‘Tourist stupidity’ as a basic characteristic of ‘smart tourism’: challenges for destination planning and management

Abstract

Smart tourism is integral to the concept of smart cities, and existing literature focuses on the application of innovative information and communication technology designed to improve the tourism system. Although research on smart tourism has increased, the reality of attendant tourist dissonance has not yet been adequately addressed. Consequently, we present a matrix of ‘tourist stupidity’ as a conceptual frame to characterise tourists’ potential responses to smart tourism. The matrix provides a counterpoint to previous studies on smart tourism by proposing four types of ‘stupidity’ based on tourist intentions (wilful to inadvertent) and actions (passive to active). The intent of this counterpoint is to facilitate destination planning and management so that truly ‘smart’ tourism can be fostered.