Magro, 2004); and (8)
smart guides, which describes context-based information imple-
mentation in smart tourist guide (Park, Hwang, Kim, & Chang,
2007; Smirnov, Kashevnik, Balandin, & Laizane, 2013).
The emerging literature of smart tourism-related research has
mainly addressed topics in the context of destinations and hotels.
Few studies have been conducted in the setting of tourist attrac-
tions. Nevertheless, the exploration of the application of smart-
phone, smart card, smart recommendations, and smart guides
provide useful insights for the understanding of STA, especially for
the investigation of tourists' key evaluation factors of STA.
2.2. “New” tourists in the smart era
Part of the reason for tourism service providers to develop smart
tourism is to improve tourist experiences. Thus, it is critical to
understand “new” tourists and their needs in the smart era for a
better understanding of tourists' preferences for STA. Buhalis and
Law (2008) noticed that the development of ICT and particularly
the Internet has produced a “new” breed of tourists who are
becoming more experienced, sophisticated, demanding, and harder
to please. They also summarized key tourist demands in the in-
formation era, based on a comprehensive review of published ar-
ticles on e-tourism, including: (1) pursuing personal travelling
preferences and schedules; (2) value for time and less willingness
to wait or put up with delays; (3) searching for travel-related in-
formation through the Internet; (4) booking online tickets and
making room reservations; (5) making online purchases; (6) con-
ducting price comparisons on different travel websites; (7)
communicating in the virtual travel communities; (8) offering an e-
complaint handling systems; (9) asking for multimedia service;
(10) providing mobile facilities and applications such as Wifi, short-
messaging service and multimedia-messaging service. Sevrani and
Elmazi (2008) also identified several new trends in tourist behavior
spurred by ICT development, such as accessing more information
through the Internet, asking for better service, wanting more spe-
cific offers, becoming more knowledgeable, mobile, critical, and
price sensitive, etc.
In summary, “new” tourists in the smart era have shown some
distinctive needs and behavior patterns from their counterparts in
the pre-Internet/social media age. They have become more
dependent on information technology, self-service, and personal
reservation tools. They value easier access to information technol-
ogy, better value for their money and time, and greater variety,
flexibility, personalization, and safety. Such changes in tourists'
needs and behaviors have also brought challenges to the tourism
industry and called for the development of “smarter” tourist
attractions.
2.3. From traditional attraction to “smarter” attraction
In addition to the demands from “new” tourists in the smart era,
other factors such as environment impacts and technology devel-
opment also made it necessary to bring smartness into traditional
tourist attractions.
The notion of “smart tourism” reflects the tourism industry's
response to a broader vision of making the world “smarter” e a
global initiative to create more “instrumented, interconnected, and
intelligent systems” through information technology to address
some of the world's pressing issues and achieve socio-economic
 X. Wang et al. / Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320
growth (Wikipedia, 2015). In the tourism arena, many governments
and NGOs around the world have been committed to promoting
smart tourism in the form of policies and regulations. Tourist at-
tractions are encouraged, even required, to integrate smart tech-
nology into their development. From a sustainable development
perspective, tourist attractions need to adopt smart techniques and
become technologically competent, eco-efficient, and environ-
mentally innovative in their operations with reference to sustain-
able development. Further, globalization has generated increased
demand for new tourism-related services, such as online reserva-
tion services, virtual travel communities, video brochures, smart
cards, online payment, and so on. In responding to these challenges,
constructing STAs has been put on investors' and managers'
agendas.
As far as technology development is concerned, Zhang et al.
(2012) suggested that four forms of ICT are vital for setting up
smart-tourism systems: cloud computing, IoT, mobile communi-
cation, and artificial intelligence technology. First, cloud computing
is a web-based virtualization resource platform and a dynamic data
center (Chen & Deng, 2009). It stimulates information sharing that
is fundamental to undertaking smart-tourism projects (Buhalis &
Amaranggana, 2013). Second, IoT could support smart destina-
tions in terms of providing information and analysis as well as
automation and control (Chui, Lo €ffler, & Roberts, 2010). Third,
mobile communication allows the communication of voice and
data over mobile and portable devices (Buhalis & O'Connor, 2005).
It can be used for mobile booking, online payment, information
access, communicating, and self-entertainment during travelling
(Adukaite, Reimann, Marchiori, & Cantoni, 2013). Fourth, artificial
intelligence means that a computer-based system has capabilities
of problem-solving, storing memory and understanding human
language (Wang, 2004). This technology can be applied to forecast
tourist flow, evaluate tourism service, handle tourist crowding,
issue emergency tourism alerts, and so on (Zhang et al., 2012).
The foregoing review suggests that traditional tourist attrac-
tions are challenged to become “smarter” in responding to the
demand from “new” tourists, environment impacts and technology
development. For academics, the transition of traditional tourist
attractions into STAs presents an interesting research opportunity.
The authors now turn to a discussion on the conceptual rationale
underlying building and assessing STAs and the key methodological
approach adopted in this study.
2.4. Theoretical underpinnings
Although STA construction appears to be a technical issue, un-
derlying it is a fundamental change of thinking on how tourist at-
tractions shall engage and design “value propositions” for their
tourists. That is, the application of technology has to have a soul and
serve a strategic purpose. Wang et al. (2013) discussed the idea of
Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) in explaining the rationale behind
the “smart tourism destination” initiative. SDL was proposed by
Vargo and Lusch (2004), who argued that marketing theory and
practice are making a transition from the “goods-dominant” logic
toward SDL. Unlike “goods-dominant” logic, which stresses the
importance of producing tangible outputs, completing trans-
actions, and profit maximization, SDL focuses on the serving pro-
cess and embraces the notion of value-in-use and co-creation of
value (Vargo & Lusch, 2004).
Thoughts relating to SDL have drawn attention in the tourism
field (Li & Petrick, 2008; Saraniemi & Kyl€ anen, 2011). Li (2014)
elaborated a tourism-grounded understanding of SDL and sug-
gested that SDL provides a useful theoretical lens in making sense
of emerging tourism-marketing thoughts and practices. Wang et al.
(2013) argued that smart tourism development is more than the
311
application of ICT in the tourism destination. Underlying this
initiative are “the transformation of tourist experience (co-created
value), the changes of destination-marketing strategy (relationship
management), and a different view of destination competitiveness
(operant resources, big data)” (Wang et al. 2013, p. 60), which
dovetail with the key thrusts of SDL. Compared to conventional
tourist attractions, STAs feature co-creation processes, well-
connected and well-informed services, diverse and personalized
products, better value for money and time, social and technological
engagement, efficient communication and management, as well as
multiple smart-tourism devices e many of these features are pre-
