Rocky Roads towards Smart Tourism: A Multi-Dimensional Challenges Review

Smart technology implementation in the tourism sector has gained the scholar's attention recently. Along with the development of big data analytics and the internet of things (IoT), smart tourism is believed to bring a richer experience for the tourist. However, like other technology adoption, smart tourism initiative is not necessarily beneficial and run smoothly. Therefore, this study aims to explore challenges, barriers, or drawbacks of smart tourism implementation. Sixteen studies from the past five years are involved in discovering the challenges through extensive literature review. This study identified nineteen challenges of smart tourism, divided into four categories based on the socio-technical system (STS) theory. This review is the first attempt to provide an integrative view of smart tourism implementation challenges. Further research is expected to conduct an empirical analysis to prove the listed challenges, especially in developing countries since exploration regarding this topic is mainly concentrated in European developed countries.