smart tourism thesis

• About Journal Menu Policies Contact
• Announcements
• EDITORIAL Team
• Submissions
• Section Collection

Asia Pacific Academy of Science Pte. Ltd. (APACSCI) specializes in international journal publishing. APACSCI adopts the open access publishing model and provides an important communication bridge for academic groups whose interest fields include engineering, technology, medicine, computer, mathematics, agriculture and forestry, and environment.

Focus and Scope

Smart Tourism (ST, eISSN: 2810-9821) is an open-access peer-reviewed journal. ST publishes articles that promote tourism management, tourism service, tourism marketing, etc. Smart methods talked about in this journal cover modern intelligent technologies, innovative ideas and practices, and pioneering policies. All of these methods and technologies should be conducive to promoting tourism development, boosting the tourism economy, enhancing the tourist experience, and ensuring tourism sustainability. This journal aims to inspire new ideas on policy formulation, the prosperity of villages, cultural protection, etc.

The journal welcomes all relevant submissions of research articles, brief reports, perspectives, reviews, etc., which make constructive contributions to theory, technology, and methods. Articles related to new technologies for tourism are extremely welcomed.

The topics of the journal include, but are not limited to:

• Tourism sustainability
• Tourism service
• Tourism marketing
• Tourism management
• Tourism policies
• Tourism facilities
• Tourism security
• Tourism platforms
• Tourism recommendation systems
• Tourism perception
• Cultural relic protection detection systems

For Authors

Publishing ethics.

APACSCI upholds the spirit of strict adherence to high ethical standards. This is consistent with APACSCI's mission of publishing high-quality articles and promoting open scientific exchanges globally. APACSCI follows the  Ethical Oversight Guidelines  of the Committee on Publication Ethics ( COPE ) in overseeing the publication process, as well as the activities of APACSCI journals, editors, and reviewers.

APACSCI and all the editors adhere to the following guidelines:

1.  Core Practices  and  Best Practice Guidelines  of the  Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) ;

2.  Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing  developed by the  Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) ,  Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ ),  Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) ,  and  World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) .

3.  Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals  from the  International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE) .

APACSCI is committed to protecting the privacy of its contributors and promises not to disclose personal information to third parties without permission, unless for necessary purposes of the publishing process or required by law.

Complaints and appeals

APACSCI takes allegations of misconduct (refer to the  Misconduct Policy  for more details) seriously and will launch an immediate investigation by a group of investigation members. Decisions will be made by the investigation group based on clear evidence, and the authors will be informed. If there is any appeal against the decision, it must be made to the publisher within 14 days of the decision date, or else actions will be taken after 14 days. The decision on the appeal is final.

Authors can express concerns about delays, extensions, and unreasonable handling procedures during the editing process and the time it takes. The editor-in-chief will be accountable for initiating an investigation into the issue, and the complainant will receive feedback. Reasonable editing procedures will be enhanced.

Any complaints and appeals against APACSCI journals and editors can be directed to the publisher at  [email protected] , and APACSCI follows  COPE  guidelines in handling all complaints and appeals.

Editorial Policies

Authors should read the " Author Guidelines " before making a submission, and make sure that the manuscripts were written in accordance to the style and specifications of the journal's policy.

All manuscripts submitted to this journal are subject to rigorous peer review. Prior to the peer review process, the manuscripts will be screened for acceptable English language, novelty and relevance to the  Focus and Scope  of the journal.

Any manuscripts submitted to this journal will be treated as confidential materials. The manuscripts will not be disclosed to anyone except individuals such as editorial staff, reviewers and editors who participate in the initial screening, review, processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted).

A manuscript would not be accepted if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. The authors are required to notify the editorial team if the findings and data in their submissions have been presented in conferences.

Conflict of Interest

Authors are required to declare any potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial) during the submission stage. Any agreements with study sponsors (for-profit or non-profit), such as those that interfere with the authors' access to the study's data or with the authors' ability to analyze or interpret the data and to publish manuscripts independently according to their own decision, should be avoided by authors at all costs.

APACSCI also requires reviewers and editors to declare any (potential) non-financial conflicts of interest and declare any unpaid roles or relations that may influence the decision on the manuscript's publication before acknowledging the assigned request. These include, but are not limited to, unpaid roles in a governmental or non-governmental organization, unpaid roles in an advocacy or lobbying organization, and unpaid advisory positions in a commercial organization.

In addition, reviewers and editors must disclose any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript, including but not limited to those interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of research or non-research articles submitted to a journal. Examples are personal or work-related relationships with one of the authors or the reviewer is on the authors' avoidance list.

Misconduct Policy

Following  COPE guidelines , APACSCI will not accept any misconduct behaviors that may mislead researchers.

Plagiarism is not acceptable. Using the content from one's own previously published articles without proper citation is also considered plagiarism. APACSCI adopts Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate) for checking the originality of submissions. Manuscripts with a high similarity index may be rejected.

Fabrication and falsification

Fabrication and falsification of data or images will mislead researchers. APACSCI strongly opposes such practices and will reject suspicious submissions.

Duplicate submission

Duplicate submission of a manuscript that has been published or submitted to other journals at the same time will not be considered.

Manipulation

Peer review manipulation is expressly forbidden. In particular, peer review manipulation by editors involves ethical issues, and when detected or complained about, editors are dealt with seriously and are subject to dismissal.

Eliminate excessive manipulative citation included in the peer review process by reviewers. Reviewers are encouraged to suggest that authors add references that are necessary and constructive to the research. Reviewers' own articles that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the author's work must not be oversold for the sole purpose of inflating the number of citations to the reviewer's own article.

Authors are prohibited from over-citing their own previously published articles. The journal's editorial board will determine self-citation thresholds, which authors must strictly adhere to in order to eliminate any suspicion of citation manipulation.

Editors will be involved in the journal management process to detect citation manipulations from authors or reviewers.

As behaviors above are illegal academic and very unethical, the Publisher will deal with it seriously. If any misconduct action is verified, authors and their institutions will be informed, and all the journals of the Publisher will not receive any new submission from these authors and their institutions  in three years. If the allegations are disputable, their institutes are responsible to cooperate with the journal in investigating allegations.

If there are any suspicious allegations of the processing of articles especially the peer review process, referring to For Reviewers , the Editor-in-Chief will receive the complaint, and an investigation group will be formed to investigate the entire process, including the reviewers, editors, and staff who are involved. The journal will follow the procedures described in  COPE  and  Publishing Ethics  for handling allegations of misconduct.

Correction, Retraction and Withdrawal

Authors are responsible for approving the final version of their manuscript and they should avoid any errors prior to publishing. In the case of errors that occur in a published article and have no influence on research results, APACSCI will issue a correction/erratum.

Authors, readers, and editors are encouraged to report any errors found in published papers. Please contact the editorial office of the particular journal.

Based on  COPE guidelines , the following conditions can lead to the retraction of a published article:

• Unreliable findings
• Published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources, disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification
• Containing material or data without the authorization for use
• Infringement of copyright, violation of privacy, or other legal issues
• Unethical research
• Dubious peer review processes
• Failing to disclose a major competing interest

If any of the above misconduct proved to be true, a retraction notice will be issued with the reason, while the PDF of the retracted article will be watermarked with "Retracted". The journal editors will inform the authors of the retraction.

Paid Article Processing Charges will not be refunded to the authors if retraction occurs.

Although not encouraged, authors can initiate the withdrawal of their submission before and during the peer review process by providing the reason. However, authors should note that a penalty fee of US$200 will be imposed for the withdrawal of a submission undergoing the peer review process due to the spent efforts on the evaluation of the manuscript by the editors and reviewers. Upon the approval of submission withdrawal, the submission will be removed from the journal's operation system, and the authors be informed.

Accepted articles and articles in press may also be withdrawn due to infringements of professional ethical codes (similar reasons to those for retraction).

The language of all manuscripts must be English (either British or American) and non-English words should be used sparingly. Poor English may lead to article rejection. Authors are encouraged to seek language polishing by a native English speaker or a professional editing service.

Preprint policy

APACSCI allows authors to post preprints of the manuscript of their original research articles (limited to only this type of article) on community preprint servers, such as arXiv, bioRxiv, and PeerJ Preprint, prior to or simultaneous with their manuscript submission to APACSCI journals. Authors retain the copyright of the manuscript posted on a preprint server.

Authors should inform the editors of the preprint version of their submitted manuscript in a cover letter, as well as provide any associated accession numbers or DOIs. Revised versions per the result of the peer review process and accepted versions for publication should not be posted on a preprint server.

Upon publication of the article, APACSCI encourages authors to link the article in the preprint server to the journal site, so as to guide readers to access and refer to the final version of the article.

Based on the guidelines of the  International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) , authorship should be limited to those who meet the following four criteria:

• Contributed substantially to the conception or design of the manuscript or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the manuscript; AND
• Drafted the manuscript or reviewed it critically for significant intellectual content; AND
• Have final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreed to be responsible for the manuscript in ensuring that problems relating to the accuracy or completeness of any part of the manuscript are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Individuals who do not meet the above four criteria should not be listed as authors but should be acknowledged. All authors are expected to make meaningful contributions to this work. The publisher strictly prohibits false authorships, including those obtained through purchase, and only recognizes genuine contributions. Authors should disclose whether artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies were used in the preparation of their manuscripts and how they used them. Authors should also report the use of AI for writing assistance in the Acknowledgment section. AI tools should not be used in sections that rely on human intellectual analysis, such as data interpretation and conclusion summarization.

A corresponding author should be marked with "*", and the maximum of corresponding authors is two. A corresponding author serves as a representative of the authors and is responsible for contacting editors and reviewers, e.g., submitting manuscripts, responding to reviews, accepting queries, proofreading galleys, making corrections, etc. 

Changes to Authorship

Authorship changes (addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names) should be made before the acceptance of the manuscript. Confirmation from all authors (including existing authors and author(s) to be added and/or removed) should be provided to the editorial office of the journal, together with the reason for such changes. Changes can be made after the approval of the journal. The publisher will deal with any changes or dispute over authorship following the  COPE flowcharts of authorship and contributorship .

Copyright and License

Authors contributing to APACSCI journals retain the copyright .

All articles published by  Smart Tourism  are licensed under the Creative Commons International Licenses. Without any explicit request from the corresponding author during the submission stage, a paper will be published under the  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)  by default. Authors who would like to publish their work under the  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) , they should express their request during the submission stage. Please include the statement below in the "Comments for the Editor column" on the submission page:

The contributors or authors for this submission entitled "[MANUSCRIPT TITLE]", i.e. [NAMES of ALL AUTHORS], have given their consents to alter the Creative Commons License to *CC BY-NC 4.0* under which this submission will be published in   Smart Tourism .

It is the responsibility of authors to obtain permission to reuse material previously published under a more restrictive license from the copyright holder before the submission stage. These may include figures, tables, and schemes.

Advertising Policy

The publisher requests that this journal only consider advertising applications that are relevant to the contents of the journal, if available.

• The publisher (APACSCI) reserves the right to accept or refuse advertising. The Journal Editorial Office will evaluate whether to accept the request.
• Advertisements must comply with relevant rules and laws in the country where they will appear.
• Advertisements should be legible and advertisers identifiable. Sponsors may not arrange or influence editorial decisions including any content in the journal.
• Advertisements must not be misleading or deceptive. Advertising content must not contain indecent, offensive, or sensitive information (such as politics, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc.).
• APACSCI disclaims responsibility for any damages resulting from advertisements in its journals. The publisher or journal does not accept advertisements for products or services known to be harmful to health/science or contrary to academic principles.
• Unless the advertiser requests differently, all advertisements posted by the publisher will be displayed at random. Special requests need to be addressed to the publisher, who will make a final decision on a case-by-case basis within 7 working days.
• Advertising is independent, with journal web features and academic content free from all advertising and product interference.
• Once an advertisement is posted online, it will be removed from the journal's website at any time if the Editor-in-Chief or publisher requests that it be removed.

For any advertisement queries or appeals/complaints, please contact APACSCI at  [email protected] .

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

APACSCI's publishing model is open access. Open access enables readers to freely access and download articles immediately after publication online. APACSCI charges authors article processing charges (APCs) so as to cover operation costs, such as those arising from the evaluation and production processes. APCs should be paid upon the acceptance of articles and ahead of publication.

APCs of  Smart Tourism  are  US$800 .

Waiver and Discount Policy

APACSCI believes there should be no barriers to the dissemination of knowledge, and thus APACSCI offers APC waivers and discounts to authors from  low-income  countries and authors with special circumstances. Authors should write to the editorial office of the specific journal to apply for waivers and discounts. The decision to approve such applications is made by the editorial office on a case-by-case basis.  Publishing fees or waiver status should not influence editorial decision making.

Indexing & Archiving

• All the articles published online will be archived in  Portico  for long-term digital preservation.
• Authors are encouraged to self-archive the final version of their published articles into institutional repositories (such as those listed in the  Directory of Open Access Repositories ).
• Authors are also encouraged to use the final PDF version published on the website of  Smart Tourism .

Smart Tourism  has been indexed and archived in National Library Board of Singapore, ROAD, Scilit, GoogleScholar, Crossref, and  EuroPub,  and the journal aims to be included in the first-class academic databases in the world, such as WoS, Scopus, Inspec, and EI.

Researchers using an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool/service to directly generate the manuscript text must provide clear disclosures and statements, otherwise it will be considered academic misconduct. The journal allows the use of an AI tool/service for text embellishment and automatic sorting of references, but does not recommend the use of the AI tool/service in the thinking and concluding sessions of human involvement such as data analysis and interpretation, opinion hypothesis and conclusions, and the AI tool/service cannot fulfill the role of a textual author. If any part of the manuscript was written using an AI tool/service, it must be described openly, transparently, and in detail in the Methods or Acknowledgments section, for example:

"In the preparation of this work, the authors used the [name of the specific AI tool/service] to [purpose of use: e.g., literature research/text embellishment, etc.]. After using this tool/service, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed, and take full responsibility for the content of the publication."

Units of Measurement

Smart Tourism  adopts and follows the rules of  International System of Units (SI)  for physical quantities and units of measurement. For example:

• Quantities including time, length, mass, electric current, etc., should be written as s (second), m (metre), kg (kilogram), A (ampere) after metric numbers.
• Adopt unified format for the same unit of measurement.

Section Collection Policy

The Section Collection program has been driven by APACSCI for a new chance to run an open access journal. This program aims to collect multidisciplinary topics, and concentrate authors from diverse research fields to focus on a special theme. It is great attempt to develop new ideas and applications. Section editorial team is composed of many scientists whose research fields covering various interests. They all supervise the implementation of the program, and the editorial process must comply with  editorial policies  of the journal.

A Section Collection is usually launched by an expert with great trust among peers and invited by the Editorial Office, or scholars could apply a section collection. Section Editors are representatives focusing on a theme from multidisciplinary topics. They have different research background, and gather to initiate new ideas and collaborations. Great responsibilities of Section Editors include:

• Preparing the title, summary, keywords, submission deadline, etc.
• Preparing a potential contributors' list.
• Suspecting and contributing to the editorial progress, including but not limited to the initial screening, and the peer-reviewed process.

  Workflow of Section Collection

Manuscripts should be submitted to Open Journal Systems (OJS) and go through a double-blinded peer-reviewed process (refer to  Peer Review Policy ).

Research Data Policy

According to the  data and reproducibility  of COPE, APACSCI encourages authors to share associated data, code, and materials, register clinical trials, and use standardized guidelines to achieve greater transparency, replicability, and trust in scientific findings. Thus, authors are encouraged to deposit datasets in a data repository; the premise is that this data is not suitable for submission as online supplementary files. Authors who have deposited raw data in community database repositories are encouraged to include a data availability statement in their manuscript. The statement should provide information about the availability of the research data and any limitations or conditions associated with accessing the data, except for reasonable controls related to human privacy or biosecurity. Reusing scientific data can offer great potential for further scientific and economic development.

• Data sharing

For data shared, the   FAIR Data Principles should be followed, which guides that (meta)data are assigned a globally unique and eternally persistent identifier. Authors should cite the correct sources. Collaborative practices should be implemented across journals and institutions to monitor and ensure the scientific validity and credibility of overall research practices. Authors are encouraged to prioritize the use of original data from their study and provide supporting data such as accessible data sources as early as possible.

Regarding data involving confidentiality/privacy/personal privacy, etc., authors are advised to do their best to hide identifiable sensitive information and to share data in strict accordance with mandatory guidelines for the discipline.

According to the guidelines of COPE regarding unpublished data , the journal will address concerns to the data provider regarding the scientific rigor of an unpublished dataset. The journal will contact the corresponding author, and request comments on the concerns, supporting documentation as needed, and information about any other affected content. Following the guidelines regarding published data , if there is a manuscript associated with a published dataset whose scientific rigor is in doubt, the journal will contact any implicated journals that have published results from the suspicious dataset, summarizing the issue and actions taken to date. Authors must respond with a satisfactory update. If the issues are major or impact the conclusions of the manuscript, the author(s) should withdraw the manuscript or the journal will reject the submission.

• Data citation

Authors are encouraged to cite any datasets deposited in external repositories mentioned in their manuscript in the references. For previously published datasets, authors should cite both the published research article and the source of the dataset itself. Journal editorial staff will check and enforce proper data citation before publication.

Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by  DataCite:

1)      Author(s)

2)      Year of publication/release

3)      Title

4)      Publisher/repository or archive name

5)      Persistent identifier (e.g., DOI)

•  Data repository

Authors are encouraged to deposit their datasets in the relevant community dataset repository, or a general dataset repository (including any generalist data repository provided by a university, funder or institution for its affiliated researchers) that aligns with the specifications and requirements of their discipline could be selected. The publisher recommends that authors select a repository with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) to ensure that the referenced dataset can be linked to consistently.

Authors could explore online resources for lists of registered data repositories through FAIRsharing.org  and  re3data.org .

Here are some examples of generalized dataset repositories:

• Open Science Framework
• Dryad Digital Repository
• Harvard Dataverse
• Science Data Bank

Author Guidelines

Before submitting to the journal, authors should read through the author guidelines for preparing their manuscript. Starting in 2024, a new layout style will be applied, so please download the  new manuscript template . 