cisely what SDL entails. Enlightened by this line of work, SDL can be
used to understand the context, necessity, and future directions of
STA.
Against the above conceptualization, how could traditional
tourist attractions be transformed into STAs? Dang, Zhang, and
Chen (2011) discussed the essential concepts of STA according to
the characteristics of tourism-resources conservation, business
management, tourism development, public service, and decision
support. Li, Gao, and Zhao (2011) suggested STA should contain
intelligent IoT, a data warehouse, and cloud computing. These
technologies enable a destination to be “smart” in terms of gener-
ating rich and real-time intelligence about tourists' needs and
wants and responding to them. Indeed, no matter how complicated
STA becomes, the ultimate goal is to utilize the system to optimize
tourist experience, improve the effectiveness of resource manage-
ment, and maximize both tourist satisfaction and STA competi-
tiveness (Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2013). Thus, the demand and
behavior of “new” tourists, as key STA stakeholders, have to always
be the point of departure when designing STAs. This is hence the
focus of the present study.
Fig. 1 presents a preliminary conceptual model of structuring
STA. At the heart of the conceptualization is SDL, serving as the
overarching logic guiding the design and operation of STAs. The
physical properties (resources, tangibles) of STA, and the techno-
logical presentation of STA (in terms of cloud computing, IoT,
artificial-intelligence technology, and mobile communication) are
all shaped by “new” tourist demand, which is in turn shaped by
external environmental impacts.
2.5. FCEM-AHP and IPA
Considering the lack of research on the investigation of smart
tourism assessment, this paper first uses FCEM-AHP to evaluate STA
from a tourist perspective, and then applies IPA to diagnose the
strengths and weaknesses of STA.
Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, based on fuzzy mathematics
principle, aims to convert fuzzy and qualitative factors into quan-
titative factors by using fuzzy theory (Guo, 2007). FCEM was used in
this research because the term of “smart” is ambiguous and the
assessment criteria of STA evaluation items are rather subjective
and qualitative in nature. It is difficult for evaluators to indicate
their preferences using exact numerical values. FCEM can
adequately handle the inherent uncertainty and imprecision of the
human decision-making process (Chan & Kumar, 2007), and has
been shown to be useful in dealing with fuzzy evaluations such as
the safety guarantee system of reclaimed water quality (Zhou,
Zhang, & Dong, 2013), performance system of health, safety and
environment (Li, Liang, Zhang, & Tang, 2015), decision making of oil
spill contingency options (Liu & Wirtz, 2007), etc.
Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was introduced by Saaty
(1980), and it facilitates an approach to allocate the relative
importance of evaluation items based on weights of criteria (Hsu,
Tsai, & Wu, 2009; Saaty, 1980). Thereby, AHP has been commonly
integrated with FCEM in multi-criteria fuzzy comprehensive
312 X. Wang et al. / Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320
Fig. 1. A conceptual model of structuring STAs.
evaluation. For example, quality assessment in crisis and emer-
gency management by Cui (2012), risks evaluation of floor water
inrush by Wang, Yang, Li, and Liu (2012) and real estate investment
by Zhang and Yang (2012), all used AHP to calculate weights in the
fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. This study also applies FCEM-AHP
to conduct the hierarchical fuzzy evaluation of STA.
Based on the FCEM-AHP evaluation of STA, this study also
identifies the strengths and weakness of STA via IPA. IPA was
introduced by Martilla and James (1977), and uses two dimensions,
“importance” and “performance,” to prioritize the actions or im-
provements to be considered for effective marketing efforts. Aca-
demics and practitioners have widely adopted this simple, yet
useful, approach in research fields such as airport and airline ser-
vices (e.g., Mikulic & Prebe
zac, 2008, 2011), tourism (e.g., Coghlan,
2012; Li, 2012), hotels (e.g., Chu & Choi, 2000; Pan, 2015), banking
(e.g., Arbore & Busacca, 2011; Matzler, Sauerwein, & Heischmidt,
2003), supermarket retailing (e.g., Va zquez, Rodrıguez-Del
Bosque, Dıaz, & Ruiz, 2001), etc. By referencing the IPA, the cur-
rent research investigates tourists' perceptions of “importance” and
“performance” of STA evaluation items, and further diagnose the
advantages and disadvantages of STA.
3. Methodology
3.1. Identifying evaluation items of STA
It can be argued that up to now, STA has not been subject to
substantial empirical tests as a new concept. Thus, the evaluation
items of STA were identified from smart tourism and relevant
studies to provide insights into the core question of this study: how
to quantitatively evaluate STAs?
Based on a comprehensive review of smart tourism and related
literature, an initial pool of 38 evaluation items of STA was selected.
The sources and conceptual premises of these items are summa-
rized in Table 1.
3.2. Study site
Hongshan Zoo was selected as the study area. Covering an area
of 1026 acres, this zoo is located in the Hongshan Hill of Nanjing,
China. It is characterized by a harmonious combination of ́the forest
and animals. There are more than 280 kinds of animals living in the
́
39 naturally designed zoo venues. In 2013, Hongshan Zoo received
3.53 million visitors and was recognized as a 4A tourist attraction
by the China National Tourism Administration.
Hongshan Zoo was chosen as the empirical research object
mainly for three reasons. (1) Nanjing was designated as “smart
tourism pilot city” by China's national tourism authority, and
Hongshan Zoo is among the first group of tourist attractions to
practice smart tourism in Nanjing. (2) Compared to other STAs in
Nanjing, Hongshan Zoo has made obvious progress in terms of
providing a web home page, free Wifi, quick response codes, and
electronic touch screens for tourists to search information. It offers
electronic platforms for tourists to make mobile payments and
online reservations. The park strengthens tourist safety and envi-
ronmental monitoring using techniques such as radio-frequency
identification and infrared sensors. In addition, Hongshan Zoo
also attempted to use smart devices and technologies to monitor
tourist flow, handle tourist crowding, offer personal itineraries, and
provide intelligent self-guided facilities. (3) Many tourists of Hon-
gshan Zoo are from Nanjing, and they often visit this tourist
attraction on weekends. Due to the high revisit rate, many tourists
have a good understanding of the smart tourism facilities of Hon-
gshan Zoo, which makes it feasible to conduct the research.
3.3. Data collection
Data collection was performed in two stages. In the first stage, a
paper-and-pencil survey questionnaire was designed for this study.
The self-administrated questionnaire was in Chinese and contained
three parts. In Parts 1 and 2, the respondents were asked to rate the
importance (1 ¼ not at all important, 5 ¼ very important) and
performance (1 ¼ poor, 5 ¼ excellent) of the 38 STA evaluation
items according to their travel experience in Hongshan Zoo. These
data were used for the factor analysis, FCEM, and IPA. Part 3 was
designed to collect respondents' sociodemographic information:
gender, age, education level, monthly income, and occupation
(Table 2). A total of 680 questionnaires were distributed in Hon-
gshan Zoo among a convenience sample of tourists during June
5e18, 2013. The surveys were conducted by four trained graduate
students. The students approached the tourists who were resting
on site, informed them about the study, and indicated that partic-
ipation was confidential and voluntary. Those who refused to
participate in the survey were not approached again. Altogether
Table 1
The original evaluation items of STA and the references.

