Smart Tourism Technology and Sustainable Tourism: Creating Vivid Memories to Drive Tourists' Behavioural Intention

Abstract

This study examines the impact of smart tourism technology and sustainable tourism on tourists' behavioural intention, with vivid memory as a mediating variable. Earlier studies have investigated smart tourism technology and sustainability separately, but there is a lack of understanding of how these two perspectives interact with memory theory to influence tourist behaviour. To address this gap, a survey was conducted involving 742 tourists across four major Indonesian cities, and the data were analysed using path analysis with SmartPLS. The findings show that sustainable tourism directly and indirectly shapes behavioural intention, while smart tourism technology influences it only indirectly through vivid memory. The study contributes by distinguishing how modern, technology-based experiences and traditional, sustainability-oriented experiences affect tourists through different psychological mechanisms. In practice, it underscores the value of promoting sustainability practices, technology-driven heritage initiatives, and conservation-oriented tourism programmes to strengthen memorable experiences and future behavioural intentions.