Manuscript Format

The manuscript should be in MS Word or LaTeX format. The language of all manuscripts must be English (either British or American) and non-English words should be used sparingly. Poor English may lead to article rejection. Authors are encouraged to seek language polishing by a native English speaker or a professional editing service.

Article Types

Please refer to the  Section Policy  for choosing an appropriate type.

Cover Letter

Authors should attach a cover letter together with the article text. A cover letter should contain a brief explanation of the significance of their work and the intention of doing the work. The cover letter is confidential and will be read only by the editors. It will not be seen by the reviewers.

Article Title

Titles should be no more than 50 words, with significant and attractive information for readers. Titles should not include uncommon jargons, abbreviations, and punctuation.

List of Authors

The list of authors should be arranged based on the level of their contribution, with the major contributor listed first. Corresponding authors should be marked with an asterisk (*). Affiliation information should be provided with the following elements: department, institution, city, postal code (if available), and country. The email address of at least one corresponding author must be provided. All authors must approve the final version of the manuscript and agree with the submission. For more information about authorship, please refer to our  Authorship Policy .

Abstract and Keywords

Depending on the article type, an abstract should be provided, which gives a concise summary of the article. It is usually a single paragraph of about 200–250 words maximum. Between 5–8 keywords should be included. Words and phrases in article titles should be avoided as keywords.

The text of manuscripts should be in MS Word or LaTeX format. Original research articles should include the Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion (optional) sections.

Section Headings

Headings are used to indicate the hierarchy of the sections of the text. No more than three levels of headings should be employed. The first level of heading should be numbered as 1., 2., 3., 4. in boldface. Likewise, the second and third levels of headings should also be in boldface, for example, 1.1., 1.2., 1.1.1., 1.1.2.

Introduction

The introduction should provide a background that gives the broad readership an overall outlook on the field and the research performed. It pinpoints a problem and states the significance of the study. The introduction can conclude with a brief statement on the aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.

Materials and Methods

This section provides the general experimental design and methodologies used. The aim is to provide enough details for other investigators to fully replicate the experiments. It is also to facilitate a better understanding of the results obtained.

This section can be divided into subheadings. This section focuses on the results of the experiments performed.

This section should provide the significance of the results and identify the impact of the research in a broader context. It should not be redundant or similar to the content of the Results section.

Conclusion (Optional)

The conclusion section can only be used for interpretation, and not be used to summarize information already presented in the text or abstract.

Figures and Tables

Figures (photographs, images, graphs, charts, and schematic diagrams) and tables should be referred to within the main text and numbered consecutively as  Figure 1 ,  Figure 2 ,  Table 1 ,  Table 2 , etc. They should be placed as close as possible to where they are first cited and center-aligned. Both figure captions and table captions should be center-aligned, with figure captions set underneath the figures and table captions above the tables. When captions are longer than one line, they should be left-aligned.

Figures can contain multiple panels. They should be numbered by Latin letters with parentheses, e.g.,  (a) ,  (b) ,  (c) , or  (A) ,  (B) ,  (C) , placed below the image or within the image.

Tables should be in MS Word/Excel table format. Tables containing too much information can be provided as supplementary material.

In the main text, all figures and tables should be cited, e.g., " Table 1  indicates…", " Figures 1  and  2  shows…", and " Figure 1a,b  shows…".

Lists and Equations

Both bulleted lists and numbered lists are acceptable (refer to the template). Equations should be center-aligned and equation numbers should be right-aligned. If cited in the text, equations should be labeled with numbers in parentheses, e.g., Equation (1).

In-Text Citations

All bibliographical references that make an important contribution to the article should be numbered according to the appearance order. When cited in the text, the number should be placed in square brackets, for example:

• Negotiation research spans many disciplines [3,4].
• This effect has been widely studied [1–5,7].

Appendix (Optional)

An appendix provides information supplementary to an article and is included at the end of the article after the References section and it should start on a new page. For one appendix, it is designated as "Appendix"; for more than one appendix, they are designated "Appendix A", "Appendix B", etc.

An appendix should be cited in the main text. Tables, figures, and equations should be started with the prefix A (i.e., Figure A1, Figure A2, Table A1, etc.).

Back Matter

The sequence of back matter elements in an article is listed below. There is no numeral label for back matter headings. Some of these elements are optional.

Supplementary materials (Optional)

The Supplementary Materials section provides a short description of the supplementary materials. One or more individual supplementary files are allowed and should be submitted in Step 4 during submission. These materials are relevant to the manuscript but remain non-essential to readers' understanding of the article's main content. Please ensure the names of such files contain "suppl. info". Videos may be included in this section.

Author contributions

For original research articles, this section is required, except when there is only one author for the article. The contribution of each co‐author should be reported in this section.

The following statements should be used "Conceptualization, XX and YY; methodology, XX; software, XX; validation, XX, YY and ZZ; formal analysis, XX; investigation, XX; resources, XX; data curation, XX; writing—original draft preparation, XX; writing—review and editing, XX; visualization, XX; supervision, XX; project administration, XX; funding acquisition, YY. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript."

Funding (Optional)

Authors can acknowledge financial support in this section, which is NOT mandatory. If authors provide a funding statement, it should be in the same style as the template.

For example:

"This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]" and "The APC was funded by [XXX]". Please check carefully that the details given are accurate and that the standard spelling of the funding agency's name in https://search.crossref.org/funding is used, as any errors may affect the authors' future funding.

Acknowledgments  (Optional)

Authors can acknowledge any support and contribution that cannot be included in the Author Contributions and Funding sections. This section is NOT mandatory.

Conflict of interest

According to our  Conflict of Interest Policy , all authors are required to declare all activities that have the potential to be deemed as a source of competing interest in relation to their submitted manuscript. Examples of such activities include personal or work-related relationships and events. Authors who have nothing to declare should add "No conflict of interest was reported by all authors" or "The authors declare no conflict of interest" in this section.

This section is compulsory and should be placed at the end of the manuscript. Footnotes or endnotes should not replace a reference list. The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications should be excluded from this section.

The format of author names should be "Last-Name Initial", e.g., David Smith should be written as Smith D.

Journals in English:

• Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, et al. Title of the article. Journal Name. Year, Volume(Issue) (if available): Firstpage–Lastpage. doi (if available)

Journals in languages other than English:

• Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, et al. English title of the article (original language). Journal Name. Year, Volume(Issue) (if available): Firstpage–Lastpage. doi (if available)

A book without editors:

• Author AA, Author BB. Chapter (optional). Title of the Book, Edition (if available). Publisher; Year. pp. Page range (optional).

A book with editors:

• Author AA, Author BB. Title of the contribution. In: Editor CC, Editor DD (editors). Title of the Book, Edition (if available). Publisher; Year. Volume (optional), pp. Page range (optional).

For a translated book, the translators' names should be placed after the editors' names: "Translator AA (translator)" or "Translator AA, Translator BB (translators)".

If the editors and translators are the same, the format should be as follows:

• Author AA, Author BB. Title of the contribution. In: Editor CC, Editor DD (editors and translators). Title of the Book, Edition (if available). Publisher; Year. Volume (optional), pp. Page range (optional).

Full citations of published abstracts (proceedings):

In most cases, proceedings will be simply called "Proceedings of the Name of the Conference (full name)" without a book title. In this case, please only add the conference name in the proceedings' title and keep that in regular font (i.e., do not italicize):

• Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, et al. Title of presentation. In: Proceedings of the Name of the Conference; Date of Conference (Day Month Year) (if available); Location of Conference (City, Country) (if available). Abstract Number (optional), Pagination (optional).

If the proceedings are published as a book with a separate title (i.e., not "Proceedings of the Name of the Conference (full name)" as the title), the book title should be included:

• Author AA, Author BB, Author CC. Title of presentation. In: Editor DD, Editor EE (editors) (if available). Title of Collected Work, Proceedings of the Name of the Conference; Date of Conference (Day Month Year) (if available); Location of Conference (City, Country) (if available). Publisher; Year. Abstract Number (optional), Pagination (optional).

Oral presentations without published material:

• Author AA, Author BB, Author CC. Title of presentation (if any). Presented at the Name of Conference; Date of Conference (Day Month Year) (if available); Location of Conference (City, Country) (if available); Paper number (if available).

Thesis/Dissertation

• Author AA. Title of Thesis [Level of thesis]. Degree‐Granting University; Year.

The level of thesis can be called "XX thesis" or "XX dissertation". Thesis types include but are not limited to the following:

• Master's thesis
• Bachelor's thesis
• Licentiate thesis
• Diploma thesis
• Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, et al. Title of article. Title of Periodical, Complete Date, Pagination (if available).
• Patent Owner AA, Patent Owner BB, Patent Owner CC. Title of Patent. Patent Number, Date (Day Month Year, the Application granted date).

Unpublished work

• Author AA, Author BB. Title of unpublished work. Journal Title. Year   (if available); Phrase Indicating Stage of Publication (submitted, in press, etc.).

Online resources

• Author (if available). Title of content (if available). Available online: http://URL (accessed on Day Month Year).

For a homepage, the access date is not required.

Copyright Notice

Authors contributing to this journal agree to publish their articles under the  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) , allowing third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear. With this license, authors hold the copyright without restrictions and are allowed to retain publishing rights without restrictions as long as this journal is the original publisher of the articles.

Privacy Statement

Asia Pacific Academy of Science Pte. Ltd. (APACSCI) is devoted to protecting authors' privacy. With APACSCI's privacy policy, authors can rest assured of their privacy in collaborating with APACSCI.

1. Personal information

APACSCI collects personal information when individuals register on a journal site (e.g., as an author), when the editorial office helps them register (e.g., as a reviewer), or when they communicate with APACSCI or subscribe to APACSCI notifications. Information, including name, title, affiliation, country, and e-mail address, will be treated as private and only used for activities involving manuscript processing. APACSCI will not disclose any personal information to third parties. This policy also applies to the information of the co-authors of submissions.

APACSCI collects some other information when individuals visit the APACSCI website, such as log data, device information, IP address, time of visit, and visitor interaction. These data are used for optimizing APACSCI's service, gathering statistics on articles, and promoting the APACSCI website.

Registered individuals can access their accounts or make corrections to their personal information. They also have the right to request APACSCI to delete their information.

2. Third-party links

APACSCI is not responsible for any consequences caused when visitors to the APACSCI website are linked or directed to a third-party website.

3. Contact APACSCI

For any questions regarding APACSCI's privacy policy, please send an email to [email protected].

APC Payment

Payments for APC of this journal can be made through our online PayPal payment gateway. Enter the article no. into the below textbox and select "Pay Now" to proceed with payment.

*Article No. is mandatory for payment and it can be found on the acceptance letter issued by the Editorial Office. Payment without indicating Article No. will result in processing problem and delay in article processing. Please note that payments will be processed in USD. You can make payment through Masters, Visa or UnionPay card.

Prof. Hung-Che Wu

Nanfang College Guangzhou, China

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Open access
• Published: 30 June 2023

The conceptualization of smart tourism service platforms on tourist value co-creation behaviours: an integrative perspective of smart tourism services

• Chung-Ming Chuang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6076-8316 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  367 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

5330 Accesses

15 Citations

1 Altmetric

Metrics details

• Business and management
• Information systems and information technology

The question remains how to integrate the core service proposals within a smart tourism platform setting for further facilitating tourist value co-creation behaviours in sustainable ways. This paper investigates the paradigm of smart tourism service (STS) platforms within the context of an ecosystem space. It conceptualizes concepts by laying a reasonable theoretical foundation (service-dominant logic) and proposing a scale for smart services. Applying sequential mixed methods to an exploratory research design, with seven interlocking stages and data from Fuzzy Delphi experts and tourist surveys in Taipei City, a smart city in Taiwan, this paper proposes a second-order scale with six dimensions, comprising smart services of attractions, transportation, accommodation, diet, purchase, and payment. The final 32-item STS scale is thoroughly developed and subsequently validated in different contexts (i.e. travellers in different phases of travel, pre-travel and during the trip, respectively). The scale significantly reveals the tourist-operated technologies for the provision of STS, determining the development of conceptual STS platforms in this paper. Next, the platforms disclose the locus between ICT functions, information-related services, tourist applications and behaviours, and sustainable value co-creation. The potential path of “STS → behaviour → sustainable value co-creation” explored herein is helpful for illustrating the conceptualization of STS platforms. Moreover, predictions from the platforms of tourists’ smart behaviours make it practically relevant in assessing demands about smart services for tourism. In the end, this paper describes the theoretical implications and managerial implications for tourism practitioners.

Similar content being viewed by others

Impact of ecological presence in virtual reality tourism on enhancing tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior

The influence of rural tourism landscape perception on tourists’ revisit intentions—a case study in Nangou village, China

A netnographic study to understand the determinants of experiential tourism destinations

Introduction.

Smart tourism service (hereinafter referred to as STS) derives from “smart system” initiatives with specific applications focusing on the tourism sector or destinations (Xiang et al., 2021 ). The goal of an STS system is to integrate convenience with accuracy, through an easy-to-access platform in the context of technological advancement (Gretzel et al., 2015b ). Thus, an STS platform (e.g., smart travel mobile APPs or websites) has been used to describe a software platform that allows tourists to integrate service proposals in a unified smart environment , with an improved user experience thanks to travel information in relation to routes and their status (Choe and Fesenmaier, 2017 ). The platform has made it easier for tourists to plan their trips as decision support, and for practitioners, it is extensible to manage additional rental and booking services relevant to tourism. In other words, such a platform combines tourist-oriented services and management, emphasizing the importance of providing information to tourists through a technological application (Li et al., 2017 ).

A smart system emphasizes the contributions to connect a series of online reservations and preferential services in a destination among sectors such as attractions (Wang et al., 2016 ), transportation (Gonzalez et al., 2020 ; Naik et al., 2019 ), accommodation (Stankova et al., 2019 ), diet (Okumus et al., 2016 , 2018 ), and purchase (Flavián et al., 2020 ). In this regard, an STS platform dedicates to developing interactive services which help to interconnect local organizations as well as tourists for access to quick service delivery. The platform should satisfy the personalized needs of tourists through a synergy of tourism administration representatives and service providers (Gretzel et al., 2015c ). Tourists can therefore experience a new way of information-searching and enjoy visitor services, and they can even have opportunities to exhibit their value co-creation behaviours through the process of interaction with other stakeholders (i.e. firms, governments, and intermediaries) in the context of a smart tourism ecosystem. During the process, tourists actively participate with service providers and cooperate in co-creating their own involvements and sharing experiences, which directly leads to innovation (Gretzel et al., 2015b ). While the sustainability in technology-denominated services has become crucial in tourism research (Wang et al., 2020 ), emphases on the tourist value co-creation process and behaviours, in terms of economic, sociocultural and environmental sustainability, have also increased (Bhuiyan et al., 2022 ).

To date, few studies have systematically explored the exact framework of an STS platform, leading its precise composition unclear (Ye et al., 2020 ). Some studies explain that the delivery of technology-denominated services in an efficient manner can be ensured by creating a chain in the tourism industry (e.g. Bhuiyan et al., 2022 ; Boes et al., 2016 ; Gretzel et al., 2015b ). However, such specific sector studies cannot be used for an aggregate perspective. Particularly, STS is attributed to the aggregate service from the tourism sector in the groundwork for the integration of information service and technology (Li et al., 2017 ). The tourism sector studied without comprehensiveness results in the limited proposed measures of STS. Moreover, the feedback relationship between tourist value co-creation behaviours and service providers needs to be further explained. A smart ecosystem is an environment of smart platforms that together achieve a single purpose: to deliver smart service, leading to tourism experience and value co-creation (Gretzel et al., 2015a ). Therefore, how to integrate the core service measures so that tourists can realize the functionality and convenience of STS is quite important within a smart tourism platform setting (Choe and Fesenmaier, 2017 ).

To that end, one needs to recognize the fundamental sectors involved in a smart tourism ecosystem, and a need also exists to unveil the key services of smart tourism through exploring the tourism elements-based measures, before promoting the conceptualization of STS platforms. This paper aims to develop the conceptual framework of an STS platform within an ecosystem by proposing an STS scale from an integrative perspective to holistically measure individual sector settings. The STS scale herein may be unique, due to the scale explored for outlining tourist demands by examining smart service measures across the phase of travel. Based on service-dominant (S-D) logic, a functioning service ecosystem is seen as a major prerequisite for enabling the co-creation of customer experiences (Anttiroiko et al., 2014 ; Vargo and Lusch, 2016 ). Thus, tourist value co-creation behaviours can also be observed from service measures applied in the ecosystem.

In this paper, a conceptual framework of an STS platform is developed through exploring emergent and potential smart service measures. Therefore, it is an exploratory attempt to integrate a range of smart service providers and constitute a smart tourism ecosystem. The locus of value co-creation between tourists and service providers is formed based on tourist behaviours in the application of smart services (Edeh et al., 2022 ). In a literature review, this paper first illustrates the nature of STS and the relationship among S-D logic, a smart tourism ecosystem, and tourist value co-creation behaviours. Secondly, the fundamental service elements of smart tourism are provided through a holistic view of sectors in an ecosystem, and then the conceptual base of an STS platform is proposed. As to the research methods, this paper reports a series of studies to explore the STS scale and assess the new scale’s reliability and validity. In terms of discussions, the conceptual framework of an STS platform is logically deducted from the scale that highly correlates with key technological-based characteristics. The sustainable value co-creation from tourist behaviours is also identified. Finally, in the conclusion section, both theoretical and managerial implications are provided.

The nature of smart tourism services

Smart tourism refers to the provision of STS for tourists through Internet devices on mobile devices combined with the evolution of information and communication technologies (ICTs), as well as timely access to tourism information and the convenient use of various travel methods (Xiao et al., 2019 ). Focusing on the individual personal experiences of tourists, smart tourism attempts to integrate high-quality services at the industry level and meets the growth of tourists’ needs (Gretzel et al., 2015c ). The tourism ecosystem will be able to obtain and use relevant tourist information in a timely manner to realize intelligent service and business management. Therefore, STS is empowered through the connection of smart technology, smart tourism experiences, and smart business ecosystems (Gretzel et al., 2015b ). Objectives include consumers (tourists), industry (tourism service providers), and the government (local public tourism agencies).