No. Factors Factor description Sources

1 Tourist attraction home page
2 Mobile application
3 Free Wifi
4 Online information access
5 Quick response code
6 Electronic touch screen
7 Short-messaging service and
multimedia-messaging service
8 Call-service center
9 Intelligent-guide system
10 Personal-itinerary design
Tourists are increasingly utilizing digital sources such as tourism websites in their information search and communication exchange. Heung, 2003a; Kaplanidou
Their travel intentions are strengthened by the website features of a tourism destination. & Vogt, 2006a
Mobile application can improve the quality of customer service in theme or amusement parks by showing the exact location of rides, Hafele, 2011 as cited in Liu
checking on waiting times at different attractions, and reserving a place. and Law (2013)
Free Wifi allows users to connect mobile devices such as personal digital assistants and mobile phones to the Internet through a Buhalis & Law, 2008
wireless-radio connection. It is now extensively used in hotels, airports, and cafes.
More travellers have used the Internet as a medium for searching tourism information and planning their trips. Travel information is Law & Leung, 2000a;
now among the most popular and frequently visited information on the Internet. Buhalis & Law, 2008
Quick response codes can access information about nearby points of interest through mobile devices. GSMA, 2012a
Electronic touch screen technology can provide services to meet tourists' information needs 24 h a day. Connell & Reynolds, 1999
Short-messaging service and multimedia-messaging service are very useful for message-transfer at tourism destinations. Flouri & Buhalis, 2004a
Along with the development of information technology, more interactive and time-sensitive channels, including the Internet and call- Pan & Fesenmaier, 2001a
service centers, have been widely used to provide useful and timely information for travellers' trip planning.
Intelligent-guide system is the natural next step after guide books and audio guides on cassette. It can enhance tourists' experiences and Hornecker & Bartie, 2006a;
provide more or different information for tourists. Buhalis & Law, 2008
People can design a tour plan with the collaborative tour-planner system in a collaborative manner, and design personal itineraries Kurata & Hara, 2013a

