The seven stages conducted converge with evidence of a six-dimensional STS scale, suggesting that these dimensions are the core of the STS that tourists experience. The tourism sectors represented here are attractions, transportation, accommodation, diet and retail, and the service providers include travel agents and tour operators, hotels, restaurants, local communities and organizations, and the government agencies that cooperate with these sectors. The service providers in the constituted smart tourism ecosystem can benefit themselves and each other with economic, socio-cultural, and environmental sustainability through the process of co-creating value of experience with tourists (Bhuiyan et al., 2022). The STS scale provides the applications of smart service measures that will influence tourists’ behaviours in each stage of travel (before, during, and after a trip), which is conducive to sustainable value co-creation. The findings of tourist value co-creation behaviours respond to Bhuiyan et al.’s (2022) exposition on sustainability. In addition, the STS scale constructs a more comprehensive smart tourism ecosystem and more specific, relevant measures. It provides a well underpinning for the establishment of the conceptual framework of the STS platform. The platform can therefore propose the locus of the value co-creation process between tourists and service providers. The findings from the STS scale are discussed as the followings.

The first dimension, smart attraction services, verify that intelligent service perspectives are applicable across all phases of travel (Xiang et al., 2015). It proves that ICTs combined with the infrastructure (software and hardware) of scenic spots are conducive to creating and meeting tourists’ needs for tourism experiences, as well as linking with the service environment of other tourism elements. (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015). Specifically, before a trip real-time information access means that tourists would like to use free attraction information to identify problems and develop potential solutions to address them (Jovicic 2019), mainly involving reservations, the weather, tourist flows, and queuing time. During trips, an effective smart guide system is required and location-based services (e.g. near-field communications, beacons or augmented reality) are helpful for providing dynamic guidance of attractions. Moreover, tourists expect to establish a personalized itinerary planning system based on tourism information databases, and they share their plans via mobile devices for others to download them. Interactive multimedia systems (e.g. augmented/virtual reality somatosensory facilities) are also mentioned as useful for creating smart experiences that tourists would like to share after the trip.

The second dimension, smart transportation services, denotes two situations of tourists’ demands to find necessary transportation services and/or related information. For self-transport travel, three measurement items support Lin et al.’s (2019) findings that a location-based service scheme should include navigation systems and real-time information on traffic and parking. For non-self-transport travel, two items also reflect the necessity of public transport information and intelligent transport scheduling systems (e.g. shuttle buses, electric scooters). Intelligent transportation systems (e.g. telematics) can help tourists make better use of the transportation network. However, the items also reinforce Gonzalez et al. (2020) and Naik et al.’s (2019) argument that access to smart transportation remains a significant challenge with regard to infrastructure in a city.

Both the third and fourth dimensions, smart accommodation and diet services, are associated with a perceived service of hospitality during a trip, with a focus on intelligent management. The findings support Cimbaljević et al.’s (2019) assertion that businesses must respond to the respondents’ request to establish an automatic operation system to substantially improve operational efficiency and reduce mistakes. First, self-service counters for instant registration and self-service ordering systems are applied as an integrated tools for practitioners’ marketing and operation. Second, mobile booking and ordering systems emphasize mobility and convenience. Tourists can make room/meal reservations that match the arrival time and location through the systems in advance.

Third, smart room access control and cabinet systems are installed to satisfy tourists’ safety demands. Guest room privacy and security is a long-standing issue but more palpable today, which calls for the active practitioner-tourist co-creation of solutions for tourists (Stankova et al., 2019). Four, the practitioners may provide and optimize the entire service process to meeting tourists’ meal demands. Such include efficient tourist guidance, pre-order and queue services before arrival, service request systems during dining, and cloud service systems (platforms/software/infrastructure/technologies) for tourists to share their opinions after their meals. The measurement items herein prompt practitioners to connect with smart tourism networks, sensors and extractors in the smart hospitality ecosystem, in order to collect and analyse the big data from tourist reservation information and thereby enhancing revenue management performances (Buhalis and Leung, 2018).

While the above four dimensions of the scale are conceptually unique, the facets of the smart purchase and payment service dimensions share some commonalities with the general m-commerce-related concepts (i.e. electron, convenience, and mobility) facilitating tourists to choose tourism services (Alqatan et al., 2011). Despite that, the differences in the measurement items between these two dimensions can still be clearly identified. The items of smart purchase services are measured from a utility perspective, while those of smart payment services are mainly based on the payment method.

