Smart tourism practice in the scope of sustainable tourism in emerging markets: a systematic literature review

Abstract

The crisis caused by the COVID-19 outbreak has put tourism sustainability in question, especially in emerging markets. Since smart tourism has been widely applied in emerging markets and can support sustainability efforts, it is essential to identify the concern and motivation for sustainability and smart tourism in emerging markets. This literature study explores the concept, implementation, and technology utilization of sustainability and smart concepts in tourism. The PRISMA method was used to systematically review the literature by assessing sustainability and smart tourism in emerging markets in the context of methodologies, themes, research locations, and research settings. The results show that the previous researchers’ concern and interest in sustainable tourism and smart tourism research in developing markets are still focused on smartness, big data use, technology, and digital platforms related to the accessibility of tourism destinations. Meanwhile, the use of technology to achieve sustainable conditions is still not widely practiced in emerging markets. Future research on the smart sustainable tourism locus is prioritized. The usefulness of this approach lies in the smart sustainable tourism concept that can increase competitiveness in emerging markets, especially for rural and urban areas.

Keywords

• Sustainable tourism
• smart tourism
• technology use
• systematic literature review
• Tourism
• Tourism and the Environment