X. Wang et al. / Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320

according to their own points of interest.
11 E-tourism-recommendation system E-tourism-recommendation technologies can provide valuable information to tourists and help them discover and select the points of Buhalis & Law, 2008
interest that best fit their preferences.
12 Guiding-information service Guiding-information services combine mobile geographic-information system and global positioning system techniques with location- Chu, Lin, Chang, & Chen,
based services to provide tourists with a better trip experience and deeper understanding of the importance of the valuable landscape. 2011a
13 E-tour map Using global positioning systems, electronic maps and compasses can collect information from satellites and provide tourists, hikers, and Hawkins, Leventhal, &
boaters with exact geographic positions and directions. Oden, 1996a
14 Smart card (band) A smart card (band) contains personal information on embedded radio-frequency identification chips. It can serve as a driver's license, Marie et al., 2000
car and house keys, passports and medical record all-in-one. Smart cards (bands) are widely used in amusement parks, retail stores,
sports stadiums, universities, and health facilities.
15 Electronic-entrance guard system A mature scenic spot information system should consist of several IoT information systems, including an electronic-entrance guard and Guo, Liu, & Chai, 2014a
ticketing system that utilizes radio-frequency identification technology.
16 Smart environment Smart environment is one of the important dimensions of smart-tourism destinations. It is related to energy optimization that leads to Cohen 2012 as cited in
sustainable management of available resources. Buhalis & Amaranggana,
2013
17 Tourist-flow monitoring Using mobile positioning data to monitor the space-time movement of tourists and control the tourist flow in real time. Ahas, Aasa, Mark, Pae, &
Kull, 2007a
18 Crowd handling Using a variety of sensors to control visitor numbers within specific tourism sites according to the carrying capacity. Wu, Yang, Zhang, Dong,
Yan, Shan, Li, Wang, & Han,
2012a
19 Smart education Destinations should not only focus on exploiting new technologies but also should educate their tourists on how to best use these new Komninos, Pallot, &
technologies through the smart learning method. Schaffers, 2013a
20 E-complaint handling Tourism organizations should have an e-complaint handling system to provide channels for tourists' feedback and complaints. Buhalis & Law, 2008
21 Mobile payment Purchasing tourism products through mobile websites and applications is an emerging market. More and more tourists use mobile Huang, Li, & Li, 2013a
devices to plan, purchase, and enhance their travel experiences.
22 Electronic-ticketing system A mature scenic-spot information system should have an electronic-ticketing system that utilizes radio-frequency identification Guo et al., 2014a
technology.
23 Online coupons The use of online coupons is increasing in popularity in the tourism industry. For consumers, online coupons promise substantial savings. Sigala, 2013a
24 Online booking Using technologies such as Wifi, global navigation satellite systems, geographic information systems and global positioning systems to Wang & Wang, 2010a;
meet tourists' mobile reservation demands. Buhalis & Law, 2008
25 Tourist-flow forecast On the basis of the routes used and tourists' movements, managers of scenic spots can analyze the visiting behavior of tourists, then Yin, Yin, Wang, Wu, & Li,
forecast tourist flow and set early warnings. 2011a
26 Festival-activity forecast Using mobile applications, tourist attractions can forecast festivity information to tourists. Wang & Zhu, 2013a
27 Queuing-time forecast Using mobile applications, tourist attractions can forecast and provide queuing time for tourists. Wang & Zhu, 2013a
28 Weather forecast Weather plays an important role in tourists' decision-making. Based on context-aware recommender technique systems, tourists can Braunhofer, Elahi, Ricci, &
search and obtain weather information for their destinations. Schievenin, 2013a
29 Electronic toll collection Radio-frequency identification technology can be used for electronic toll collection at scenic spots. Its obvious advantage is no parking Zhang, Zhang, & Huang,
toll collection. It can thereby significantly improve the efficiency of the toll station. 2011a
(continued on next page)

313
 314 X. Wang et al. / Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320

600 questionnaires were collected and 191 invalid responses were

2013a; Fritz, Susperregui, &

Linaza, Gutierrez, & García,
Kasahara, Mori, Mukunoki,
Buhalis & Amaranggana, eliminated. A response was deem invalid when the respondent
provided multiple answers to single-choice questions, or when a

Stepchenkova, Mills, &

Buhalis & Law, 2008
substantial portion of questions in the survey was left unanswered.
Guo et al., 2014a

Guo et al., 2014a

Akehurst, 2009a
The effective response rate is thus 68.2% and a total of 409 valid
& Minoh, 2013a

Linaza, 2005a
Wang, 2013a
questionnaires were used for the analysis.

Jiang, 2007a
In the second stage, the weight of each item was determined
Sources

using AHP. Although the importance of the evaluation items had

2013

been assessed separately using a five-point Likert-type scale in the

first stage of data collection, it is necessary to assess the items'
relative weights when they are put together in the STA evaluation
Using “smart materials” such as electronic sensors to ensure tourists' safety during their trips in routine situations and helping tourists to
Using video surveillance systems as sensors to supply real-time information on transportation and traffic situations in tourist attractions.

IoT technology allows smart scenic spots to sense geographical features, natural disasters, tourist behaviors, community residents, and

Interacting with multimedia-enhanced websites can create a telepresence and that allows people to “experience” a destination without

By means of augmented reality, the real scene is enhanced by multimedia personalized interactive information to improve the tourist

A recent survey found that tourists trusted more websites with reviews than professional guides and travel agencies, and far from being
A virtual travel community makes it easier for people to obtain information, maintain connections, develop relationships, and eventually
system. Hence, AHP using pair-wise comparison between items
A smart emergency-response system is a tourism-security platform based on IoT and cloud computing. This platform connects the
security equipment with service facilities in the tourist attraction via IoT and realizes intelligent warning and emergency response

was employed to determine the weight of each item.

A mature scenic-spot information system should have a vehicle-scheduling system that utilizes radio-frequency identification

Following the AHP approach, twenty graduate students major-

an irrelevant, blogs are often perceived to be more credible and trustworthy than traditional marketing communications.
ing in tourism were asked to judge the degree of importance of the
STA evaluation items. These judges were chosen for two reasons.
First, their academic credentials qualify them to evaluate the
importance of STA items from a researcher perspective. Second,
they have all visited at least one of the three “pilot STAs” desig-
nated by the local government (i.e., Hongshan Zoo, Xuanwu Lake,
actually visiting it. This experience within a computer-mediated environment can simulate real visits.

and Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum) in the previous year. Travel experi-

ences in those pilot STAs is helpful to weight the evaluation items
make travel-related decisions through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks.

of STAs from a tourist perspective. Two rounds of surveys were

conducted to determine the weights of items, and more details will
be discussed in Section 3.4.

