Smart and Sustainable Tourism: Addressing CDR Through AI Solutions in New Zealand’s Tourism Industry

The increasing adoption of artificial intelligence in tourism has intensified concerns about data privacy, transparency, and ethical governance. This study examines the current state of corporate digitalresponsibility among tourism operators in New Zealand and explores how AI-enabled tools may conceptually address identified gaps. A two-stage qualitative design was used. The first stage involveda website analysis of 55 Qualmark-licensed tour operators to assess privacy practices, legal transparency, and organizational governance. The second stage drew on interviews with three academicAI specialists and three tourism practitioners representing small, medium, and large organizations toexamine perceived feasibility and organizational constraints. The findings reveal wide variation in theaccessibility of privacy information, limited reference to New Zealand legislation, inconsistent disclosure of data management processes, and a general absence of visible governance roles such as PrivacyOfficers. Expert and practitioner insights indicate that AI-enabled tools may offer conditional supportfor improving transparency, compliance, and governance, with feasibility varying according to organizational capacity and digital maturity. The study advances conceptual understanding of corporatedigital responsibility in tourism by positioning AI as a complementary mechanism to human oversightand institutional governance, rather than proposing operational or prescriptive solutions.