Smart Tourism, Trust, and Perceived Value as Drivers of Tourist Loyalty: A Comparative Study of Indonesia and Vietnam
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47747/fmiic.v1i3.3554Abstract
This paper will look at the effect of smart tourism, trust and perceived value on tourist loyalty in the ASEAN emerging markets of Indonesia and Vietnam. The study is based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory, in which the smart tourism should be seen as the stimulus, trust and perceived value as the organism state, and loyalty of the tourists as the behavioural response. The survey involved 400 tourists (200 Indonesian and 200 Vietnamese respondents) and was quantitative and cross-sectional. The PLS-SEM was used to analyse data, assessing measurement model, structural model, mediation testing, MICOM, and PLS-MGA. The findings indicate the presence of strong positive impacts of smart tourism on trust, perceived value, and tourist loyalty. Trust has a strong impact on perceived value and tourist loyalty, whereas perceived value proves to be the most powerful direct predictor of tourist loyalty. Further mediation analysis confirms that trust and perceived value mediate the relationship between smart tourism and tourist loyalty, both in isolation and in a sequential manner. The multi-group analysis however shows that there is no significant difference in the structural relationships between Indonesia and Vietnam. These results indicate that smart tourism enhances tourist loyalty both directly as well as by way of relational and evaluative processes. The research adds to the existing literature on smart tourism by expanding the S-O-R theory to a comparative ASEAN context and providing applicable recommendations to destination stakeholders aiming to increase loyalty by using digitally enabled tourism measures.
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