3.4. FCEM-AHP
technology, wireless local area networks (WLAN) and other technologies.

According to Cui (2012), the steps for the FCEM-AHP procedure

are as follows:

Step 1. Determine the item set of the evaluated object.

infrastructures of the scenic spots through the Internet.

The item set of the evaluated object is the various items that can
affect the evaluated object, and is defined by U as follows:

U ¼ fu1 ; u2 ; u3 ; …; um g (1)
through a wireless sensor network.

where ui represents the ith item influencing evaluated objects.

escape in the event of a disaster.

These items usually have different degrees of fuzziness.

Step 2. Determine the evaluation set.

Factor description

The evaluation set is composed of the elements of various

comprehensive evaluation results of the evaluated object as set by
experience.

the evaluators. It is defined by V as follows:

Detailed reference information is listed in Appendix A.

V ¼ fv1 ; v2 ; v3 ; …; vn g (2)

where vj represents the jth evaluation result.

Intelligent-environment monitoring

Smart emergency response system

Step 3. Determine the weight set.

Virtual tourism experience
Real-time traffic broadcast

Blogs of tourist attractions

Virtual travel community

The procedures using AHP to determine the weight set of STA

Smart vehicle scheduling

Traffic-safety protection

can be summarized as follows. First, the relative significance of

Augmented reality

different criteria needs to be evaluated by judges according to a

“1e900 scale process (Saaty, 1980) (Table 3), and a judgment matrix
can be constructed. Next, the maximum eigenvalue of the judg-
Table 1 (continued )

ment matrix is calculated. The eigenvector of the largest eigenvalue

Factors

is the evaluation weight vector A. Finally, a consistency test is used

to decrease the subjectivity of judgment and ensure the rationality
of weights. When the consistency ratio (CR) is below 0.1, the con-
sistency of the judgment matrix is considered reasonable. Other-
No.

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

wise, the matrix must be adjusted until the consistency is satisfied.

 X. Wang et al. / Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320 315

Table 2
Demographics of the sample (N ¼ 409).

Demographic variables Frequency % Demographic variables Frequency %

Gender Monthly income (RMB)

Male 201 49.144 Below 1000 22 5.379
Female 208 50.856 1000e3000 57 13.936
Age 3001e5000 89 21.760
Up to 20 45 11.002 5001e10,000 122 29.829
21e30 119 29.095 Above 10,000 119 29.095
31e50 207 50.611 Occupation
51e60 37 9.046 Student 92 22.494
Over 60 1 0.244 Researcher or teacher 87 21.271
Education level Civil servant 56 13.692
Primary school or below 24 5.868 Businessperson 59 14.425
Junior High school 63 15.403 Service worker 47 11.491
Senior High school 76 18.582 Housewife 36 8.802
College 139 33.985 Retired 17 4.156
Graduate school or above 107 26.161 Others 15 3.667

Step 4. Constructing the fuzzy judgment matrix. include: short-messaging service and multimedia-messaging ser-
vice, call-service center, guiding-information service, smart envi-
The fuzzy judgment matrix R can be defined as follows: ronment, e-complaint handling, electronic-ticketing system,
2 3 2 3 festival-activity forecast, electronic-toll collection, augmented re-
R1 R11 R12 / R1n ality, and the tourist attraction blog), and eight underlying factors
6 R2 7 6 R21 R22 / R2n 7
R¼6 7 6
4 R3 5 ¼ 4 «
7 (3) with an eigenvalue greater than 1.0 were derived from the rest of
« 1 « 5 the 28 evaluation items of STA. The value (0.727) of the KMO
R4 Rm1 Rm2 / Rmn measure of sampling adequacy indicates the appropriateness of
applying factor analysis in this research (Hair, Ortinau, & Bush,
where R is the evaluation results of the item set U and Rij is the 2000). Bartlett's test of Sphericity value was 11,001.668 at
degree of membership of the ith item ui to the jth evaluation rank vj, p ¼ 0.001 significance level, which showed that a significant cor-
which reflects the fuzzy relationship of every item. relation existed among at least some of the variables (Kim, Lee, &
Hiemstra, 2004). As shown in Table 4, eight main factors accoun-
Step 5. Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. ted for 78.109% of the total variance of STA indicators and were
labeled as follows: smart-information system, intelligent-tourism
The fuzzy comprehensive evaluation can be obtained by calcu- management, smart sightseeing, e-commerce system, smart
lating between the single item weight vector A and the fuzzy safety, intelligent traffic, smart forecast and virtual tourist attrac-
judgment matrix R, that is: tion. The reliability for each STA dimension, as assessed by Cron-
bach's alpha coefficients, was greater than 0.6, meeting the
B ¼ A+R ¼ ðb1 ; b2 ; /bm Þ (4)
criterion suggested by Hair et al. (2006).
where bi is the membership degree value of evaluated samples to Of the eight underlying dimensions, “smart-information sys-
each evaluation standard. The evaluation results are usually tem” was considered the most important STA dimension as
defined according to the maximum-membership degree principle. perceived by tourists. It accounted for approximately 17.114% of the
variance and included attributes such as the homepage of the
tourist attraction, free Wifi, online information access, mobile
4. Results
application, quick-response code, and electronic touch screen.
Factor 2, “intelligent tourism management,” accounted for an
4.1. Results of STA evaluation factors
additional 15.813% of the variance, and includes the concepts of
smart card (band), electronic-entrance guard system, tourist-flow
A principal component analysis with varimax rotation was used
monitoring, crowding handling, and smart education. The third
to identify the underlying dimensions of STA evaluation items. The
factor, “smart sightseeing,” is defined by attributes such as
identification of factors and elimination of items were based on the
personal-itinerary design, intelligent-guide system, e-tourism
criteria suggested by Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, and Tatham
recommendation system, and e-tour map. The fourth factor, “e-
(2006): (1) factor loading equal to or greater than 0.50, (2) eigen-
commerce system,” is related to concepts such as mobile payments,
values equal to or greater than 1.0.
online coupons, and online booking. The fifth factor, “smart safety,”
According to the results of principal component analysis, ten
is depicted by items such as intelligent environment-monitoring,
items with factor-loading less than 0.5 were removed (these

