Tourist Segments Using Smart Technologies in European and American Smart Cities

This chapter aims to identify and analyse distinct segments of tourists based on their use of smart technologies during trip planning and in-destination experiences. A latent class analysis was employed to classify tourists according to their use of information sources and smart technologies. Data were collected through surveys of tourists who had visited smart cities, yielding a total of 1,051 valid responses, 526 from European cities and 525 from USA cities. The analysis revealed four distinct tourist segments: ‘receivers’, ‘technophobes’, ‘experience co-creators’ and ‘smart tourists’. This research introduces a novel segmentation framework within the tourism literature, offering empirical insights into the differentiated impact of smart technologies on tourist behaviour and preferences.