Enhancing Memorable Experiences, Tourist Satisfaction, and Revisit Intention through Smart Tourism Technologies

Global connectivity facilitated tourism and redefined economic landscapes, highlight an interest in better understanding tourism retention factors. Today, in view of the global COVID-19 pandemic, this is made even more important as the world prepares to lift lockdown restrictions and to re-engage in cross border circulation; reiterating needs to understand tourism satisfaction and revisit intentions. This study thus sheds light on the predictors of tourists’ intention to the explorative and exploitative use of Smart Tourism Technologies (STTs) and memorable experiences in tourism destinations via an integrated model and a self-administered questionnaire—distributed among domestic tourists visiting Tehran—employing the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The results indicated that tourists’ attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control toward STTs had significant positive impacts on their explorative and exploitative intentions. Furthermore, tourists’ explorative/exploitative intention and perceived behavioral control exercised significant, positive effects on their memorable experiences. Finally, the results demonstrate that tourists’ memorable experiences significantly influence their satisfaction and intention to revisit smart destinations. This study expands existing literature by exploring a new model for enhancing memorable experiences and revisit intention using STTs, and presents findings applicable to the city of Tehran, while adopting a model which can be replicated in other geographies looking at better understanding its tourism landscape. Finally, the results in this study can be helpful for both researchers and policy makers in their quest to rejuvenate local post-pandemic economies via tourism measures.