Table 3
Scales of relative importance.

Scales of relative importance Meaning

1 Item i is equally important to item j

3 Item i is slightly more important than item j
5 Item i is more important than item j
7 Item i is much more important than item j
9 Item i is substantially more important than item j
2, 4, 6, 8 Intermediate scales
316 X. Wang et al. / Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320

Table 4
Results of factor analysis.

Factor Factor loading Eigenvalue Variance explained Alpha Mean Std. deviation Weight

Smart information system (U1)a 4.792 17.114 0.941 0.210

Tourist attraction home page (U11)b 0.860 3.814 1.014 0.313
Free Wifi (U12)b 0.947 3.863 0.900 0.259
Online information access (U13)b 0.965 3.907 0.835 0.184
Mobile application (U14)b 0.812 3.833 0.930 0.123
Quick-response code (U15)b 0.841 4.005 0.813 0.082
Electronic touch screen (U16)b 0.827 3.809 0.830 0.039
Intelligent tourism management (U2)a 4.428 15.813 0.944 0.189
Smart card (band) (U21)b 0.870 3.291 1.428 0.245
Electronic-entrance guard system (U22)b 0.915 3.068 1.445 0.149
Tourist-flow monitoring (U23)b 0.854 3.029 1.412 0.220
Crowd handling (U24)b 0.864 3.279 1.430 0.234
Smart education (U25)b 0.846 3.105 1.648 0.152
Smart sightseeing (U3)a 2.643 9.440 0.812 0.170
Personal-itinerary design (U31)b 0.789 3.501 1.376 0.324
Intelligent-guide system (U32)b 0.648 3.418 1.407 0.270
E-tourism-recommendation system (U33)b 0.872 3.399 1.325 0.219
E-tour map (U34)b 0.838 3.355 1.277 0.187
E-commerce system (U4)a 2.204 7.871 0.774 0.106
Mobile payment (U41)b 0.682 3.323 1.371 0.408
Online coupons (U42)b 0.819 3.279 1.467 0.328
Online booking (U43)b 0.828 3.413 1.512 0.264
Smart safety (U5)a 2.173 7.759 0.744 0.099
Intelligent-environment monitoring (U51)b 0.744 3.421 1.334 0.264
Travel-safety protection (U52)b 0.827 3.156 1.276 0.389
Smart emergency-response system (U53)b 0.731 3.149 1.239 0.346
Intelligent traffic (U6)a 2.094 7.480 0.926 0.093
Smart vehicle-scheduling (U61)b 0.898 3.606 0.834 0.6
Real-time traffic broadcast (U62)b 0.895 3.675 0.918 0.4
Smart forecast (U7)a 1.952 6.971 0.687 0.074
Tourist-flow forecast (U71)b 0.732 2.403 1.316 0.416
Queuing-time forecast (U72)b 0.806 2.741 1.467 0.423
Weather forecast (U73)b 0.764 2.706 1.591 0.161
Virtual tourist attraction (U8)a 1.585 5.661 0.799 0.059
Virtual tourism experience (U81)b 0.870 4.081 1.334 0.529
Virtual travel community (U82)b 0.664 3.638 1.525 0.471

Total variance extracted ¼ 78.109%, KMO ¼ 0.727.

Bartlett's test of Sphericity ¼ 11,001.668 (df ¼ 378, p < 0.001).
a
The first level of the STA evaluation item set.
b
The second level of the STA evaluation item set.

travel safety-protection, and smart emergency-response system. Table 5

Factor 6, “intelligent traffic,” is associated with smart-vehicle Judgment matrix of STA's first-level evaluation factors.

scheduling and real-time traffic broadcasting. Factor 7, “smart U U1 U2 U3 U4 U5 U6 U7 U8 Weight

forecast,” includes tourist-flow forecasts, queuing-time forecasts, U1 1 9/7 9/8 9/5 9/5 9/4 3/1 9/2 0.210
and weather forecasts. Finally, the last factor represents “virtual U2 7/9 1 9/5 9/5 9/5 9/5 9/4 3/1 0.189
tourist attraction” and is defined by two attributes: the virtual U3 8/9 5/9 1 9/7 3/2 3/1 3/1 9/4 0.170
tourism experience and the virtual travel community. U4 5/9 5/9 7/9 1 1 9/8 3/2 3/2 0.106
U5 5/9 5/9 2/3 1 1 1 9/8 3/2 0.099
U6 4/9 5/9 1/3 8/9 1 1 9/8 9/4 0.093
U7 1/3 4/9 1/3 2/3 8/9 8/9 1 9/7 0.074
4.2. Results of FCEM-AHP U8 2/9 1/3 4/9 2/3 2/3 4/9 7/9 1 0.059

lmax ¼ 8.135, CI ¼ 0.019, RI ¼ 1.41, CR ¼ 0.014 < 0.10.

