Smart tourists as a profiling market segment: Implications for DMOs

Abstract

The concept of smart tourism has gained a significant attention in the last years, leading to fruitful discussions among scientists and practitioners; however, there has been lack of attention paid to smart tourists so far. Although this emerging type of tourist has been conceptualized, it is now important to find whether it can be considered as a market segment. The article fills the gap in the smart tourism research by using two-step cluster analysis to classify 5975 tourists, finding a smart tourism market segment and analysing the characteristics and travel behaviour of this segment. This segment is worth focusing on and differentiates in all trip experience phases. The rethinking of business models of today’s destination management organizations towards creating value proposition during all trip experience phases based on personalization and experience enrichment is needed in order to reach the smart tourist market segment.