On one hand, STS refers to Smart Technology , which is a kind of ICT-supported integration of multiple tourism factors through intelligent connectivity (Jovicic, 2019 ). Within a smart tourism setting, such technologies provide tourists and service providers with actionable data, improved support for decision-makers, and increased mobility, all leading to more enjoyable tourism experiences (Cimbaljević et al., 2019 ). Moreover, sensors and mobile devices, the core technologies of smart tourism, establish environments full of real-time data that help to anticipate tourists’ needs in ways that enhance their tourism experiences (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015 ; Gretzel et al., 2015a ).

A Smart Tourism Experience specifically emphasizes a technology-mediated experience that requires service providers to personalize services by integrating context-awareness data from real-time monitoring (Femenia-Serra and Neuhofer, 2018 ). Thus, technology is an effective instrument to create and reinforce the tourism experience by providing services of information collection, ubiquitous connectedness, and real-time synchronization to facilitate interaction with the environment (Neuhofer et al., 2015 ). Smart tourists use technologies, such as wearable sensors to help them self-manage their experiences in an active and engaged way that includes both receiving updates and contributing through self-creation (e.g. uploading pictures) (Femenia-Serra and Neuhofer, 2018 ).

A Smart Business Ecosystem applies ICT with access to communication networks so as to deliver smart services. The business ecosystem of smart tourism consists of a network of interlinked stakeholders that dynamically interact with each other in a destination. Advancement in technology have digitalized the core business process to help the public and the private sectors to compete and collaborate on available resources, co-create, and jointly adapt to external disruptions (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015 ; Dong et al., 2020 ). In tourism, the smart business ecosystem creates value through the co-creation process by applying smart tourism tools, such as online platforms, devices, and social media (Bhuiyan et al., 2022 ; Gretzel et al., 2015b ). Artificial intelligence acts as a disruptive technology that service providers cannot ignore. As a result, the smart tourism ecosystem needs to connect with the smart applications of tourism, technology, and destination (Gretzel et al., 2015c ).

Thus, STS relies on three phases in processing information and resources: collection, exchange, integration and intelligent use (Neuhofer et al., 2015 ). Taking advantage of technology, this kind of service creates an interaction field for tourists to obtain information value by experiencing the smart destination (Ingram et al., 2017 ). In this way, tourist experience customized services can be provided through the ubiquitous flow of information. Value co-creation can also be possible when direct interaction happens between the service provider and the tourist (Zine et al., 2014 ).

The relationship among service-dominant (S-D) logic, smart tourism ecosystem, and tourist value co-creation behaviours

S-D logic can serve as the theoretical underpinnings for smart tourism firms to develop and manage business models that obtain a competitive advantage over time (Schmidt-Rauch and Schwabe, 2014 ). Smart tourism’s emphasis on co-creation fits well into S-D logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2017 ). First, S-D logic proposes that service provision, value co-creation and value realization take place within networks of actors, representing service-for-service exchange and dynamic processes. Second, the connections of network actors help build service provisions while also boosting resource integration. Finally, consumers experience individual well-being through collaborative activities that lead to value co-creation.

Service ecosystem thinking thus implies a firm’s S-D logic. The service ecosystem is made up of systems of resources that integrate actors through institutions and technologies, co-producing and exchanging service offerings and resources and then co-creating value (Vargo and Lusch, 2016 ). This corresponds to the notion of dynamically interconnected stakeholders in a smart tourism ecosystem (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015 ). The interconnection is formed for producing tourism experience through human organizations, technology, shared information and services and resources exchange, on the basis of pre-delivery, delivery and post-delivery experiences. Tourism firms have to collaborate with stakeholders beyond their organizational borders in order to source and exchange resources for value co-creation. Moreover, smart technologies and devices enable firms to develop such dynamic connections and networks with others. Firms can open up communication channels for tourism activities and tourists through mobile technology for mutual value creation and network relationship value (Schmidt-Rauch and Schwabe, 2014 ).

In this vein, a smart tourism ecosystem is a platform for creating, managing and delivering touristic services via technological advancement which leads to information sharing and value creation (Gretzel et al., 2015b ). Firms can co-create value and network relationship value through interaction and reciprocity with tourists through tourism activities, thereby forming a cycle of high-quality tourism. Tourists’ value creation process can be ensured through the formation of a smart tourism ecosystem, in which they can have technology-mediated tourism experiences of personalization, context awareness, and real-time monitoring before, during, and after a trip (Bhuiyan et al., 2022 ; Neuhofer et al., 2015 ). Further, sustainability can be created in the value co-creation process (Wang et al., 2020 ), while focusing on technology-denominated services (Dong et al., 2020 ). Tourist value co-creation behaviours involve three aspects of advantages of sustainability: economy, socio-culture, and the environment. Therefore, a prerequisite to value co-created behaviours is a functioning smart tourism ecosystem (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015 ), and firms and tourists equally play their roles in the creation of sustainable value (Bhuiyan et al., 2022 ). In Fig. 1 , this paper proposes how STS fits into the broader conceptual domains of the relationship among S-D logic, smart tourism ecosystems, and tourist value co-creation behaviours.

The S-D logic perspective can be applied to illustrate how the service principle is focused on the smart tourism ecosystem. The ecosystem is constituted of six tourism service elements: attraction, transportation, accommodation, diet, and purchase. Based on the collaboration and resource exchange among tourism service providers, they can enhance tourists’ value co-creation behaviours and then sustainability.

Fundamental service elements in a smart tourism ecosystem

The prime service elements of an ecosystem are service providers and the technologies, platforms, NGOs, and companies from other industries that support the services (Gretzel et al., 2015b ). In a smart tourism ecosystem, firms provide smart services by adopting open information systems and technological platforms, as they enable firms to manage their business models in a dynamic way. Therefore, the firms seeking to provide tourists with all-rounded innovative service options have to consider the use of intangible resources (data, technology, infrastructure) in a smart tourism environment (Barile et al., 2017 ), so as to optimize tourist experiences in the travel process. As Fig. 1 shows, to meet the needs of tourists, the prime service elements of smart tourism comprise attraction, transportation, accommodation, and diet and purchase in firm collaboration, and can serve as the potential dimensions of an STS scale (see Table 1 ).

Smart attraction services imply the interconnections between attractions and multiple stakeholders through dynamic platforms with information-intensive communication flows. These dynamic connections associated with tourism information realize instant services of free information, tour guide, transport, and transactions, and create an actual tourism experience while improving tourism resource management, thus contributing to the decision support system of the stakeholders (Jovicic, 2019 ; Wang et al., 2016 ). To that end, the ICTs are integrated into physical infrastructure, thereby deriving environmental conditions such as technological competence, eco-efficiency, and innovation for smart attraction services (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015 ).

The essence of smart transportation services lies in an integrated application of technology and management in transportation systems. The integration is meant to enable tourists to be better informed and use the transport network in a safer and “smarter” way (Lin et al., 2019 ). The establishment of smart transportation serves as real-time location-based information, seamless public transport, and the provision of navigation and parking. Tourists can easily acquire route plans, means of transportation, safety, parking, traffic data and fuel consumption (Siuhi and Mwakalonge, 2016 ), relying on the intelligent transportation network in a city (Gonzalez et al., 2020 ; Naik et al., 2019 ).

ICT applications in smart accommodation services (Stankova et al., 2019 ) enable hotels to (1) possess a set of well-established intelligent systems, which can realize the informatization of hotel management through digitalization and networking; (2) satisfy tourists’ demands, optimize hotel management, and innovate service; (3) materialize the sharing and effective use of the hotels and social resources. ICT will contribute to creating environments where hotels can interact with guests, such as social network reviews (Xiang et al., 2017 ), communications (Kamboj and Gupta, 2020 ), and transactions (Neuhofer et al., 2015 ), and optimize the control of room service (Stankova et al., 2019 ). It has become a new business opportunity derived from the intellectualization of hotels to make use of smart services to increase sales (Buhalis and Leung, 2018 ).

Smart diet services also derive from a high-end system design that incorporates ICT and restaurant management to provide automatic operation for catering organizations. Smart diet services provide tourists with timely, correct and valuable information through mobile technologies (Okumus et al., 2018 ), which help them make more sensible decisions when ordering food. This also has a positive impact on their ordering behaviours (Sarcona et al., 2017 ). Moreover, low labor status can be achieved in the process of diet services through smart systems, thereby slashing the labor cost and improving the efficiency of meal delivery while saving customers’ dining time (Okumus et al., 2016 ).

The backdrop of smart purchase services is related to the consumption environment of e-commerce and extended to that of m-commerce credited to ICT development (Alqatan et al., 2011 ). Due to their use of mobile devices, consumers can place orders instantly; what they have to think about is whether and what to buy and how to pay instead of when and where to buy (Flavián et al., 2020 ). Tourists are provided with asynchronous or one-to-many information exchange platforms which influence their purchase decisions (Xiang et al., 2017 ). To put it in another way, ICT realizes more frequent interactions between tourists and social networks, which not only facilitates information searching but also changes tourists’ buying habits.

The conceptual base of smart tourism service platforms

A smart tourism ecosystem helps to build a platform that provides service data and infrastructure to tourists (Gretzel et al., 2015a ). The platform, therefore, must be able to cater to functions not only for tourists but also for managers, in order to provide extensive and customizable tourism services while management efficiency is increased. The STS platform in the ecosystem is ICT-integrated, with the Internet of Things (IoT) running on cloud computing services employing artificial intelligence all working together to forecast demand, increase efficiency, implement process automation, and improve value co-creation (Cimbaljević et al., 2019 ; Jovicic, 2019 ).

With a focus on tourists as the users of an STS platform, the platform aims to support tourists by (1) collecting and anticipating tourist demands, and making recommendations toward travel consumption decisions (Choe and Fesenmaier, 2017 ); (2) formulating tourists’ on-site experiences by integrating technological and information resources to offer real-time data for context awareness and personalization (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015 ; Neuhofer et al., 2015 ); (3) offering accurate information to conveniently grasp and process and accessing service plans (Li et al., 2017 ); (4) co-creating the value of smartness by delivering intelligent touristic services through smart technology interactions and a wider smart ecosystem (Gretzel et al., 2015c ).

As a result, STS platforms emphasize meeting tourist needs through inclusive information that is promptly and conveniently collected and processed (Gretzel et al., 2015c ). Tourists can access tourism information through the platform and promptly arrange and adjust their travel plans. Moreover, this enables tourists to upload feedback to the system and share their travel experiences (Choe and Fesenmaier, 2017 ). Thus, the span of online information services is across the phases of before, during, and after the travel (Li et al., 2017 ).

Tourists can apply a full range of information services to conduct the reservation and transaction of tourist elements as well as other sales options, all of which have played prominent roles in the safety, convenience and mobile search of tourism (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015 ). The STS platform integrates a wide range of tourist-operated technologies and systems that create augmented realities in direct support of tourism so that it helps tourists in their decision-making behaviours (Lamsfus et al., 2014 ). In this respect, this paper proposes that a meaningful platform is seen as information delivered, function catered, context applied, and tourist behaviour supported (Fig. 2 ).

A meaningful smart service platform must support tourists firstly through information collection and delivery. Subsequently, functions catered by the platform can offer tourists to have customized services, and tourists can experience and apply the service contexts created. Finally, the platform can help tourists in their decision-making behaviours.

Research design

Based on the purpose of this paper, it was necessary to go through the processes of developing a new validated scale before constructing the conceptual framework of an STS platform. Thus, an exploratory sequential mixed-method design was employed to develop and validate a survey instrument. This paper employed a multi-stage recursive psychometric process with three studies made up of seven stages.

Study 1—qualitative study

Stage 1: Item generation

The established scale development procedures included item generation, adjustment, and purification (Table 2 ). The generation of items followed two steps, reviewing literature and qualitative data collection and analysis. Saturation was reached, with data from two sources repeating previous data.

Systematic literature review

A review of related studies formed a collection of possible items. This data collection was repeated twice to assure any related smart tourism published papers were included. First, this paper collected peer-reviewed articles in Scopus, EBSCOhost, and Web of Science. This determined three search criteria common to the topic that was next used to search for relevant items. First, the term “smart service” was combined with “technology,” “tourism,” “tourist,” “travel,” “transportation,” “hotel,” “restaurant,” “purchase” to formulate keywords. Second, published manuscripts included in the search were determined by review of the title, abstract, or executive summary. Published papers were from the time frame of 2000–2020. Third, this paper included only English full-length papers appearing in the Science Citation or Social Science Citation Indexes.

Next, the collection results and applied the same criteria within the mentioned smart tourism distribution journals in Mehraliyev, Choi, and Köseoglu ( 2019 ) and Ye et al. ( 2020 ) to check for missing articles. Researchers reviewed the articles independently and then together with the exclusion of duplicate articles or papers not directly related to STS.

Expert qualitative interviews

The Fuzzy Delphi Method for expert-based data collection was adapted to guide the measurement of item identification. The expert comments came from a two-round Delphi questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed semi-structurally and it asked experts to subjectively assess the items according to the foregoing tourist elements. The first round of questionnaire design was made up of two sections. Section A addressed the smart service items in each tourist element. Section B addressed questions about the demographic characteristics of the experts (i.e. gender, age, education, institution, title, and seniority). The questionnaire’s content validity was reviewed by two additional faculty members with expertise in qualitative research.

At the end of each item in section A, the experts were given space to make supplementary explanations or add new items, expecting to make up for the incompleteness of the initial item list. Particularly, each item was followed by noun explanations and case references to ensure the consistency of meanings of all experts to each item, thereby obtaining the most appropriate results. Each item was assessed on its importance on a five-point Likert-type scale with anchors that ranged from 1 (not very important) to 5 (very important). The second round of questionnaire design was similar with the prior one, but it included the first-round statistical analyses for the experts’ reference in order to converge the still divergent views.

A purposive sampling of two groups (i.e. 11 tourist experts and 6 Internet and e-commerce experts) provided opinions related to the topic. Respondents’ verbal consent was sought for scheduled interviews. The interviews were mostly held online, lasting from 30 to 50 min. Respondent demographics can be seen in Table 3 .

Stage 2: Item purification

This stage comprised expert review and exploratory factor analysis of the measurement items to purify the pool of questions. The details of expert reviews are explained in this section.

Expert review

Experts in the field reviewed the draft items, checking content validity. The items were rated by clarity, readability, redundancy, representativeness, and suitability. The items were next compared to and combined with other items derived earlier in the first round. A consensus was reached among the experts.

Study 2—Quantitative study

Stage 3: Dimensionality determination of the scale

Data collection instruments and procedures

The survey data was collected to explore the dimensional structure of the STS scale. Taipei City, an internationally awarded smart city, has taken the lead among other major cities in the Asia-Pacific region. Given that smart tourism and smart city complement each other (Hunter et al., 2015 ), Taipei City was selected as the survey site of smart-city destination in this paper, with the subjects being the tourists in various tourist attractions of Taipei.

The survey was structured into six sections. Sections A–E contained views on elements of STS in attractions, transportation, accommodation, diet, and purchase. These sections sought to measure the tourists’ demands on each element of smart services on a Likert’s 5-point scale, where 1 meant not agree at all and 5 represented very agree. As to specific services, respondents were asked to rate their demands using the measurement items drawn from Study 1. Section F measured the respondents’ socio-demographic and travel characteristics.

In this pre-test of the survey questionnaire, 90 tourists to Taipei took part. Useful data were collected, using the convenience sampling technique. The respondents were approached conveniently at the visitor recreation areas of the most visited attractions. For those who visited the attractions in groups, two people on average were chosen to participate in the study. This approach guarded against potential group bias. To ensure the respondents fill in information accurately, the research assistants checked the returned questionnaires on-site for sample validity, and this resulted in the collection of 379 valid questionnaires. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was then conducted via SPSS 22.0 to explore the dimensional structure of the measure and to remove poorly fitted items.

Study 3—Quantitative study

Stage 4: Scale validation

Data collection

The second set of 815 completed questionnaires was used to confirm and refine the structural validity of the six-factor solution extracted in the EFA, using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in AMOS. The data collection procedure in this stage was similar to that for Stage 2 described earlier, except that the data were disproportionately collected from Taipei City and online. This means that a pre-traveller sample was included in this stage.

Collecting part of the validation data was meant to minimize the biases that characterize data from the same destination. Moreover, pre-traveller data was included in order to lower bias from respondents who were already travelling. The sample frame of pre-travellers is an unclear population that is challenging to recruit. Thus, snowball sampling was used. Travel agencies assisted in distributing the survey invitation with a link to the online questionnaire to clients who were planning their trips for the year (in Taipei). These contacts were then asked to forward invitations to their friends and relatives.

The observations randomly comprised two sample groups: calibration ( n  = 410) and validation sample ( n  = 405). As a rule of thumb, at the very least, an item should correspond to 10 sample cases. Thus, for a minimum response requested for 32 items based on EFA, the respondents in each group were a satisfactorily conservative sample size for the analysis. The characteristics of the sample in this stage were compared with those of Study 2 (Table 6 ).

Stage 5: Common method biases

Both pre and post-techniques were employed to minimize and check the presence of common method biases in the models. Experts reviewed potential items. Harman’s single-factor test was next used with items constrained to loading one factor at a time across EFA and CFA stages.

Stage 6: Model invariance test

A test of measurement model invariance was used in testing six dimensions of the STS scale in different phases of travel, pre-travel and during the trip. This was to assess the representativeness and generalizability of the scale across various travel phases.

Stage 7: Nomological and construct validity

Testing nomological and construct validity, a second-order structural equation was used. This approach tested the predictive power of the STS scale dimensions.

Study 1—Qualitative study

Systematic literature reviews

83 STS articles were confirmed (Table 4 ). Relevant items were collected in a Microsoft Excel sheet with a pool of 68.

Ultimately, the consensus of the expert group on the dimensions of STS was reached, including the fitness assessment between dimensions and items and the representativeness of items for dimensions.