Seven measurement items of smart purchase services involve tourist engagement in information gathering, planning, comparison, and purchase experiences. From a utility perspective, tourists are willing to invest time and effort in searching for and using promotion-related information to save costs. Tourists emphasize smart and transactional value because they can achieve time and/or effort savings by conveniently using online systems, or because they feel pleasure that they are making the right purchases (Flavián et al., 2020). Therefore, the findings comply with those of Xiang et al. (2017) who believe that tourists would like to engage in smart purchases only when the products purchased on the Internet can match their demands and provide good value for the money spent.

Smart payment systems are those that allow consumers to pay their bills via smart platforms rather than cash, check, or debit card. With this technology, payment services operating under financial regulations are performed via mobile devices, and the type of payment includes mobile wallets, credit cards, carrier billing, etc. (Banerjee and Wigginton, 2015). Tourists can therefore enjoy the benefits of convenience, lower payments, and safe and secure payments. However, the current literature provides few explanations for smart payment services by tourists. Four measurement items of smart payment services preliminarily respond to Gretzel et al.’s (2015b) findings that tourists can pay for a range of services using smart devices as a viable payment option.

Essentially, the proposed STS scale integrates the fundamental tourism elements in a smart tourism ecosystem, lays a reasonable theoretical foundation (S-D logic), and provides a practical assessment tool for smart services. Moreover, the measurement items have explained the sustainability for tourists in terms of economy (i.e., reducing travelling costs, increasing decision-making efficiency, and avoiding unnecessary time wasting), socio-culture (i.e., instant access to information and public facilities, comfort in travelling, and memorable experiences), and the environment (i.e., reducing energy consumption, receiving proper guidance of environmental challenges, and receiving information about the destination’s ecology). The findings imply how tourists create sustainable value-co-created behaviours by experiencing smart service measures.

On the other hand, the scale highlights the complete experience of travel processes, resulting in findings that have relevance for tourism practitioners on several functions regarding smart tourism services. These functions include a collection of tourist demands, pre-travel planning programs, experience creation, convenience and access plans, and value enhancement strategies. By logical deduction, a conceptual framework of the STS platform is constructed (Fig. 4). The broad nature of the platform not only calls for the co-creation of tourist experiences but also represents a comprehensive assessment tool for practitioners in assessing demands about smart tourism services.

Based on the cooperation between ICTs, the technological-based characteristics of smart service platforms, such as connection between tourism and ICT (Choe and Fesenmaier, 2017), tandem and co-marketing of the tourism industry chain (Li et al., 2017), and tourist data collection and analysis (Gretzel et al., 2015c) will lead a constructed STS platform to create a holistic smart tourism ecosystem. The ecosystem reveals the progress and functions of ICT, which not only strengthens the service capability of information generation but also highlights the service process of information transmission and processing (Gretzel et al., 2015a). The ways of information service systems can better facilitate tourists to apply the STS.

From the system, tourists learn and apply information including weather, queuing time, tourist flow, traffic, parking lots, public transportation, e-maps, hotels, catering and purchase prices. As a result, itinerary planning, reservation, purchasing, payment, and experience sharing will obviously change along with tourist behaviours across the stages of travel. Based on the functions of ICT in STS platforms, the locus between services and behaviours is consistent with Li and Zhang’s (2022) system layers; that is, services, applications, and then users. When customers’ skills and behaviours are transformed into the company’s value creation, the mechanism of co-creation is formulated (Wang et al., 2016). Thus, tourist behaviours can be seen as a supplementary resource to the service provider’s internal value-creating procedures. Tourist-service provider interactions have thus become the locus of value creation (Edeh et al., 2022).

Moreover, with the help of tourist-operated technologies, service providers can obtain and use the information on tourist behaviours, which will support their sustainability in a smart tourism ecosystem. For example, in terms of finances, firms can decrease overlapping tasks, lower marketing costs, and disperse information. In the socio-cultural aspect, they will be able to gain instant access to tourist information and maintain long-lasting customer relationships. As to the environment, firms can save energy and receive proper guidance and information against environmental challenges. In this regard, as active actors of the ecosystem, tourist behaviours contribute to sustainable value co-creation. Finally, the findings respond to Xiang et al.’s (2015) service perspectives that tourist behaviours in the role of creating sustainable value co-creation come across three phases of travel, i.e., pre, during, and post-trips, in particular technology-denominated services.