4.2.1. Determining item set of STA
Based on the items identified from literature review and factor
analysis, the evaluation item set of STA can be divided into two
levels. Accordingly, the first and second levels of the STA evaluation
item set of Hongshan Zoo can be constructed, as shown in Table 4.
4.2.2. Determining the evaluation set of STA
The STA evaluation set of Hongshan Zoo is determined as
follows:
V ¼ fv1 ; v2 ; v3 ; v4 ; v5 g
where v1, v2, v3, v4, v5 represent excellent, good, moderate, fair, and
poor, respectively.
4.2.3. Determining the weight set of STA
The weights of items were determined by two rounds of sur-
veys. In the first round, the twenty judges were asked to rate STA
items' importance using a 1e9 scale pair-wise comparison method.
Then, the weights of the evaluation items of STA were calculated
based on the judges' feedback. Next, the statistical results of the
weights were returned to the judges, who again evaluated the
importance of each item. After two rounds of feedback, the weights
of the STA evaluation items were determined using MCEAHP
software.
Based on the comparison result of the judges, the judgment
matrix of the STA's first-level evaluation items was obtained
(Table 5). Then the maximum eigenvalue and its corresponding
 X. Wang et al. / Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320
eigenvector of the judgment matrix were calculated to get the
weight set A ¼ (0.210, 0.189, 0.170, 0.106, 0.099, 0.093, 0.074, 0.059).
A consistency test was further conducted to check the rationality of
the weights. As lmax ¼ 8.135, so CR ¼ 0.014 < 0.10. Thus, the judg-
ment matrix has satisfactory consistency, indicating that the weight
set obtained by AHP is reasonable.
Following the same procedure, the weight sets of the second-
level evaluation items were also calculated, as shown in Table 4
(See Tables B1eB8 in Appendix B for the calculation process).
4.2.4. Constructing the fuzzy judgment matrix of STA
According to the respondents' assessment of the performance of
the STA evaluation items, the fuzzy judgment matrix of Hongshan
Zoo: R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, and R8 can be constructed (See
Appendix C).
4.2.5. Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation of STA
By using fuzzy judgment matrixes and the corresponding
weights sets, the result of the second-level fuzzy comprehensive
evaluation can be calculated, then the second-level comprehensive
evaluation matrix of Hongshan Zoo (R) can be constructed as
follows:
0 1
0:095 0:35 0:381 0:157 0:017
B 0:119 0:054 0:234 0:235 0:358 C
B C
B 0:067 0:108 0:253 0:527 0:044 C
B C
B 0:423 0:41 0:155 0:011 0 C
R¼B
B 0:132
C
B 0:447 0:374 0:027 0:018 C
C insufficient research soliciting tourists' opinions when constructing
B 0:001 0:004 0:058 0:487 0:449 C
B C
@ 0:044 0:11 0:026 0:727 0:092 A
0:13 0:348 0:167 0:306 0:048
By using assessment matrix R and the corresponding weight
vector A, the result of the first-level fuzzy comprehensive evalua-
tion can be obtained by using B ¼ A+R,
B ¼ ð0:123; 0:219; 0:238; 0:288; 0:132Þ:
The results of a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation are usually
defined according to the maximum-membership degree principle.
From vector B, it can be recognized that the membership-degree
values of “excellent”, “good”, “moderate”, “fair,” and “poor” are
0.123, 0.219, 0.238,0.288 and 0.132, respectively. Among them, the
membership degree value of “fair” (0.288) is the largest one. Thus,
the STA evaluation score of Hongshan Zoo is 0.288 (at the level of
“fair”). This indicates the STA construction in Hongshan Zoo is still
in the initial stage, and the “smart” level is relatively low.
4.3. Results of the IPA
The “importance” and “performance” matrix of the 28 STA
evaluation items of the Hongshan Zoo was prepared using SPSS
21.0. As shown in Fig. 2, the vertical axis represents “importance,”
while horizontal axis represents “performance.” Actual mean score
of weights (0.0357) and performance (3.02) were used as the
crossing point in constructing the IPA grid.
The items in the upper-left quadrant (“concentrate here”) of the
matrix are the most significant evaluation items of STA with poor
performance: smart-vehicle scheduling, personal-itinerary design,
smart card (band), intelligent-guide system, free Wifi, tourism-flow
monitoring, crowd handling, e-tourism recommendation system,
and real-time traffic broadcast. These items represent the weak-
nesses of Hongshan Zoo's STA construction and deserve further
attention and investments.
The items within the lower-left quadrant (“low priority”)
include smart education, mobile application, queuing-time
317
forecast, tourist-flow forecast, and virtual tourism experience.
These items are likely to receive lower priority due to their rela-
tively low importance.
The attributes that fall within the upper-right quadrant (“keep
up the good work”) are important items with good performance:
tourist attraction homepage, mobile payment, online information
access and travel-safety protection. Those items are the strengths of
the Hongshan Zoo's STA building and need to be well-maintained.
The indicators appearing in the lower-right quadrant (“possible
overkill”) are comparatively less important, but Hongshan Zoo
performs well on them. These include weather forecast, quick-
response code, electronic-entrance guard system, online booking,
virtual travel community, intelligent-environment monitoring, e-
tour map, smart emergency-response system, and online coupons.
5. Conclusions and implications
5.1. Key findings
The primary objectives of this study are to identify tourist
preference of STA, and to measure strengths and weaknesses of an
STA via FCEM-AHP and IPA. Although exploratory in nature, this
study offers useful insights into the theoretical investigation and
practical development of STA.
First, this study contributes to the understanding of tourist
preferences of STA on the theoretical grounds. While the devel-
opment of smart tourism is gaining popularity, there has been
STA. This research fills this gap in the existing tourism literature
regarding which important aspects tourists consider when evalu-
ating an STA. Based on a literature review and factor analysis, this
research identified 28 key evaluation items of STA and grouped
them into eight categories: “smart information system”, “intelli-
gent tourism management”, “smart sightseeing”, “e-commerce
system”, “smart safety”, “intelligent traffic”, “smart forecast” and