In the first round, this paper used geometric mean ( G ) and quartile deviation ( Q ) to determine the consensus of expert opinions on the initial 68 items, as well as the overall assessment of the importance of the items. The results were adopted to determine which items should be investigated again in the next round. This resulted in 8 items reaching a high consensus ( Q  ≤ 0.5) with 60 remaining items to proceed to the second-round expert reviews.

In the second round, a failure to meet the standard of “important” occurred when (1) the G value was lower than the threshold value of S  = 3.5 ( G  < 3.5) and (2) if first quartile (Q1) < 3 and third quartile (Q3) < 4, the item was removed. Additionally, Kruskal–Wallis Chi-Square Tests were carried out via SPSS 22.0 to test the importance of the remaining items. The significant level of the item test suggested to reject H , indicating a wide gap in the cognitive outcomes of the two groups of experts for the item. Then, such an item was removed. The results of this round came with the consensus of all experts, which means that there is no need to carry out the third round, and 10 items were removed from the second analysis.

Expert reviews

According to the review results, 10 items were removed, and 12 items were combined into 6 due to similarities. Furthermore, 2 items were added. By doing so, 54 items were identified. The items were then re-worded with the help of topic words/phrases (Table 5 ) to match the context of STS. According to the two-round Fuzzy Delphi, the initial pool of 68 items was trimmed to 44 and they were retained for questionnaire design in the quantitative stage.

Data analysis

In the pre-test phase, Chrobach’s α values (internal consistency criterion) of all items were >0.9. However, one item’s critical ratio value (reliability analysis) was not significant, and the values for corrected item-to-total correlations of 4 items were <0.3. Therefore, 5 items must be deleted, and 39 items were retained for the formal test stage.

Detailed characteristics of the 379 respondents are found in Table 6 . The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO = 0.95) measure of sampling adequacy (≥ 0.80) and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity ( χ 2  = 8692.21; P  < 0.001) showed that the 379 observations were suitable for EFA. The principal components analysis was adopted to calculate the communalities of the items, and the rotation method used was varimax employing the orthogonal rotation. Eigenvalue >1 was the criteria used for determining the number of factors extracted. The additional rule was that each dimension must have at least three items. Finally, 7 items were dropped for having item-to-dimension loadings <0.50 and inter-dimension cross-loading >0.5.

In all, six unique dimensions with 32 well-fitted underlying items were extracted from the EFA, which explained approximately 70 percent of the variance in STS. The Cronbach’s alpha score for each factor was higher than 0.70, suggesting a satisfactory inter-item-dimension convergent validity. Given each dimension’s item content, they were labelled smart attraction services, smart transportation services, smart accommodation services, smart diet services, smart purchase services, and smart payment services (a new dimension extracted). Details of the percentage of variance explained by each dimension and corresponding Eigenvalue are presented in Table 7 .

Results from CFA showed all items exhibited statistically significant ( p  < 0.001) coefficients for calibration and validation models, exhibiting unidimensionality across all dimensions. Composite reliability scores exceeded 0.80 for all dimensions, evidencing good internal consistency (Table 8 ). The overall model fits indices for both the calibration ( \(\chi ^{{{\mathrm{2}}}}/{\rm {d}}f\) = 2.67, CFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMR = 0.05) and validation models ( \(\chi ^{{{\mathrm{2}}}}/{\rm {d}}f\) =2.97, CFI = 0.91, TLI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.07, SRMR = 0.05) indicated that they were optimally fitted. Moreover, both second-order models have proved to well-replace the first-order models ( \(\chi _{{{\mathrm{1}}}}^{{{\mathrm{2}}}}/\chi _2^2\)  = 0.97; 0.96) as the framework for the STS scale (Table 9 ). Table 10 shows good discriminant validity with each latent dimension sharing more variance with its observed items than with other dimensions.

Results showed any single factor did not well capture the covariance of the items. The percentage of variance explained was 44% and 43%, respectively. Thus, method bias was determined to be minimal and would not risk the conclusions drawn from the study.

Table 11 shows that both constrained and unconstrained models for the two phases of travel do not significantly vary. This result supports model validity to assess tourists’ demands of STS, and the phase of the trip made no difference.

All indices exhibited second-order factor structure with the data fitting the model well, see Table 8 . The dimensions demonstrate the structural validity of the hierarchical CFA. Squared multiple correlations revealing each dimension explained nearly more than 50 percent of the variance, see Fig. 3 . Results suggest all dimensions are indeed important to tourists.

CFA validates that the STS scale is a second-order factor structure, and squared multiple correlations reveal each dimension explained nearly more than 50 percent of the variance.

The seven stages conducted converge with evidence of a six-dimensional STS scale, suggesting that these dimensions are the core of the STS that tourists experience. The tourism sectors represented here are attractions, transportation, accommodation, diet and retail, and the service providers include travel agents and tour operators, hotels, restaurants, local communities and organizations, and the government agencies that cooperate with these sectors. The service providers in the constituted smart tourism ecosystem can benefit themselves and each other with economic, socio-cultural, and environmental sustainability through the process of co-creating value of experience with tourists (Bhuiyan et al., 2022 ). The STS scale provides the applications of smart service measures that will influence tourists’ behaviours in each stage of travel (before, during, and after a trip), which is conducive to sustainable value co-creation. The findings of tourist value co-creation behaviours respond to Bhuiyan et al.’s ( 2022 ) exposition on sustainability. In addition, the STS scale constructs a more comprehensive smart tourism ecosystem and more specific, relevant measures. It provides a well underpinning for the establishment of the conceptual framework of the STS platform. The platform can therefore propose the locus of the value co-creation process between tourists and service providers. The findings from the STS scale are discussed as the followings.

The first dimension, smart attraction services, verify that intelligent service perspectives are applicable across all phases of travel (Xiang et al., 2015 ). It proves that ICTs combined with the infrastructure (software and hardware) of scenic spots are conducive to creating and meeting tourists’ needs for tourism experiences, as well as linking with the service environment of other tourism elements. (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015 ). Specifically, before a trip real-time information access means that tourists would like to use free attraction information to identify problems and develop potential solutions to address them (Jovicic 2019 ), mainly involving reservations, the weather, tourist flows, and queuing time. During trips, an effective smart guide system is required and location-based services (e.g. near-field communications, beacons or augmented reality) are helpful for providing dynamic guidance of attractions. Moreover, tourists expect to establish a personalized itinerary planning system based on tourism information databases, and they share their plans via mobile devices for others to download them. Interactive multimedia systems (e.g. augmented/virtual reality somatosensory facilities) are also mentioned as useful for creating smart experiences that tourists would like to share after the trip.

The second dimension, smart transportation services, denotes two situations of tourists’ demands to find necessary transportation services and/or related information. For self-transport travel, three measurement items support Lin et al.’s ( 2019 ) findings that a location-based service scheme should include navigation systems and real-time information on traffic and parking. For non-self-transport travel, two items also reflect the necessity of public transport information and intelligent transport scheduling systems (e.g. shuttle buses, electric scooters). Intelligent transportation systems (e.g. telematics) can help tourists make better use of the transportation network. However, the items also reinforce Gonzalez et al. ( 2020 ) and Naik et al.’s ( 2019 ) argument that access to smart transportation remains a significant challenge with regard to infrastructure in a city.

Both the third and fourth dimensions, smart accommodation and diet services, are associated with a perceived service of hospitality during a trip, with a focus on intelligent management. The findings support Cimbaljević et al.’s ( 2019 ) assertion that businesses must respond to the respondents’ request to establish an automatic operation system to substantially improve operational efficiency and reduce mistakes. First, self-service counters for instant registration and self-service ordering systems are applied as an integrated tools for practitioners’ marketing and operation. Second, mobile booking and ordering systems emphasize mobility and convenience. Tourists can make room/meal reservations that match the arrival time and location through the systems in advance.

Third, smart room access control and cabinet systems are installed to satisfy tourists’ safety demands. Guest room privacy and security is a long-standing issue but more palpable today, which calls for the active practitioner-tourist co-creation of solutions for tourists (Stankova et al., 2019 ). Four, the practitioners may provide and optimize the entire service process to meeting tourists’ meal demands. Such include efficient tourist guidance, pre-order and queue services before arrival, service request systems during dining, and cloud service systems (platforms/software/infrastructure/technologies) for tourists to share their opinions after their meals. The measurement items herein prompt practitioners to connect with smart tourism networks, sensors and extractors in the smart hospitality ecosystem, in order to collect and analyse the big data from tourist reservation information and thereby enhancing revenue management performances (Buhalis and Leung, 2018 ).

While the above four dimensions of the scale are conceptually unique, the facets of the smart purchase and payment service dimensions share some commonalities with the general m-commerce-related concepts (i.e. electron, convenience, and mobility) facilitating tourists to choose tourism services (Alqatan et al., 2011 ). Despite that, the differences in the measurement items between these two dimensions can still be clearly identified. The items of smart purchase services are measured from a utility perspective, while those of smart payment services are mainly based on the payment method.

Seven measurement items of smart purchase services involve tourist engagement in information gathering, planning, comparison, and purchase experiences. From a utility perspective, tourists are willing to invest time and effort in searching for and using promotion-related information to save costs. Tourists emphasize smart and transactional value because they can achieve time and/or effort savings by conveniently using online systems, or because they feel pleasure that they are making the right purchases (Flavián et al., 2020 ). Therefore, the findings comply with those of Xiang et al. ( 2017 ) who believe that tourists would like to engage in smart purchases only when the products purchased on the Internet can match their demands and provide good value for the money spent.

Smart payment systems are those that allow consumers to pay their bills via smart platforms rather than cash, check, or debit card. With this technology, payment services operating under financial regulations are performed via mobile devices, and the type of payment includes mobile wallets, credit cards, carrier billing, etc. (Banerjee and Wigginton, 2015 ). Tourists can therefore enjoy the benefits of convenience, lower payments, and safe and secure payments. However, the current literature provides few explanations for smart payment services by tourists. Four measurement items of smart payment services preliminarily respond to Gretzel et al.’s ( 2015b ) findings that tourists can pay for a range of services using smart devices as a viable payment option.

Essentially, the proposed STS scale integrates the fundamental tourism elements in a smart tourism ecosystem, lays a reasonable theoretical foundation (S-D logic), and provides a practical assessment tool for smart services. Moreover, the measurement items have explained the sustainability for tourists in terms of economy (i.e., reducing travelling costs, increasing decision-making efficiency, and avoiding unnecessary time wasting), socio-culture (i.e., instant access to information and public facilities, comfort in travelling, and memorable experiences), and the environment (i.e., reducing energy consumption, receiving proper guidance of environmental challenges, and receiving information about the destination’s ecology). The findings imply how tourists create sustainable value-co-created behaviours by experiencing smart service measures.

On the other hand, the scale highlights the complete experience of travel processes, resulting in findings that have relevance for tourism practitioners on several functions regarding smart tourism services. These functions include a collection of tourist demands, pre-travel planning programs, experience creation, convenience and access plans, and value enhancement strategies. By logical deduction, a conceptual framework of the STS platform is constructed (Fig. 4 ). The broad nature of the platform not only calls for the co-creation of tourist experiences but also represents a comprehensive assessment tool for practitioners in assessing demands about smart tourism services.

On the supply side, a comprehensive structure is represented for practitioners in meeting demands about STS, including the connection of tourist-operated technologies, functions revealed by the ecosystem integrated supply, and information services generated. On the demand side, tourists can create sustainable value-co-created behaviours by experiencing smart service measures. The STS platform discloses the locus of “STS → behaviour → sustainable value co-creation”.

Based on the cooperation between ICTs, the technological-based characteristics of smart service platforms, such as connection between tourism and ICT (Choe and Fesenmaier, 2017 ), tandem and co-marketing of the tourism industry chain (Li et al., 2017 ), and tourist data collection and analysis (Gretzel et al., 2015c ) will lead a constructed STS platform to create a holistic smart tourism ecosystem. The ecosystem reveals the progress and functions of ICT, which not only strengthens the service capability of information generation but also highlights the service process of information transmission and processing (Gretzel et al., 2015a ). The ways of information service systems can better facilitate tourists to apply the STS.

From the system, tourists learn and apply information including weather, queuing time, tourist flow, traffic, parking lots, public transportation, e-maps, hotels, catering and purchase prices. As a result, itinerary planning, reservation, purchasing, payment, and experience sharing will obviously change along with tourist behaviours across the stages of travel. Based on the functions of ICT in STS platforms, the locus between services and behaviours is consistent with Li and Zhang’s ( 2022 ) system layers; that is, services, applications, and then users. When customers’ skills and behaviours are transformed into the company’s value creation, the mechanism of co-creation is formulated (Wang et al., 2016 ). Thus, tourist behaviours can be seen as a supplementary resource to the service provider’s internal value-creating procedures. Tourist-service provider interactions have thus become the locus of value creation (Edeh et al., 2022 ).

Moreover, with the help of tourist-operated technologies, service providers can obtain and use the information on tourist behaviours, which will support their sustainability in a smart tourism ecosystem. For example, in terms of finances, firms can decrease overlapping tasks, lower marketing costs, and disperse information. In the socio-cultural aspect, they will be able to gain instant access to tourist information and maintain long-lasting customer relationships. As to the environment, firms can save energy and receive proper guidance and information against environmental challenges. In this regard, as active actors of the ecosystem, tourist behaviours contribute to sustainable value co-creation. Finally, the findings respond to Xiang et al.’s ( 2015 ) service perspectives that tourist behaviours in the role of creating sustainable value co-creation come across three phases of travel, i.e., pre, during, and post-trips, in particular technology-denominated services.

Academia representatives said that the construction of the STS platform not only has to focus on the investment of information network technology and infrastructure but also needs to consider tourists’ needs from the perspective of tourists and constantly innovate the provision of STS (Li and Zhang, 2022 ). In this respect, this paper investigates the paradigm of STS platforms within the context of an ecosystem. It conceptualizes the concept by laying a reasonable theoretical foundation (service-dominant logic) and proposes a scale for STS. The scale explores a system’s functional framework in a smart tourism ecosystem for fundamental sectors such as attractions, transportation, accommodation, diet, purchase, and payment. Each of the sectors includes smart service measures preferred by tourists to meet their needs. Based on the scale, the STS platform conceptualized here illustrates how to integrate the core service measures so that tourists can realize the functionality and convenience of STS. Moreover, it explains the value of co-creation feedback to service providers from tourist behviours after applying STS measures and then resulting in sustainability for tourists and service providers. In the end, this paper describes the theoretical implications as well as the managerial implications for tourism practitioners.

Theoretical implications and contributions

More systematic research is still absent from the framework development of STS platforms for smart cities (Ye et al., 2020 ). This paper bridges the gap by proposing the STS scale from an integrative perspective and further presents the relationship between sustainable value co-creation between tourists and tourism firms. To that end, this paper conducts exploratory sequential mixed methods that include a multi-stage recursive psychometric process with three studies. The findings, from the perspectives of both experts and tourists toward Taipei City, validate the STS scale and realize the contextualization of illustrating the STS platforms. Consequently, this study proposes the theoretical implications and contributions on three aspects of scale construction, sustainable value co-creation, and platform frameworks.

First, the STS scale summarizes the ecosystem of smart tourism in six elements of the industrial chain and also integrates various STS measures, which provided specific theoretical support and scientific basis for the overall development of smart tourism. It is a comprehensive scale proposed for measuring tourists’ demands for smart services in the travel processes, which hitherto was not available in the smart tourism literature. Six tourism elements are revealed which manifest in the form of attractions, transport, housing, food and consumption about travel outcomes, information access, and feeling about service experiences. A series of studies suggests that the scale exhibits satisfactory measurement quality in terms of reliability, construct and nomological validity, and hierarchical factor structure. The primary contribution of the scale lies in an initial attempt to develop an integrative multidimensional hierarchical scale, which is either psychometric, experiential, or combined and should be studied as such. It fills an important gap in the existing literature related to an STS platform.

Second, the provision of STS emphasizes the connection between tourists and service providers and the co-creation of tourist experiences in the smart tourism ecosystem (Gretzel et al., 2015b ). Past studies have contributed to the foundation of smart tourism tools used for the connectivity of different tourism stakeholders. This study further provides an overview of STS measures and tourist behaviours in the smart tourism ecosystem and how that facilitates the sustainable co-creation of value. In other words, this study offers insights into the corresponding service items that influence tourist behaviours when the value is co-created, and somehow enhances sustainability for stakeholders. The findings contribute to the integrative approach of sustainable value co-creation through tourist behaviours in different phases of travel. Particularly, the potential path of “STS → behaviour → sustainable value co-creation” explored herein will help researchers and practitioners understand the conceptualization of the STS platform.

Third, the STS platform conceptualized by this paper reliably predicts tourists’ smart service applications of specific sectors and reflects their common behaviours in travel processes. Findings imply that increased demand for smart service is associated with under-experience. This reinforces earlier conclusions that need significantly predict applications and behaviours toward smart tourism. Therefore, the STS platform could be used as an effective medium for identifying inexperienced tourists and their underlying demands. This paper suggests that the STS platform concept has the advantage of being applicable to a wide range of travel-related typologies. Such an approach to STS can better help in identifying tourism antecedents, moderators, and implications.

Managerial implications

This paper proposes an empirical exploration of service platforms for smart tourism that has been usually overlooked. As Fig. 4 shown, the STS platform has a technological base in that firms in a tourism service ecosystem are collaborated through information aggregation, ubiquitous connectedness and real-time synchronization (Neuhofer et al., 2015 ). Given the functions of this platform, several practical lessons are learned. First, strategies for satisfying needs quantified by the STS scale are more useful if they have a wide scope and cover the six elements, which is useful for tourists to adopt smart tourism behaviours. The practitioners should develop a dedicated smart system, potentially similar to the STS platform, for continuous collection of tourists’ smart service demands for swift satisfaction given that preferences change with time.

Second, the STS platform provides managers with institute-tailored travel planning for tourists during pre-travel consultations. The platforms for tourist preference, accessible, and transparent travel-based information on service designs could be useful in minimizing the gap between expectations and experiences. The demands have to be surrounded with the appropriate tourism information, in support of STS. Ubiquitous web channels, including practitioner’s official or government websites, tourism comparison websites and travel social media, could be leveraged for mass campaigns. The establishment of the STS platform capitalizing on web channels’ ubiquity could be useful in listening to and tactically satisfying tourist demands.

