Analysis of the attributes of smart tourism technologies in destination chatbots that influence tourist satisfaction

Chatbots are an emerging technology that is disrupting the tourism industry. Despite their implementation in companies and at destinations, there is little research that evaluates chatbots’ smart tourism technologies (STTs) attributes and their influence on tourist satisfaction. This study seeks to examine the relationship between informativeness, empathy, accessibility, interactivity and chatbot user satisfaction. The research was based on an experiment and a survey conducted on a sample of 468 potential tourists who used a chatbot during their trip. Statistical tools such as exploratory factor analysis and the hierarchical regression method were used in the data analysis. The results suggest that informativeness, empathy and interactivity of destination chatbots are the attributes that influence and predict tourist satisfaction while accessibility does not. The main contribution of this study is the analysis of the attributes of STTs applied to destination chatbots, which also provides valuable information for both tourism chatbot developers and smart destination managers who wish to adopt this technology.Highlights The communication with a chatbot resembles the dialogues they have with human agents.Informativeness is a predictor factor in users’ satisfaction with chatbotThe empathic ability of the chatbot is a factor that predicts user satisfactionA high level of interactivity in a human-chabot interaction predicts user satisfaction