“virtual tourist attraction”. The findings indicate that tourist pref-
erences of STA are multifaceted, which include not only real-time
information access, online booking and tourist-flow forecast
before trip, but also effective tourist attraction management,
personalized itinerary design, efficient transport and smart safety
during trip. In addition, sharing tourism experiences in virtual
tourist attraction after trip is also essential for tourists.
Second, this study provides insights into the approach for
measuring and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of STA.
Given the limited literature on quantitative evaluation of STA, it is
deemed necessary to investigate the evaluation approach of STA.
Considering the ambiguous nature of being “smart”, FCEM-AHP is a
proper approach to evaluate STA due to its advantage of conducting
multi-criteria fuzzy evaluations. Employing the FCEM-AHP, this
paper conducted the STA assessment of Hongshan Zoo in Nanjing,
China. The result indicates that the smart level of Hongshan Zoo is
relatively low. Further investigation using IPA shed light on diag-
nosing the strengths and weaknesses of STA construction in the
Hongshan Zoo. Collectively, the methods used in this study are
instrumental for quantitative assessments of STAs.
5.2. Managerial implications
The findings of this paper will not only contribute to the aca-
demic research of STA, but also chart new directions for the plan-
ning and construction of STA in practice.
First, the tourists' preferences of STA identified in the present
research are useful for the management of tourist attractions.
Despite the increasing attention of smart tourism gained by tourist
attraction practitioners, most focuses have been put on the
318 X. Wang et al. / Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320
Fig. 2. Result of IPA.
deployment of complex technological facilities. Due to the lack of a
tourist-centric or tourist-oriented mindset, many smart tourism
facilities may not necessarily match visitors' needs. Thus, tourist
attractions should make an optimal use of smart tourism facilities
by offering the right smart tourism devices and services that suit
tourist preference at the right time. In relation thereto, this research
could help practitioners understand how to make the tourist
attraction smarter according to tourist needs, wants, and prefer-
ences and, in turn, enhance tourist experience and improve tourist
satisfaction.
Second, the weights of STA evaluation items in this study can
shed light on the construction sequence of STA. The development of
STA requires substantial efforts, time and resources. Thus,
providing a guideline of key attributes in STA construction is a
timely and important contribution to the industry. The weights of
STA evaluation items can inform the managers of the roles these
key items play in STA development. As shown in Fig. 2, the ten most
important items preferred by tourists are tourist attraction home-
page, smart vehicle-scheduling, personal-itinerary design, free
Wifi, smart cards (bands), intelligent-guide system, crowd
handling, mobile payment, tourist-flow monitoring, and online-
information access. Those items should be given priority when
building an effective STA.
5.3. Limitations and future research directions
Several limitations of this study should be acknowledged, which
may provide guidance for future research. First, this study used a
convenience sample of tourists in Hongshan Zoo to investigate the
evaluation items of STA, which may limit the generalizability of its
research findings. It is necessary to investigate if tourists in other
areas or visiting other STAs will respond to the survey in a different
way. In other words, further research could use other tourist at-
tractions as the study sites to examine whether the findings from
this study are replicable. Second, although more than 400 re-
spondents participated in the survey, most of them were under 60
years of age. Older tourists who are less knowledgeable about smart
tourism might have avoided participating in this survey. Thus,
future researchers are advised to investigate senior tourists' views
toward STA, with the aim of providing targeted smart services for
different market segments. Third, the weights of STA evaluation
items were judged by twenty graduate students. Ideally, using a
more authoritative judge panel with leading researchers and
practitioners could enhance the validity and reliability of the
research.
Today's attractions need to become “smarter” because the way
tourism experiences are designed, delivered, and consumed has
 X. Wang et al. / Tourism Management 54 (2016) 309e320
profoundly changed. This study represents one of the first studies
on smart tourist attraction. Considering the central role tourist
attractions play in the tourism system (Leiper, 1979), the authors
believe STA represents a fertile ground for future research, which
deserves more scholarly attention.
Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge that funding for this
research was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Grant No. 41371149, 41571146), China National Tourism
Administration (Grant No. TYEPT201422) and China Scholarship
Council (Grant No. 201308320172).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2015.12.003.
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Jin-He Zhang, Ph.D. (zhangjinhe818@nju.edu.cn) is a

Xia Wang, Ph.D. (wangxia128@gmail.com) is a associate
professor at the School of Geographic and Oceanographic
́ Sciences, Nanjinǵ University, China. She received her Ph.D.
degree from Nanjing University, China. Her current
research interests include tourist and resident satisfaction,
Pro-poor tourism, and smart tourism. She has published in
journals such as Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Asia
Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Current Issues in Tourism,
and Chinese Geographical Science.
professor at the School of Geographic and Oceanographic
Sciences, Nanjing University, China. He received his Ph.D.
degree from Nanjing University, China. His current
research interests include tourism planning and manage-
ment, and ecological tourism, and environmental impact
of tourism. His articles have appeared in journals such as
Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Acta Geographica
Sinica, Geographical Research, Journal of Ecology, and Chi-
nese Geographical Science.