Third, mobility and convenience are positively related to smart service experiences, which denotes that those two are significant incentives for those experiences among the majority of tourists (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015 ). Tourists can rely on the STS platform to solve the concerns that often occur in the travel process, such as difficulty in itinerary planning, lack of local guides, incorrect tourism information, difficulty in booking hotels and restaurants, inconvenience in purchasing and payment, etc. The information service and the mobile reservation and payment via the STS platform that enables tourists to appreciate the necessary service could increase their perceived convenience and stimulate experience before, during and after the travel.

In addition, the STS of the platform should be offered for free (e.g. information sharing) or at discounted rates (e.g. booking fees). Discounted services could be a determinant of smart tourism engagement for tourists as they are often constrained by personal budgets. Travellers like backpackers, for example, place a strong emphasis on travel budgets. For such travellers, reduced costs are very useful. Tourism managers can educate tourists and encourage an emphasis on smart services as one of the components of their travel budgets.

Although tourists may perceive time loss in accessing services, opportunities are provided for recasting the re(design) of practical situations, service processes, and experience creation (Pearce, 2020 ). These concerns can be thought of by practitioners to manage tourists’ frustration that it is time-wasting to access STS. Applying ICTs to assist practitioners in rapid service integration and innovation and providing joint business consulting and big data analysis would be useful.

Fourth, access services that consumers are unaware they may want, can be communicated through smart service finder pop-ups (or shortcuts). These can direct tourists to appropriate locations. Such a system would enable tourists to explore and identify practitioners that provide all needed services and compare prices for the best deals. More importantly, STS is readily available and accessible in the platforms by improving the forecasting accuracy of services’ demand and supply to minimize or, at best, eliminate errors (Anttiroiko et al., 2014 ). For example, hotels through their booking data could help travel agencies plan their itineraries by signaling how many travellers from each originating region are likely to be served and for which demands.

Fifth, the more tourists believe that the products, services and information provided by ICTs are reliable and trustworthy, the more value they will create through interactions and service experiences with a destination (Ingram et al., 2017 ). The strategic implications can be employed by tourism practitioners to enhance service values as those being reliable for tourists to access STS and create their experiences. The STS platform could be useful to introduce managers whose smart services are embraced by tourists and can aid them in selecting tourists to facilitate sustainable value co-creation behaviours. For instance, managers may use the platforms for market segmentation and tourist profiling to gain useful information for maximizing value co-creation behaviours. Tourism practitioners thus are kindly reminded to install and provide focused services by developing cloud technologies, networks, and various tourism application service systems in the current smart tourism trend.

Finally, smart tourism technology is the key factor affecting tourists’ experiences, satisfaction, and revisit intentions (Jeong and Shin, 2020 ), affecting the development of the tourism economy and society. A real-time tourism service of STS platforms and tourists’ responsiveness to the same give opportunities to tourists to influence other tourists and potential tourists, especially through social connections in an online setting. Tourism practitioners can provide venues for “tourists to share views, preferences, and experiences with others,” as well as allowing for eWOM activity among tourists. Experienced tourists are a more credible voice of the STS. They not only help other tourists recognize their underlying needs but also make others see how the STS can meet those needs, thus blurring the boundaries between a service provider’s role and a tourist’s role.

Limitations and directions for future research

Some limitations are worth acknowledging and should motivate future research into these issues. Though the study took into consideration matters toward a wide range of specific tourism elements, its attempt to propose a generic scale for gauging STS could be an over-universalization of reality. Further smart-service-specific studies are required to validate various aspects of the scale, given that perceptions vary significantly with different smart cities and respondents’ characteristics (Ye et al., 2020 ).

Future research could also explore the utility of the STS platform among different typologies of tourists, such as backpackers, volunteer tourists, or other tourist groups. This will shape further insights into the antecedents of the platform and especially how it relates to group normative. The platform could also be investigated by utilizing different smart technologies, such as smartphones or other mobile device applications while seeking to identify its moderators (i.e. smart experiences, information exposure, and smart tourism literacy) and outcomes. Besides, it is essential to study how to facilitate sustainable value co-creative services and behaviours through increased interactions between tourists and the STS platform by further utilizing innovative smart technologies. Exploring how the platforms play out during the construction of a smart city, especially its implication for the reception of a potential STS among tourists, would be another exciting avenue of research.

It is essential to note that the stage of travel will likely change tourists’ service demands. Especially, the COVID-19 pandemic-induced health threats have changed tourist behaviour (Abdullah et al., 2020 ). Future research into the competing STS alternatives to different stages of travel for tourists could provide insights into the potential cross-sectorial integration of STS.

Data availability

The datasets analysed during the current study are available in the Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JHJQJD .

Abdullah M, Dias C, Muley D, Shahin M (2020) Exploring the impacts of COVID-19 on travel behavior and mode preferences. Transp Res Interdiscip Perspect 8:100255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2020.100255

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Alqatan S, Singh D, Ahmad K (2011) A theoretic discussion of tourism m-commerce. Res J Appl Sci 6(6):366–372. https://doi.org/10.3923/rjasci.2011.366.372

Article   Google Scholar  

Anttiroiko AV, Valkama P, Bailey SJ (2014) Smart cities in the new service economy: building platforms for smart services. AI Soc 29(3):323–334. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-013-0464-0

Banerjee P, Wigginton C (2015) Smart device, smart pay: taking mobile payments from coffee shops to retail stores. Deloitte University Press

Barile S, Ciasullo MV, Troisi O, Sarno D (2017) The role of technology and institutions in tourism service ecosystems: findings from a case study. TQM J 29(6):811–833. https://doi.org/10.1108/TQM-06-2017-0068

Bhuiyan KH, Jahan I, Zayed NM, Islam KMA, Suyaiya S, Tkachenko O, Nitsenko V (2022) Smart tourism ecosystem: a new dimension toward sustainable value co-creation. Sustain 14(22):1–14. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142215043

Boes K, Buhalis D, Inversini A (2016) Smart tourism destinations: ecosystems for tourism destination competitiveness. Int J Tour Cities 2:108–124. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJTC-12-2015-0032

Buhalis D, Amaranggana A (2015) Smart tourism destinations enhancing tourism experience through personalization of services. In: Tussyadiah I, Inversini A (eds) Information and communication technologies in tourism 2015. Springer, Cham, pp. 377–389

Buhalis D, Foerste M (2015) SoCoMo marketing for travel and tourism: empowering co-creation of value. J Destin Mark Manage 4(3):151–161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2015.04.001

Buhalis D, Amaranggana A (2014) Smart tourism destinations. In: Xiang Z, Tussyadiah I (eds) Information and communication technologies in tourism 2014. Springer, Heidelberg, pp. 553–564

Buhalis D, Leung R (2018) Smart hospitality interconnectivity and interoperability towards an ecosystem. Int J Hosp Manag 71:41–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2017.11.011

Choe Y, Fesenmaier DR (2017) The quantified traveler: Implications for smart tourism development. In: Xiang Z, Fesenmaier DR (eds) Analytics in smart tourism design, tourism on the verge. Spring International Publishing, Switzerland, pp. 65–77

Cimbaljević M, Stankov U, Pavluković V (2019) Going beyond the traditional destination competitiveness—reflections on a smart destination in the current research. Curr Issues Tour 22(20):2472–2477. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1529149

Dong X, Liu S, Li H, Yang Z, Liang S, Deng N (2020) Love of nature as a mediator between connectedness to nature and sustainable consumption behavior. J Clean Prod 242:1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118451

Edeh FO, Zayed NM, Perevozova I, Kryshtal H, Nitsenko V (2022) Talent management in the hospitality sector: predicting discretionary work behaviour. Adm Sci 12(4):122. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci12040122

Femenia-Serra F, Neuhofer B (2018) Smart tourism experiences: conceptualisation, key dimensions and research agenda. J Reg Res 42:129–150. https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:invreg:0386

Google Scholar  

Flavián C, Gurrea R, Orús C (2020) Combining channels to make smart purchases: the role of webrooming and showrooming. J Retail Consum Serv 52:101923. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101923

Gonzalez RA, Ferro RE, Liberona D (2020) Government and governance in intelligent cities, smart transportation study case in Bogotá Colombia. Ain Shams Eng J 11(1):25–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2019.05.002

Gretzel U, Koo C, Sigala M, Xiang Z (2015a) Special issue on smart tourism: convergence of information technologies, experiences, and theories. Electron Mark 25(3):175–177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-015-0194-x

Gretzel U, Sigala M, Xiang Z, Koo C (2015b) Smart tourism: foundations and developments. Electron Mark 25:179–188. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-015-0196-8

Gretzel U, Werthner H, Koo C, Lamsfus C (2015c) Conceptual foundations for understanding smart tourism ecosystems. Comput Hum Behav 50:558–563. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.043

Ho CI, Lin YC, Yuan YL, Chen MC (2016) Pre-trip tourism information search by smartphones and use of alternative information channels: a conceptual model. Cogent Soc Sci 2(1):1136100. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2015.1136100

Hunter WC, Chung N, Gretzel U, Koo C (2015) Constructivist research in smart tourism. Asia Pac J Inf Syst 25(1):105–120. https://doi.org/10.14329/apjis.2015.25.1.105

Ingram C, Caruana R, McCabe S (2017) PARTicipative inquiry for tourist experience. Ann Tour Res 65:13–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2017.04.008

Jeong M, Shin HH (2020) Tourists’ experiences with smart tourism technology at smart destinations and their behavior intentions. J Travel Res 59(8):1464–1477. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287519883034

Jovicic DZ (2019) From the traditional understanding of tourism destination to the smart tourism destination. Curr Issues Tour 22(3):276–282. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2017.1313203

Kamboj S, Gupta S (2020) Use of smart phone apps in co-creative hotel service innovation: an evidence from India. Curr Issues Tour 23(3):323–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1513459

Kwok LC, Yu B (2013) Spreading social media messages on Facebook: an analysis of restaurant business-to-consumer communications. Cornell Hosp Q 54(1): 84–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/1938965512458360

Lamsfus C, Wang D, Alzua-Sorzabal A, Xiang Z (2014) Going mobile defining context for on-the-go travelers. J Travel Res 54(6):691–701. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287514538839

Li Q, Zhang Y (2022) Design and implementation of smart tourism service platform from the perspective of artificial intelligence. Wirel Commun Mob Comput 2022(20):3501003. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/3501003

Li Y, Hu C, Huang C, Duan L (2017) The concept of smart tourism in the context of tourism information services. Tour Manag 58:293–300. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2016.03.014

Lin J, Niu J, Li H, Atiquzzaman M (2019) A secure and efficient location-based service scheme for smart transportation. Future Gener Comput Syst 92:694–704. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2017.11.030

Mehraliyev F, Choi Y, Köseoglu MA (2019) Progress on smart tourism research. J Hosp Tour Technol 10(4):522–538. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTT-08-2018-0076

Melián-González S, Bulchand-Gidumal J, López-Valcárcel BG (2013) Online customer reviews of hotels: as participation increases, better evaluation is obtained. Cornell Hosp Q 54(3):274–283. https://doi.org/10.1177/1938965513481498

Naik MB, Kumar P, Majhi S (2019) Smart public transportation network expansion and its interaction with the grid. Int J Electr Power Energy Syst 105:365–380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2018.08.009

Neuhofer B, Buhalis D, Ladkin A (2015) Smart technologies for personalized experiences: a case study in the hospitality domain. Electron Mark 25(3):243–254. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-015-0182-1

Okumus B, Ali F, Bilgihan A, Ozturk AB (2016) Factors affecting the acceptance of smartphone diet applications. J Hosp Mark Manag 25(6):726–747. https://doi.org/10.1080/19368623.2016.1082454

Okumus B, Ali F, Bilgihan A, Ozturk AB (2018) Psychological factors influencing customers’ acceptance of smartphone diet apps when ordering food at restaurant. Int J Hosp Manag 72:67–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.01.001

Pearce PL (2020) Tourists’ perception of time: directions for design. Ann Tour Res 83:102932. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2020.102932

Sarcona A, Kovacs L, Wright J, Williams C (2017) Differences in eating behavior, physical activity, and health-related lifestyle choices between users and nonusers of mobile health apps. Am J Health Educ 48(5):298–305. https://doi.org/10.1080/19325037.2017.1335630

Schmidt-Rauch S, Schwabe G (2014) Designing for mobile value co-creation—the case of travel counselling. Electron Mark 24(1):5–17

Sarmah B, Kamboj S, Rahman Z (2017) Co-creation in hotel service innovation using smart phone apps: an empirical study. Int J Contemp Hosp Manag 29(10):2647–2667. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-12-2015-0681

Siuhi S, Mwakalonge J (2016) Opportunities and challenges of smart mobile applications in transportation. J Traffic Transp Eng 3(6):582–592. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtte.2016.11.001

Stankova U, Filimonaub V, Slivarc I (2019) Calm ICT design in hotels: a critical review of applications and implications. Int J Hosp Manag 82:298–307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.10.012

Vargo SL, Lusch RF (2016) Institutions and axioms: an extension and update of service-dominant logic. J Acad Mark Sci 44(1):5–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-015-0456-3

Vargo SL, Lusch RF (2017) Service-dominant logic 2025. Int J Res Mark 34(1):46–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2016.11.001

Wang S, Wang J, Li J, Yang F (2020) Do motivations contribute to local residents’ engagement in pro-environmental behaviors? Resident-destination relationship and pro-environmental climate perspective. J Sustain Tour 28:834–852. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2019.1707215

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Wang Y, Li H, Li C, Zhang D (2016) Factors affecting hotels’ adoption of mobile reservation systems: a technology-organization environment framework. Tour Manag 53:163–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2015.09.021

Wang X, Li X, Zhen F, Zhang J (2016) How smart is your tourist attraction?: measuring tourist preferences of smart tourism attractions via a FCEM-AHP and IPA approach. Tour Manag 54:309–320. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2015.12.003

Xiang Z, Du Q, Ma Y, Fan W (2017) A comparative analysis of major online review platforms: implications for social media analytics in hospitality and tourism. Tour Manag 58:51–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2016.10.001

Xiang Z, Stienmetz J, Fesenmaier DR (2021) Smart tourism design: Launching the annals of tourism research curated collection on designing tourism places. Ann Tour Res 86:103154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2021.103154

Xiang Z, Wang D, O’Leary J, Fesenmaier D (2015) Adapting to the Internet: trends in travelers’ use of the Web for trip planning. J Travel Res 54(4):511–527. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287514522883

Xiao G, Cheng Q, Zhang C(2019) Detecting travel modes using rule-based classification system and Gaussian process classifier IEEE Access 7:116741–116752. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2936443

Ye BH, Ye H, Law R (2020) Systematic review of smart tourism research. Sustain 12(8):3401. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083401

Zine P, Kulkarni M, Chawla R, Ray AA (2014) Framework for value co-creation through customization and personalization in the context of machine tool PSS. Procedia CIRP 16:32–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2014.01.005

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council under Grant NSTC 109-2410-H-153-031-SSS.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Leisure Management, College of Management, National Pingtung University, Pingtung, Taiwan, R.O.C.

Chung-Ming Chuang

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

C-MC is the single author of this research. He has made substantial contributions to all the works in the research.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chung-Ming Chuang .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The author declares no competing interests.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

Additional information.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Chuang, CM. The conceptualization of smart tourism service platforms on tourist value co-creation behaviours: an integrative perspective of smart tourism services. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 367 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01867-9

Download citation

Received : 26 December 2022

Accepted : 14 June 2023

Published : 30 June 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01867-9

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Information

• Author Services

Initiatives

You are accessing a machine-readable page. In order to be human-readable, please install an RSS reader.

All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess .

Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for future research directions and describes possible research applications.

Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive positive feedback from the reviewers.

Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.

Original Submission Date Received: .

• Active Journals
• Find a Journal
• Proceedings Series
• For Authors
• For Reviewers
• For Editors
• For Librarians
• For Publishers
• For Societies
• For Conference Organizers
• Open Access Policy
• Institutional Open Access Program
• Special Issues Guidelines
• Editorial Process
• Research and Publication Ethics
• Article Processing Charges
• Testimonials
• Preprints.org
• SciProfiles
• Encyclopedia

Article Menu

• Subscribe SciFeed
• Recommended Articles
• Google Scholar
• on Google Scholar
• Table of Contents

Find support for a specific problem in the support section of our website.

Please let us know what you think of our products and services.

Visit our dedicated information section to learn more about MDPI.

JSmol Viewer

Bringing animals in -to wildlife tourism.

1. Introduction

“Once one has been in touch, obligations and possibilities for response change”. [ 1 ]

2. Conservation-Welfare Nexus

“which animals are to be considered (usually those defined as ‘animals’ in the relevant country’s legislation), what harm/suffering are and how they can be assessed, and how to fulfil our obligations to consider animal welfare as part of contextualized decision-making, i.e., by minimizing harms whenever possible” . [ 34 ]

3. Evidence-Based and Care-Full Practice

4. animal stakeholdership, 5. wildlife sanctuary tourism: problem or panacea, 6. discussion and conclusions.

“Learning to be truly present, not as a vanishing pivot between awful or edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific futures, but as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings” . [ 24 ]

Author Contributions

Institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

• Haraway, D.J. When Species Meet ; Posthumanities; University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN, USA, 2008; ISBN 978-0-8166-5045-3. [ Google Scholar ]
• Barua, M. Animating Capital: Work, Commodities, Circulation. Prog. Hum. Geogr. 2019 , 43 , 650–669. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fennell, D.A. Tourism and Animal Ethics ; Taylor & Francis: Abingdon, UK, 2024; ISBN 1-00-385830-9. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dashper, K. More-than-human Emotions: Multispecies Emotional Labour in the Tourism Industry. Gend. Work Organ. 2020 , 27 , 24–40. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Rickly, J.M.; Kline, C. Exploring Non-Human Work in Tourism: From Beasts of Burden to Animal Ambassadors ; De Gruyter Studies in Tourism; Rickly, J.M., Kline, Eds.; De Gruyter: Berlin, Germany, 2021; ISBN 978-3-11-065975-7. [ Google Scholar ]
• Speiran, S.I. 11 Monkey See, Monkey Do: The Work of Primates in Costa Rican Sanctuaries. In Exploring Non-Human Work in Tourism ; Kline, C., Rickly, J.M., Eds.; De Gruyter: Berlin, Germany, 2021; pp. 181–206. ISBN 978-3-11-066405-8. [ Google Scholar ]
• Higginbottom, K. Wildlife Tourism ; Common Ground Publishing: Champaign, IL, USA, 2004; Volume 1. [ Google Scholar ]
• Twining-Ward, L.; Li, W.; Bhammar, H.; Wright, E. Supporting Sustainable Livelihoods through Wildlife Tourism ; World Bank: Washington, DC, USA, 2018. [ Google Scholar ]
• World Tourism Organization. UNWTO Tourism Highlights, 2014 Edition ; World Tourism Organization (UNWTO): Madrid, Spain, 2014; ISBN 978-92-844-1622-6. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fravel, L. Critics Question Zoos’ Commitment to Conservation. National Geographic. 2003. Available online: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/news-zoo-commitment-conservation-critic (accessed on 1 March 2024).
• Bansiddhi, P.; Brown, J.L.; Thitaram, C.; Punyapornwithaya, V.; Nganvongpanit, K. Elephant Tourism in Thailand: A Review of Animal Welfare Practices and Needs. J. Appl. Anim. Welf. Sci. 2020 , 23 , 164–177. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Barua, M. Circulating Elephants: Unpacking the Geographies of a Cosmopolitan Animal. Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. 2014 , 39 , 559–573. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Cui, Q.; Xu, H. Situating Animal Ethics in Thai Elephant Tourism. Asia Pac. Viewp. 2019 , 60 , 267–279. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Duffy, R.; Moore, L. Global Regulations and Local Practices: The Politics and Governance of Animal Welfare in Elephant Tourism. J. Sustain. Tour. 2011 , 19 , 589–604. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Moorhouse; Dahlsjö, C.A.L.; Baker, S.E.; D’Cruze, N.C.; Macdonald, D.W. The Customer Isn’t Always Right—Conservation and Animal Welfare Implications of the Increasing Demand for Wildlife Tourism. PLoS ONE 2015 , 10 , e0138939. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Moorhouse; D’Cruze; Macdonald Unethical Use of Wildlife in Tourism: What’s the Problem, Who Is Responsible, and What Can Be Done? J. Sustain. Tour. 2017 , 25 , 505–516. [ CrossRef ]
• Fennell, D.A.; Moorhouse, T.P.; Macdonald, D.W. Towards a Model for the Assessment of Conservation, Welfare, and Governance in Wildlife Tourism Attractions. J. Ecotourism 2023 , 23 , 166–193. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Ballantyne, R.; Packer, J.; Falk, J. Visitors’ Learning for Environmental Sustainability: Testing Short-and Long-Term Impacts of Wildlife Tourism Experiences Using Structural Equation Modelling. Tour. Manag. 2011 , 32 , 1243–1252. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Collard Putting Animals Back Together, Taking Commodities Apart. Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 2014 , 104 , 151–165. [ CrossRef ]
• Barua, M. Nonhuman Labour, Encounter Value, Spectacular Accumulation: The Geographies of a Lively Commodity. Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. 2017 , 42 , 274–288. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fennell, D.A. Animal-Informed Consent: Sled Dog Tours as Asymmetric Agential Events. Tour. Manag. 2022 , 93 , 104584. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fennell Bridging the Global-Local Animal-Based Tourism Divide. Ann. Tour. Res. 2022 , 96 , 103459. [ CrossRef ]
• Bulbeck, C. Facing the Wild: Ecotourism, Conservation and Animal Encounters ; Earthscan: Oxford, UK, 2012; ISBN 1-84977-385-8. [ Google Scholar ]
• Haraway, D.J. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene ; Experimental futures: Technological lives, scientific arts, anthropological voices; Duke University Press: Durham, UK, 2016; ISBN 978-0-8223-7378-0. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hovorka, A.; McCubbin, S.; Van Patter, L. A Research Agenda for Animal Geographies ; Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, UK, 2021; ISBN 978-1-78897-999-3. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wolch, J.R.; Emel, J. Animal Geographies: Place, Politics, and Identity in the Nature-Culture Borderlands ; Place, Politics, and Identity in the Nature-Culture Borderlands; Verso: London, UK, 1998; ISBN 1-85984-831-1. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hodgetts, T.; Lorimer, J. Methodologies for Animals’ Geographies: Cultures, Communication and Genomics. Cult. Geogr. 2015 , 22 , 285–295. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hua, J.; Ahuja, N. Chimpanzee Sanctuary: “Surplus” Life and the Politics of Transspecies Care. Am. Q. 2013 , 65 , 619–637. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Gibbs, L. Animal Geographies II: Killing and Caring (in Times of Crisis). Prog. Hum. Geogr. 2020 , 45 , 371–381. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bear, C. Being Angelica? Exploring Individual Animal Geographies: Being Angelica? Area 2011 , 43 , 297–304. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Main, M.E.; Chambers, C.N.L. Between “Wild” and “Tame”: Placing Encounters with Sirocco the Kakapo Parrot in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Soc. Anim. 2014 , 22 , 57–79. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• World Federation for Animals. Unveiling the Nexus: The Interdependence of Animal Welfare, Environment & Sustainable Development ; World Federation for Animals (WFA): Boston, MA, USA, 2023. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bertella, G. Sustainability in Wildlife Tourism: Challenging the Assumptions and Imagining Alternatives. Tour. Rev. 2019 , 74 , 246–255. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Beausoleil, N.J.; Mellor, D.J.; Baker, L.; Baker, S.E.; Bellio, M.; Clarke, A.S.; Dale, A.; Garlick, S.; Jones, B.; Harvey, A.; et al. “Feelings and Fitness” Not “Feelings or Fitness”–The Raison d’être of Conservation Welfare, Which Aligns Conservation and Animal Welfare Objectives. Front. Vet. Sci. 2018 , 5 , 296. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Beausoleil, N.J. I Am a Compassionate Conservation Welfare Scientist: Considering the Theoretical and Practical Differences Between Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare. Animals 2020 , 10 , 257. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Beausoleil, N.J. Balancing the Need for Conservation and the Welfare of Individual Animals. In Dilemmas in Animal Welfare ; CABI: Wallingford, UK, 2014. [ Google Scholar ]
• Swaisgood, R. The Conservation-Welfare Nexus in Reintroduction Programmes: A Role for Sensory Ecology. Anim. Welf. 2010 , 19 , 125–137. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fennell, D.A.; Kline, C.; Mkono, M.; Grimwood, B.S.; Sheppard, V.A.; Dashper, K.; Rickly, J.; Burns, G.L.; Bertella, G.; von Essen, E. Tourism, Animals & the Vacant Niche: A Scoping Review and Pedagogical Agenda. Curr. Issues Tour. 2024 , 1–29. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Speiran, S.I.; Jeyaraj-Powell, T.; Kauffman, L.; Rodrigues, M.A. Rescue, Rehabilitation, and Reintroduction. In Primates in Anthropogenic Landscapes: Exploring Primate Behavioural Flexibility Across Human Contexts ; McKinney, T., Waters, S., Rodrigues, M.A., Eds.; Springer International Publishing: Cham, Switzerland, 2023; pp. 267–287. ISBN 978-3-031-11736-7. [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Patter, L.E. (Re) Storying the More-Than-Human City: Urban Coyotes in Canada. Ph.D Thesis, Queen’s University Canada, Kingston, ON, Canada, 2021. [ Google Scholar ]
• Turnbull, J.; Van Patter, L. Thinking-Together through Ethical Moments in Multispecies Fieldwork: Dialoguing Expertise, Visibility, and Worlding. ACME: Int. J. Crit. Geogr. 2022 , 21 , 25. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fraser-Celin, V.-L.; Hovorka, A.J. Compassionate Conservation: Exploring the Lives of African Wild Dogs (Lycaon Pictus) in Botswana. Animals 2019 , 9 , 16. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Goulart, V.D.; Azevedo, P.G.; van de Schepop, J.A.; Teixeira, C.P.; Barçante, L.; Azevedo, C.S.; Young, R.J. GAPs in the Study of Zoo and Wild Animal Welfare. Zoo Biol. 2009 , 28 , 561–573. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Melfi, V.A. There Are Big Gaps in Our Knowledge, and Thus Approach, to Zoo Animal Welfare: A Case for Evidence-Based Zoo Animal Management. Zoo Biol. 2009 , 28 , 574–588. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fennell, D.A. An Animal Welfare Literacy Framework for Tourism. Ann. Tour. Res. 2022 , 96 , 103461. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fennell, D.A.; Coose, S.; Moorhouse, T.P. An Animal Welfare Syllabus for Wildlife Tourism. J. Sustain. Tour. 2022 , 31 , 1071–1089. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Tomassini, L.; Bertella, G.; Grasso, C.; Lenzi, C. The Space of Animal Justice in Wildlife Sanctuaries: A Posthuman Perspective. J. Ecotourism 2022 , 23 , 38–55. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Thomsen, B.; Copeland, K.; Fennell, S.R.; Thomsen, J.; Harte, M.; Deshwalt, A.; Maxwell, J.; Breidenbach, B.; Taylor, M.; Copeland, S.; et al. The Promise of Posthumanism in Wildlife Ecotourism: A Set of Case Studies of Veterinarians’ Role at Wildlife Rehabilitation Centers in Costa Rica. J. Ecotourism 2023 , 1–19. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Von Essen, E.; Lindsjö, J.; Berg, C. Instagranimal: Animal Welfare and Animal Ethics Challenges of Animal-Based Tourism. Animals 2020 , 10 , 1830. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Daly, N. Suffering Unseen: The Dark Truth behind Wildlife Tourism. National Geographic. 2019. Available online: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/global-wildlife-tourism-social-media-causes-animal-suffering (accessed on 1 March 2024).
• Baker, S.E.; Van Kesteren, F.; Zommers, Z.A.; D’cruze, N.; Macdonald, D.W.; Cain, R. Rough Trade: Animal Welfare in the Global Wildlife Trade. BioScience 2013 , 63 , 928–938. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• D’Cruze, N.; Singh, B.; Mookerjee, A.; Macdonald, D.W.; Hunter, K.; Brassey, C.A.; Rowntree, J.; Megson, S.; Megson, D.; Fox, G.; et al. What’s in a Name? Wildlife Traders Evade Authorities Using Code Words. Oryx 2018 , 52 , 13. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Muehlenbein, M.P.; Ancrenaz, M.; Sakong, R.; Ambu, L.; Prall, S.; Fuller, G.; Raghanti, M.A. Ape Conservation Physiology: Fecal Glucocorticoid Responses in Wild Pongo Pygmaeus Morio Following Human Visitation. PLoS ONE 2012 , 7 , e33357. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Haskell, P.J.; McGowan, A.; Westling, A.; Méndez-Jiménez, A.; Rohner, C.A.; Collins, K.; Rosero-Caicedo, M.; Salmond, J.; Monadjem, A.; Marshall, A.D.; et al. Monitoring the Effects of Tourism on Whale Shark Rhincodon typus Behaviour in Mozambique. Oryx 2015 , 49 , 492–499. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Orams, M.B. Feeding Wildlife as a Tourism Attraction: A Review of Issues and Impacts. Tour. Manag. 2002 , 23 , 281–293. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Clarke, C.R.; Lea, J.S.E.; Ormond, R.F.G. Changing Relative Abundance and Behaviour of Silky and Grey Reef Sharks Baited over 12 Years on a Red Sea Reef. Mar. Freshw. Res. 2013 , 64 , 909. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Carder, G.; Proctor, H.; Schmidt-Burbach, J.; D’cruze, N. The Animal Welfare Implications of Civet Coffee Tourism in Bali. Anim. Welf. 2016 , 25 , 199–205. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Benson, J.F.; Mahoney, P.J.; Vickers, T.W.; Sikich, J.A.; Beier, P.; Riley, S.P.D.; Ernest, H.B.; Boyce, W.M. Extinction Vortex Dynamics of Top Predators Isolated by Urbanization. Ecol. Appl. 2019 , 29 , e01868. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Higham, J.E.S.; Shelton, E.J. Tourism and Wildlife Habituation: Reduced Population Fitness or Cessation of Impact? Tour. Manag. 2011 , 32 , 1290–1298. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Lenzi, C.; Speiran, S.; Grasso, C. “Let Me Take a Selfie”: Implications of Social Media for Public Perceptions of Wild Animals. Soc. Anim. 2020 , 31 , 64–83. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Grasso, C.; Lenzi, C.; Speiran, S.; Pirrone, F. Anthropomorphized Nonhuman Animals in Mass Media and Their Influence on Human Attitudes Toward Wildlife. Soc. Anim. 2020 , 31 , 196–220. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Mkono, M.; Holder, A. The Future of Animals in Tourism Recreation: Social Media as Spaces of Collective Moral Reflexivity. Tour. Manag. Perspect. 2019 , 29 , 1–8. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Stazaker, K.; Mackinnon, J. Visitor Perceptions of Captive, Endangered Barbary Macaques ( Macaca sylvanus ) Used as Photo Props in Jemaa El Fna Square, Marrakech, Morocco. Anthrozoös 2018 , 31 , 761–776. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Dubois, S.; Fraser, D. A Framework to Evaluate Wildlife Feeding in Research, Wildlife Management, Tourism and Recreation. Animals 2013 , 3 , 978–994. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hammerschlag, N.; Gallagher, A.J.; Wester, J.; Luo, J.; Ault, J.S. Don’t Bite the Hand That Feeds: Assessing Ecological Impacts of Provisioning Ecotourism on an Apex Marine Predator. Funct. Ecol. 2012 , 26 , 567–576. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Kopnina, H.; Washington, H.; Gray, J.; Taylor, B. “The ‘Future of Conservation’ Debate: Defending Ecocentrism and the Nature Needs Half Movement”. Biol. Conserv. 2018 , 217 , 140–148. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Leopold, A. A Sand County Almanac ; Oxford University Press: New York, NY, USA, 1949. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wilson, E.O. Biodiversity: Challenge, Science, Opportunity. Am. Zool. 1994 , 34 , 5–11. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• DesJardins, J.R. Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy ; Cengage Learning: Boston, MA, USA, 2013; ISBN 1-133-04997-4. [ Google Scholar ]
• Learmonth, M.J. Human–Animal Interactions in Zoos: What Can Compassionate Conservation, Conservation Welfare and Duty of Care Tell Us about the Ethics of Interacting, and Avoiding Unintended Consequences? Animals 2020 , 10 , 2037. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Gruen, L. Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Animals ; Lantern Books, Division of Booklight Inc.: New York, NY, USA, 2015; ISBN 978-1-59056-487-5. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ramp, D.; Bekoff, M. Compassion as a Practical and Evolved Ethic for Conservation. BioScience 2015 , 65 , 323–327. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bobier, C.A.; Allen, B.L. Compassionate Conservation Is Indistinguishable from Traditional Forms of Conservation in Practice. Front. Psychol. 2022 , 13 , 750313. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fennell; Sheppard, V. Tourism, Animals and the Scales of Justice. J. Sustain. Tour. 2021 , 29 , 314–335. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Blackett, T.A.; McKenna, C.; Kavanagh, L.; Morgan, D.R. The Welfare of Wild Animals in Zoological Institutions: Are We Meeting Our Duty of Care? Int. Zoo Yearb. 2017 , 51 , 187–202. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fraser, D. A “Practical” Ethic for Animals. J. Agric. Environ. Ethics 2012 , 25 , 721–746. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Font, X.; Bonilla-Priego, M.J.; Kantenbacher, J. Trade Associations as Corporate Social Responsibility Actors: An Institutional Theory Analysis of Animal Welfare in Tourism. J. Sustain. Tour. 2019 , 27 , 118–138. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Markwell, K. Animals and Tourism: Understanding Diverse Relationships ; Aspects of Tourism 67; Channel View Publications: Bristol, UK, 2015; ISBN 978-1-84541-504-4. [ Google Scholar ]
• Carr, N.; Broom, D.M. Tourism and Animal Welfare ; CABI: Wallingford, UK, 2018; ISBN 978-1-78639-185-8. [ Google Scholar ]
• Buckley, R. Sustainable Tourism: Research and Reality. Ann. Tour. Res. 2012 , 39 , 528–546. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Kline, C.; Rickly, J.M. (Eds.) Acknowledgements. In Exploring Non-Human Work in Tourism ; De Gruyter: Berlin, Germany, 2021; pp. V–VI. ISBN 978-3-11-066405-8. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fennell, D. Tourism Ethics Needs More than a Surface Approach. Crit. Debates Tour. 2012 , 57 , 188. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Birke, L.; Hosey, G.; Melfi, V. “You Can’t Really Hug a Tiger”: Zookeepers and Their Bonds with Animals. Anthrozoös 2019 , 32 , 597–612. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Palmer, A.; Malone, N.; Park, J. Caregiver/Orangutan Relationships at Auckland Zoo. Soc. Anim. 2016 , 24 , 230–249. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hosey, G.; Melfi, V. Are We Ignoring Neutral and Negative Human–Animal Relationships in Zoos? Zoo Biol. 2015 , 34 , 1–8. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Barber, J.; Lewis, D.; Agoramoorthy, G.; Stevenson, M.F. Setting Standards for Evaluation of Captive Facilities. In Wild Mammals in Captivity: Principles and Techniques for Zoo Management , 2nd ed.; University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, USA, 2010; pp. 22–34. [ Google Scholar ]
• Marcy, K. Interesting Zoo and Aquarium Statistics ; Association of Zoos and Aquariums: Silver Spring, MA, USA, 2021. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ward, S.J.; Williams, E.; Groves, G.; Marsh, S.; Morgan, D. Using Zoo Welfare Assessments to Identify Common Issues in Developing Country Zoos. Animals 2020 , 10 , 2101. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Walker, S.; Morgan, D.R.; Matamoros, Y. The ‘Other’ Zoo World. Unaffiliated Zoos and Their Impact on Global Zoo Image and on Conservation. What Is to Be Done? Dollinger, P., Ed.; World Association of Zoos and Aquariums: Bern, Switzerland, 2004; pp. 178–181. [ Google Scholar ]
• Accreditation—Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries. Available online: https://sanctuaryfederation.org/accreditation/ (accessed on 1 March 2024).
• The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria. Annual Report 2019 ; The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria: Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2019. [ Google Scholar ]
• D’Cruze, N.; Khan, S.; Carder, G.; Megson, D.; Coulthard, E.; Norrey, J.; Groves, G. A Global Review of Animal–Visitor Interactions in Modern Zoos and Aquariums and Their Implications for Wild Animal Welfare. Animals 2019 , 9 , 332. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Keulartz, J. Captivity for Conservation? Zoos at a Crossroads. J. Agric. Environ. Ethics 2015 , 28 , 335–351. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Price, M.R.S.; Fa, J.E. Reintroductions from Zoos: A Conservation Guiding Light or a Shooting Star? In Zoos in the 21st Century Catalysts for Conservation? Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2007. [ Google Scholar ]
• Beck, B.B.; Rapaport, L.G.; Price, M.R.S.; Wilson, A.C. Reintroduction of Captive-Born Animals. In Creative Conservation ; Olney, P.J.S., Mace, G.M., Feistner, A.T.C., Eds.; Springer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 1994; pp. 265–286. ISBN 978-94-010-4311-3. [ Google Scholar ]
• Morris, S.D.; Brook, B.W.; Moseby, K.E.; Johnson, C.N. Factors Affecting Success of Conservation Translocations of Terrestrial Vertebrates: A Global Systematic Review. Glob. Ecol. Conserv. 2021 , 28 , e01630. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• D’Cruze, N.; Machado, F.C.; Matthews, N.; Balaskas, M.; Carder, G.; Richardson, V.; Vieto, R. A Review of Wildlife Ecotourism in Manaus, Brazil. Nat. Conserv. 2017 , 22 , 1–16. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Winders, D.J. Captive Wildlife at a Crossroads – Sanctuaries, Accreditation, and Humane-Washing 2017. Anim. Stud. J. 2017 , 6 , 161–178. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fennell, D.A. Akrasia and Tourism: Why We Sometimes Act against Our Better Judgement? Tour. Recreat. Res. 2015 , 40 , 95–106. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bach, L.; Burton, M. Proximity and Animal Welfare in the Context of Tourist Interactions with Habituated Dolphins. J. Sustain. Tour. 2017 , 25 , 181–197. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bueddefeld, J.N.; Erickson, B. Wild Bears, Real Bears and Zoo Bears: Authenticity and Nature in Anthropocene Tourism. Tour. Stud. 2022 , 22 , 373–392. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Moorhouse, T.P.; D’Cruze, N.C.; Macdonald, D.W. The Effect of Priming, Nationality and Greenwashing on Preferences for Wildlife Tourist Attractions. Glob. Ecol. Conserv. 2017 , 12 , 188–203. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• D’Cruze, N.; Niehaus, C.; Balaskas, M.; Vieto, R.; Carder, G.; Richardson, V.A.; Moorhouse, T.; Harrington, L.A.; Macdonald, D.W. Wildlife Tourism in Latin America: Taxonomy and Conservation Status. J. Sustain. Tour. 2018 , 26 , 1562–1576. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Macdonald, C.; Wester, J. Public Understanding of Wildlife Tourism: Defining Terms, Harms, and Benefits. J. Ecotourism 2021 , 20 , 198–209. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Stronza, A. The Economic Promise of Ecotourism for Conservation. J. Ecotourism 2007 , 6 , 210–230. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Gamborg, C.; Sandøe, P. Sustainability in Farm Animal Breeding: A Review. Livest. Prod. Sci. 2005 , 92 , 221–231. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Trave, C.; Brunnschweiler, J.; Sheaves, M.; Diedrich, A.; Barnett, A. Are We Killing Them with Kindness? Evaluation of Sustainable Marine Wildlife Tourism. Biol. Conserv. 2017 , 209 , 211–222. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Donovan, J. Feminism and the Treatment of Animals: From Care to Dialogue. Signs J. Women Cult. Soc. 2006 , 31 , 305–329. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Taylor, M.; Hurst, C.E.; Stinson, M.J.; Grimwood, B.S.R. Becoming Care-Full : Contextualizing Moral Development among Captive Elephant Volunteer Tourists to Thailand. J. Ecotourism 2020 , 19 , 113–131. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bertella, G. Care-Full Academic Activism for Sustainable Transformations in Tourism. Curr. Issues Tour. 2023 , 26 , 212–223. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Jamal, T.; Camargo, B.A. Sustainable Tourism, Justice and an Ethic of Care: Toward the Just Destination. J. Sustain. Tour. 2014 , 22 , 11–30. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Parreñas, J.S. Experimental futures: Technological lives, scientific arts, anthropological voices. In Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation ; Duke University Press: Durham, UK, 2018; ISBN 978-0-8223-7194-6. [ Google Scholar ]
• Parreñas, R. “Juno” S. Producing Affect: Transnational Volunteerism in a Malaysian Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. Am. Ethnol. 2012 , 39 , 673–687. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Van Patter, L.E.; Blattner, C. Advancing Ethical Principles for Non-Invasive, Respectful Research with Nonhuman Animal Participants. Soc. Anim. 2020 , 28 , 171–190. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fennell, D.A. Exploring the Boundaries of a New Moral Order for Tourism’s Global Code of Ethics: An Opinion Piece on the Position of Animals in the Tourism Industry. J. Sustain. Tour. 2014 , 22 , 983–996. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Yudina, O.; Grimwood, B.S.R. Situating the Wildlife Spectacle: Ecofeminism, Representation, and Polar Bear Tourism. J. Sustain. Tour. 2016 , 24 , 715–734. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Di Minin, E.; Soutullo, A.; Bartesaghi, L.; Rios, M.; Szephegyi, M.N.; Moilanen, A. Integrating Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Socio-Economic Data to Identify Priority Areas and Landowners for Conservation Actions at the National Scale. Biol. Conserv. 2017 , 206 , 56–64. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Lorimer, J. Nonhuman Charisma. Environ. Plan. D Soc. Space 2007 , 25 , 911–932. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Collard, R.-C. Animal Traffic: Making, Remaking, And Unmaking Commodities in Global Live Wildlife Trade ; University of British Columbia: Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2020; p. 227. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ko, T.G. Development of a Tourism Sustainability Assessment Procedure: A Conceptual Approach. Tour. Manag. 2005 , 26 , 431–445. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Gibson, R.B. Sustainability Assessment: Basic Components of a Practical Approach. Impact Assess. Proj. Apprais. 2006 , 24 , 170–182. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Torres-Delgado, A.; Saarinen, J. Using Indicators to Assess Sustainable Tourism Development: A Review. Tour. Geogr. 2014 , 16 , 31–47. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fennell, D.A. A Content Analysis of Ecotourism Definitions. Curr. Issues Tour. 2001 , 4 , 403–421. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations: The Cape Town Declaration. 2002. Available online: https://responsibletourismpartnership.org/cape-town-declaration-on-responsible-tourism/ (accessed on 1 March 2024).
• Kline, C.S.; Hoarau-Heemstra, H.; Cavaliere, C.T. Wildlife Equity Theory for Multispecies Tourism Justice. J. Travel Res. 2023 , 62 , 1167–1180. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Keeling, L.; Tunón, H.; Olmos Antillón, G.; Berg, C.; Jones, M.; Stuardo, L.; Swanson, J.; Wallenbeck, A.; Winckler, C.; Blokhuis, H. Animal Welfare and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Front. Vet. Sci. 2019 , 6 , 336. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Shani, A.; Pizam, A. Towards an Ethical Framework for Animal-based Attractions. Int. J. Contemp. Hosp. Manag. 2008 , 20 , 679–693. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Meijer, E. Sanctuary Politics and the Borders of the Demos: A Comparison of Human and Nonhuman Animal Sanctuaries. Krisis 2021 , 41 , 35–48. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Meijer, E. Political Communication with Animals. Humanimalia 2013 , 5 , 28–52. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Geiger, M.; Hovorka, A.J. Using Physical and Emotional Parameters to Assess Donkey Welfare in Botswana. Vet. Rec. Open 2015 , 2 , e000062. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Palmer, A.; Malone, N.; Park, J. Accessing Orangutans’ Perspectives: Interdisciplinary Methods at the Human/Animal Interface. Curr. Anthropol. 2015 , 56 , 571–578. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Buller, H. Animal Geographies II: Methods. Prog. Hum. Geogr. 2015 , 39 , 374–384. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Philo, C.; Wilbert, C. Animal Spaces, Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations , 1st ed.; Taylor and Francis: Florence, Italy, 2004; ISBN 978-0-203-00488-3. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kymlicka, W.; Donaldson, S. Animal Rights, Multiculturalism, and the Left: Animal Rights, Multiculturalism, and the Left. J. Soc. Philos. 2014 , 45 , 116–135. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Guia, J. Conceptualizing Justice Tourism and the Promise of Posthumanism. J. Sustain. Tour. 2021 , 29 , 503–520. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Jamal, T.; Higham, J. Justice and Ethics: Towards a New Platform for Tourism and Sustainability. J. Sustain. Tour. 2021 , 29 , 143–157. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Thomsen, B.; Thomsen, J.; Copeland, K.; Coose, S.; Bryan, H.; Prokop, K.; Cullen, K.; Vaughn, C.; Rodriguez, B.; Muha, R.; et al. Multispecies Livelihoods: A Posthumanist Approach to Wildlife Ecotourism That Promotes Animal Ethics ; Taylor & Francis: Abingdon, UK, 2021; p. 1. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mellor, D.J.; Beausoleil, N.J.; Littlewood, K.E.; McLean, A.N.; McGreevy, P.D.; Jones, B.; Wilkins, C. The 2020 Five Domains Model: Including Human–Animal Interactions in Assessments of Animal Welfare. Animals 2020 , 10 , 1870. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Blattner, C.E.; Donaldson, S.; Wilcox, R. Animal Agency in Community ; OJLU: Lund, Sweden, 2020; Volume 6, p. 22. [ Google Scholar ]
• McClellan, K. Becoming Animal People: Empathy Pedagogies and the Contested Politics of Care in Jordanian Animal Welfare Work. Anthropol. Q. 2019 , 92 , 787–815. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Münster, U. Working for the Forest: The Ambivalent Intimacies of Human–Elephant Collaboration in South Indian Wildlife Conservation. Ethnos 2016 , 81 , 425–447. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Nelson, I.L. Interspecies Care and Aging in a Gorilla 2.0 World. Geoforum 2017 , 79 , 144–152. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Ferrie, G.M.; Farmer, K.H.; Kuhar, C.W.; Grand, A.P.; Sherman, J.; Bettinger, T.L. The Social, Economic, and Environmental Contributions of Pan African Sanctuary Alliance Primate Sanctuaries in Africa. Biodivers Conserv 2014 , 23 , 187–201. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Cohen, E. “Buddhist Compassion” and “Animal Abuse” in Thailand’s Tiger Temple. Soc. Anim. 2013 , 21 , 266–283. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Blaer, M. Interactive Webcam Travel: Supporting Wildlife Tourism and Conservation during COVID-19 Lockdowns. Inf. Technol. Tour. 2023 , 25 , 47–69. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Kredens, C.; Vogt, C.A. A User-Generated Content Analysis of Tourists at Wildlife Tourism Attractions. Front. Sustain. Tour. 2023 , 2 , 1090749. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Baynes-Rock, M. Life and Death in the Multispecies Commons. Soc. Sci. Inf. 2013 , 52 , 210–227. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hovorka, A.J. Animal Geographies II: Hybridizing. Prog. Hum. Geogr. 2018 , 42 , 453–462. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Fagot-Largeault, A. Anthropological Physiology: Von Uexküll, Portmann, Buytendijk. In Neurobiology of “Umwelt” How Living Beings Perceive the World ; Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2009; pp. 1–5. [ Google Scholar ]
• Donaldson, S.; Kymlicka, W. Farmed Animal Sanctuaries: The Heart of the Movement? OJLU: Lund, Sweden, 2015. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kontogeorgopoulos, N. Wildlife Tourism in Semi-Captive Settings: A Case Study of Elephant Camps in Northern Thailand. Curr. Issues Tour. 2009 , 12 , 429–449. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Van Patter, L.E.; Hovorka, A.J. ‘Of Place’ or ‘of People’: Exploring the Animal Spaces and Beastly Places of Feral Cats in Southern Ontario. Soc. Cult. Geogr. 2018 , 19 , 275–295. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Wearing, S.L.; Cunningham, P.A.; Schweinsberg, S.; Jobberns, C. Whale Watching as Ecotourism: How Sustainable Is It? Cosmop. Civ. Soc. Interdiscip. J. 2014 , 6 , 38–55. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Berg, C.; Lerner, H.; Butterworth, A.; Walzer, C. Editorial: Wildlife Welfare. Front. Vet. Sci. 2020 , 7 , 576095. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Pyke, G.H.; Szabo, J.K. Conservation and the 4 Rs, Which Are Rescue, Rehabilitation, Release, and Research: Conservation and the 4 Rs. Conserv. Biol. 2018 , 32 , 50–59. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Pyke, G.H.; Szabo, J.K. What Can We Learn from Untapped Wildlife Rescue Databases? The Masked Lapwing as a Case Study. Pac. Conserv. Biol. 2018 , 24 , 148–156. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]

Share and Cite

Speiran, S.I.M.; Hovorka, A.J. Bringing Animals in -to Wildlife Tourism. Sustainability 2024 , 16 , 7155. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16167155

Speiran SIM, Hovorka AJ. Bringing Animals in -to Wildlife Tourism. Sustainability . 2024; 16(16):7155. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16167155

Speiran, Siobhan I. M., and Alice J. Hovorka. 2024. " Bringing Animals in -to Wildlife Tourism" Sustainability 16, no. 16: 7155. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16167155

Article Metrics

Article access statistics, further information, mdpi initiatives, follow mdpi.

Subscribe to receive issue release notifications and newsletters from MDPI journals

• Places - European, Western and Northern Russia

KHANTY-MANSI AUTONOMOUS OKRUG: RUSSIA’S MAIN OIL-PRODUCING REGION

Khanty-mansi autonomous okrug.

Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug is usually called Yugra or Ugra for short. It is named after two indigenous groups native to the region — the Khanty and the Mansi, known collectively as Ob-Ugric people. It covers 534,800 square kilometers (206,500 square miles), is home to about 1.53 million people and has a population density of 2.9 people per square kilometer. About 91.5 percent of the population live in urban areas. Khanty-Mansiysk is the capital, with about 80,000 people. The largest cities are Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk, and Nefteyugansk.

As of the early 2010s, about 51 percent of the oil produced in Russia and 7.3 percent of the world’s supply came from Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, making the region very important economically. More than 10 billion tons of oil has been was recovered from the okrug’s fields so far . The okrug contains around 70 percent of Russia’s developed oil fields, about 450 in total, including Samotlor, which is the largest oil field in Russia and the sixth largest in the world. Gas was first found in the region in 1953 and oil began to be produced in 1960.

As far as tourism is concerned this autonomous okrug combines unique historical, cultural and natural resources, the most important of which is the way of life of its indigenous peoples. If you visit a nomad camp, you can ride on a reindeer sleigh, live in a chum tent, learn to harness a deer, ride a sled and taste stroganina (slices of frozen meat) and patanka (thinly sliced frozen fish). In the Sub-Arctic Ural Mountains, it is popular to climb Mount Narodnaya — the highest peak of the Urals — and go fishing.

The winter in Khanty-Mansiysk is cold. Snow lies on the ground about 200 days of the year and temperature of -50 degrees, C are not unusual. The summer are short but sometimes can get surprisingly hot, with temperature over 30 degree heat. The best time to visit is May or or September, when it is not yet cold and the annoying mosquitos, no-see-ums and midges are not out in full force.

Getting There: By Plane: The flight Moscow or St. Petersburg to Khanty-Mansiysk is about three hours. To Surgut, three and a half. To Nizhnevartovsk, four hours. The cost of an adult round-trip economy class ticket is from 8,000 to 12,000 rubles, depending on the airline. The airport of Nizhnevartovsk. Website: /nvavia.ru. Phone +7 (3466) 49-21-75. By Train: you can reach Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk, Yugorsk, Nyagan and Kogalym. Trains do not reach Khanty-Mansiysk. The nearest station to it, Demyanka, is located 240 kilometers away. From it to the capital of Ugra there are minibuses. A round-trip ticket for a berth in a compartment from Moscow to Surgut is 14,000 rubles. The trip takes two days.

By Car: Two roads lead to Yugra. The main one is the Federal highway R404 Tyumen-Khanty-Mansiysk. This is convenient if you are going to the eastern part of the okrug. If you need to go to the western part or to the capital, it is better to go by the Northern route — through Perm, Serov, Ivdel and Yugorsk. The road quality on both routes is pretty good, but there is much less traffic on the northern one. If you are traveling in Ugra by car, do not forget to refueling. The distances gas stations can reach 200 kilometers or more. It is a good idea to have a canister of fuel in the trunk just in case. Regional Transport By Bus: From Khanty-Mansiysk to Surgut is 300 kilometers, Bus tickets range from 1100 to 1400 rubles. From Surgut to Nizhnevartovsk — 220 kilometers — bu bus costs about 1000 rubles. From Surgut to Kogalym — 80 kilometers — is about 500 rubles. The bus station in Nizhnevartovsk. Website: www.nvav.ru. Phone: 8 (3466) 45-72-97.

Accommodation in the Region: In all major cities there are a lot of hotels. The level of service is high everywhere, but the prices are also high: starting from 5,000-6,000 rubles for a standard price double room. It is much cheaper to rent apartments, at 1,500 to 2,500 rubles.

Khanty and Mansi

The Khanty (pronounced HANT-ee) are a group of Finno-Ugric-speaking, semi-nomadic reindeer herders. Also known as Ostyaks, Asiakh, and Hante they are related to the Mansi, another group of Finno-Ugric-speaking reindeer herders. Only about 60 percent of Khanty speak their native language and a much smaller percentage live in the forest. In the Khanty-Mansiisk District they are fa r outnumbered by other ethnic groups. [Source: John Ross, Smithsonian; Alexander Milovsky, Natural History, December, 1993]

There are about 23,000 Khanty. They live primarily in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug , a region along the northern tributaries of the Ob River in northwestern Siberia about 1,100 miles northwest of Moscow and 200 mile south of the Arctic Circle. Their cousins, the Mansi, also live there. The region has been damaged by oil and natural gas exploration and production.

The Mansi, known in the old days as the Voguls, are close relatives of the Khanty and live primarily in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.. There are around 8,000 or so Mansi. The Mansi have traditionally survived by fishing, hunting and gathering, The hunting methods they employed and the animals they went after was determined by what was available. Often they relied chiefly on fishing and dried enough fish during the summer to last through the winter. They hunted elk, bears, wild reindeer with spears, bows and arrows and traps until the 19th century when the began using firearms. Elk were caught with a system of traps and triggered bows.

Many Mansi still hunt. They use dogs and firearms and go chiefly after muskrats and squirrels. Sable are hunted with nets and guns by a pair of hunters: one who flushes the sable from its den into the net and the other who shoots the animal. Their traditional religion is often aimed at securing a successful hunt.

KHANTY factsanddetails.com ;

Oil and Natural Gas in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug

Oil was prospected in the West Siberia from the beginning of the 20th century. Local people reported finding discharges on the surface from time to time. The first Soviet prospectors arrived to Ugra in 1935. They confirmed the presence of natural oil seeps on the Ugan river in the Surgut area. Over 2.5 tons of equipment were delivered to the drilling pad by air. Other supplies were hauled by horses, since the nearest railroad ran about 1,000 km away from the prospecting site. The place was very remote and was only accessible during the winter. The early workers lived in a camp under extremely cold conditions. [Source: Technologies Department of Ugra]

In 1953, natural gas was found for the first time in Western Siberia, in Berezovo, about 300 kilometers northwest of Khanty-Mansiysk. in Berezovo. In 1960 the first oil was found in the vicinity of Shaim. Soon after oil fields were discovered in Megion, West Surgut, Pokur, Vatinsky, Mamontovo, Salym, Pravdino and other places. The biggest discovery was in 1965, when the first oil gushed out from the marshland at Samotlor. One of the largest oil fields in the world, it has already produced 2.67 billion tons of oil.

Oil quality in the region is quite high. Some is light, some is black, but most of it is brown. Its characteristics and composition can differ significantly even within the same field. In 2013 255.1 million tons of oil were produced in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and eight new fields were brought into development. Total gas production in Ugra was 33,0 billion cubic meters in 2013. This was mostly associated petroleum gas.

Owing to its explored and proven raw hydrocarbons resources, production capabilities, industrial infrastructure and oil fields commercial viability Yugra will remain Russia’s main strategic raw hydrocarbons resource base for the next several decades. Over 475 oil and gas fields have been discovered in the territory of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. Total length of the region's pipelines network is 107,000 kilometers.

Ob River (flowing northeast of Novosibirsk and Tomsk) is the forth longest river in the world if you include its major tributary the Irtysh River and the seventh longest without it. The westernmost of three great rivers of Asiatic Russia, the Ob is 3,650 kilometers (2,270 miles) long and is an important commercial waterway that transports goods back and forth between the Trans-Siberian Railway and the resource rich regions of northern Siberia. Since it is frozen over half the year activity on the river is concentrated mostly in the summer months. The Ob-Irtysh is over 5570 kilometers (3461 miles) long

The Ob and the Irtysh River begin in the Altay Mountains, a range located near where Russia, China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia all come together, and flow northward. Although the Ob and the Irtysh begin at points within a couple of hundred miles of one another the two rivers don't join until the Irytysh has traveled over 1,600 kilometers (1000 miles). Once the two rivers have dropped down out of the highlands the meander lazily through open steppes, then rich farmland, and meet in flat, swampy plains, where the width of river ranges between a half a kilometer and a kilometer and a half. The Ob then passes through fir and spruce forests of West Siberia, then through Arctic tundra before finally emptying into the Kara Sea, an arm of the Arctic Ocean. The Ob is one of the great Asiatic Russian rivers (the Yenisei and the Lena are the other two). According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it has the longest estuary (550 miles long and up to 50 miles wide) and is widest river that freezes solid. The mouth of the river on the Arctic Ocean is ice free only a couple of months a year. Huge flood sometimes form in the spring when high waters fed by melting snow and ice meet still frozen section of the river.

The main city on the Ob is Novosibirsk. Parts of the Ob are very polluted and nearly void of life. At the mouth of the river so much land has been degraded by gas exploration that huge chunks of permafrost land have literally melted into the sea. [Source: Robert Paul Jordan, National Geographic, February 1978, ♬]

Traveling on the Ob and Irtysh Rivers

There is a regualr ferry the Ob and Irtysh Rivers that travels between Omsk – Tobolsk – Khanty-Mansiysk – Berezovo and Salekhard (Yamal Nenets Autonomous Region). Omsk and Tobolsk both have train stations on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Khanti-Mansiysk is accessible by bus from Tyumen, which has a train station. After Khanti-Mansiysk you are beyond the road network. As well as the major stops listed on the route above, the boat also stops at plenty of isolated indigenous villages in between them. Salekhard is the only city in the world located exactly on the Arctic Circle.

The name of the ferry is the Rodina. It travels three times a month in June and September and four times a month in July and August. Going from Salekhard to Omsk: Day 1): departs Salekhard at 5:00pm; Dat 2) stops at Berezovo for 30 minutes ay 7:30pm; Day 3) stops at Oktobraskaya Market for one hour. Day 4) stops at Khanty-Mansiysk for two hours at 8:00am; Day 6) one hour stop in Tobolsk at 7:30. Day 9) arrive in Omsk at 3:00pm. Traveling the other direction, with the current, takes one third less time.

On the Salekhard - Tobolsk - Omsk trip on person posted on Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree forum in 2013: “I'll start by saying that this boat is amazingly good value for money. Here some example prices. The first is for beds in the common area, similar to platzkart on the train, the second is for a bed in a private 4-, 6-, or 8 bed cabin and the third is for a bed in a private 2 bed cabin. 1) Salekhard - Omsk (8 days): 1162 / 1437 / 3926 roubles; 2) Salekhard - Tobolsk (5 days): 774 / 969 / 2632 roubles; 3) Tobolsk - Khanty-Mansiysk (2 days): 429 / 526 / 1394 roubles. Children go half price!

“Tickets can be bought in advance at the airport in Salekhard or on the boat itself an hour before departure (it's apparently never full). Most people get off at one of the stops in the first 24 hours when going south from Salekhard, leaving only one or two people in most of the cabins for most of the route. The beds are comfortable , both longer and wider than on trains. Everything is cleaned several times a day, there's a shower, laundry, restaurant with simple but tasty meals and alcohol. Breakfast about 70 roubles, lunch and dinner 150 - 300, beer 50 - 80, wine, vodka and so on also available. Theres also a small room where films are shown starting in the afternoon and a shop selling all sorts of useful stuff such as toiletries, mugs, books.

“You can walk around on deck as much as you want or sit and read a book on the benches up there. The scenery is more or less the same all the way - endless taiga forest with absolutely no sign of civilisation. There are a few villages such as Pitlyar for which the boat is their only access to the outside world and a couple of towns where you can get off the boat and walk around - Beryozovo 24 hours after Salekhard and Khanty-Manskiysk 3 days from Salekhard. From Khanty Mansiysk there are regular buses to Tyumen on the Trans Siberian which take 8 hours. At Tobolsk the boat stops next to the stunning kremlin, the only one in Siberia.

“Anyone can freely sail the whole route between Omsk and Pitlyar, a small village of 500 and the last stop before Salekhard. Salekhard and areas north are closed to outsiders, Russian or otherwise, unless they get a temporary permit. See the Yamal Peninsula link in my signature line for how to get this permit. Permit in hand, you can continue the journey north from Salekhard a further two days to Antipayuta, well beyond the Arctic Circle, with a similar level of comfort and price.

“It sails the whole route from June to September and once in October from Khanty-Mansiysk to Omsk. Check www.irsc.ru for timetables and fares. Only about half the boats from Salekhard go as far as Omsk, the rest stopping in Tobolsk. Eg in July and August, the most frequent sailing months, 6 boats go from Salekhard - Tobolsk each month but only 3 continue to Omsk. Check the timetable carefully when planning if you want to sail all the way to Omsk!”

Khanty-Mansiysk City

Khanty-Mansiysk is the capital of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug and home to about 80,000 people. Despite its remote location and relatively small size, it has a Norman Foster skyscraper, world-leading medical center that is free and has hosted international film festivals, major sports events and political summits. How is this possible?: Oil wealth and close ties between local politicians and Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t hurt.

Khanty Mansiysk has showy headquarters for Russia’s main oil companies: Rosneft, Lukoil and Gazprom-Neft. Not far away enormous drilling towers rise and gas flares burn above the birch forests and pipelines cut through the landscape. Around 90 percent of the city’s economic revenues are tied directly to the oil and gas industries.

The city is located in a picturesque area of the West Siberian lowland, where steep hills overgrown with age-old dwarf pine, rise up from the right bank of the mighty Irtysh River. Two of the largest rivers of Siberia — the Irtysh and the Ob — merge twenty kilometers from the city. Not far from town the “Coniferous Urman” ski complex with a cable car. The cedar forest of the Samarovsky Chugas Park has trails for cross-country skiing and hiking. For children there is a water park and a small zoo in the village of Shapsha 20 kilometers from the city. In the summer, there are boat tours to the confluence of the Ob and Irtysh, where you can see the floating chapel-lighthouse.

Places of interest to tourists the gold domes of the Church of Christ’s Resurrection; the gallery of the artist Gennady Raishev; the Geology, Oil and Gas Museum, which traces the history of Western Siberian oil and gas development; and the open-air Archeopark, which has bronze sculptures of Pleistocene animals like mammoths and woolly rhinosl a sporting venue that hosts international ice and skiing events. A new triple concert hall dominates the center of the town. Servicing villages that cannot be reached by road, is an ultra-modern hospital ship that cruises Ob and Irtish rivers treating the sick on board. Complex operations are supervised by surgeons from the central hospital in Khanty-Mansiysk using TV monitors that relay pictures by satellite.

Accommodation: There are several hotels of different levels in Khanty-Mansiysk. The best service and, accordingly, the highest prices at the Ugra valley Valley Complex. At the Tarey business hotel prices start from 4800 rubles per night; at the Olympics Hotel, from 3000 rubles per night. If you want to save money, it is better to rent an apartment: a one-bedroom can be found in the area of 1500 rubles per day.

History of Khanty-Mansiysk City

The first written mention of the town of the Khanty Prince Samara, where the modern city of Khanty-Mansiysk is located, dates back to 1582. In 1637, a settlement of Russian coachmen was formed in the place of this town. It was named after the Prince Samara — Samarovsky Yam.

By the beginning of the 19th century, Samarovsky Yam turned into a large village of Samarovo and became the center of crafts and trade thanks to the favourable location on the river trade routes. In 1931, a few kilometers from the village of Samarovo, a workers settlement Ostyako-Vogulsk was built, which became the district center of the Ostyako-Vogulsk national district. The settlement began to be built up with new industrial enterprises, administrative buildings, apartment houses, public and cultural institutions. By the end of 1950s, pebble roads were laid in the settlement.

In 1940, Ostyako-Vogulsk was renamed Khanty-Mansiysk, and the district was renamed Khanty-Mansiysk, since at that time Ostyak tribes began to be called Khanty, and Voguls tribes — Mansi. In 1950, Khanty-Mansiysk received the status of a city, including Samarovo village. Since 1977, Khanty-Mansiysk has become the administrative center of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug formed from the national district.

Sights in Khanty-Mansiysk

Torum Maa Open Air Museum (Ulitsa Sobyanina, 20, Khanty-Mansiysk) is located on one of the seven holy hills, in the Samarovsky Churas Nature Park, and features authentically reconstructed buildings and dwelling of indigenous peoples of the North, including a Mansi winter camp and traditional Khanty residential and household structures dating to the early-mid-19th century. You can learn more about hunting culture of the Khanty and Mansi on a special hiking trail.

At the museum you can find a 15th-17th century smithy, reconstructed using materials from archaeological excavations of Emder city; displays of idols and protectors of this land. The museum is especially active during traditional holidays of the Ob river Ugric people when Khanty and Mansi come from all over to celebrate. The most popular of these are: Tylasch pori (the Rite of Offering to the Moon), which takes place in February or March when the moon is waxing; Crow Day, which symbolizes the beginning of spring and is celebrated in April; the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, which is celebrated globally on August 9; and the main holiday for the museum staff and visitors — the anniversary of the Torum Maa Museum on October 30.

Archeopark Cultural and Tourist Complex (in Khanty-Mansiysk) covers 3.5 hectares near a rock outcropping and includes a geological monument, the Samarov Villiage Archaeological Monument (dating from the 11th-18th centuries), and a the Sculpture Park with giant bronze sculptures of mammoths and other Pleistocene-era animals and Paleolithic humans.

The park was set up where the bones of mammoths and other pre-historic animals have been found. The first large bones and tusks were found in the 19th century, when the northern region came to be called the “elephant homeland.” For local inhabitants, the archaeological findings along the river banks were not so uncommon. The bones had been in demand as a decorative material and therapeutic powder.

All the sculptures were created in cooperation with paleontologists, who made sure that the ancient inhabitants of this area look as authentic as possible. Some of the sculptures, for instance, rhinoceroses, were made in life size, while others are two to three times larger. The height of the largest sculpture in the Mammoth composition is eight meters. The sculptures are lit up at night. The little mammoth is named KoJourka. The sculpture probably has the world's only sign that prohibits mammoth climbing.

Sights Near Khanty-Mansiysk City

Floating Chapel-Beacon in Honor of Saint Nicholas (20 kilometers Khanty-Mansiysk) opened in 2013 near the confluence of two mighty Siberian rivers — the Ob and Irtysh. Blessed by Bishop Pavel of Khanty-Mansiysk and Surgut and consecrated by Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus, it is Russia's first floating chapel-lighthouse. The chapel is eight meters high, it weighs 10 tons and is fixed on a pontoon. Below the cross crowning the chapel there is a beacon light. There are eight illuminated alcoves with icons. The chapel is not intended to hold a service inside. Only maintenance personnel looking after the power supply can moor to it.

Originally the idea of building the chapel was suggested by S. Sandulov, president of the local branch of the Association of Ports and River Transport Owners. For river transport workers the Ob-Irtysh confluence is a special place. And for the local people — Khanty and Mansi — this is a sacred area. However, for a long time there was no monument or sign to mark the place. At the confluence of the Ob and Irtysh people have traditionally made a wish by throwing a coin into the water. The water here is considered to be sacred and many tourists wash themselves with the water of the two rivers.

Silava Ethnographic Center (near Uray, 250 kilometers east of Khanty-Mansiysk) and the Ela Hoth community of indigenous peoples "was founded in 2008 to preserve features of the traditional culture and way of life on the site of the former village of New Silava. Visitors can participate in Mansi ceremonies and celebrations and Mansi cooking and engage in recreational activities such as skiing, sledding, tubing, ice sliding and riding a snowmobile "Buran" in the winter; and pick mushrooms, berries, medicinal plants and go boating in the summer. The center may difficult to get to.

Swimming is possible in the cold Konda River. You can also go hiking on eco-trails and participate in various types of fishing and children's entertainment programs. The community has assembled a small museum of household items and fishing items. You can see how fishing camps were set up and a functioning bread oven and a machine for weaving mats and try grinding flour at the mill and baking bread.

Priobskoye Field

The Priobskoye field (65 kilometers east of Khanty-Mansiysk, and 100 kilometers west of Nefteyugansk) is an oil field that occupies an area of 5,466 square kilometers (2,110 square miles. It is located along both banks of the Ob River, and is serviced by the town of

The field was discovered in 1982. The northern three-quarters of the field was controlled by YUKOS via unit Yuganskneftegaz, and began oil production in 2000. In 2004, Yuganskneftegaz was bought by Rosneft, which is now the operating company of that portion of the field. The southern quarter of the field was controlled by Sibir energy, which began a joint venture with Sibneft to develop the field, with volume production beginning in 2003. Sibneft subsequently acquired complete control of the field via a corporate maneuver to dilute Sibir's holding. Sibneft is now majority controlled by Gazprom and renamed Gazprom Neft.

In 2007, the field was producing 675,000 barrels per day: 550,000 barrels per day in the northern Rosneft area and 125,000 barrels per day in the southern Gazprom Neft area. For 2008, Rosneft reported a growth of production to 680,000 barrels per day, while Gazpromneft's share grew slightly. In 2009, Gazprom Neft produced 160,000 barrels per day in its share of the field. In September 2019, Russia’s finance ministry approved tax breaks for developing the Priobskoye oilfield, Russia’s largest, to oil giants Rosneft and Gazprom Neft, Alexei Sazano.

Surgut (300 kilometers east of Khanty-Mansiysk by road) located on the Ob River and is one of the few cities in Russia that has a larger population than the capital of its federal subject. It is home to about 375,000 people compared to 80,000 in Khanty-Mansiysk. Surgut is home to the largest port on the Ob River, the largest road-railway junction in northwest Siberia. Two of the world's most powerful power plants — the SDPP-1 (State District Power Plant 1) and SDPP-2 (State District Power Plant 2), which produce over 7,200 megawatts — are also there supply most of the region with relatively cheap electricity.

Surgut's economy is tied to oil production (the city is known as "The Oil Capital of Russia") and the processing of natural gas. The most important enterprises are the oil firm Surgutneftegaz and Surgutgazprom (a unit of Gazprom). The Surgut-2 Power Station providing Energy for the city is the largest gas-fired power station in the world. In addition, there are factories: gas processing, stabilization of condensate, motor fuel. Enterprises food (meat processing, dairy, etc.) industry, timber industry. Manufacture of building materials (production of reinforced concrete structures, etc.).

The city is served by the Surgut International Airport, which offers flights to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Dubai, Irkutsk, and a number of other cities. Through Surgut are trains to the east (in Novy Urengoy, Nizhnevartovsk), to the south-west (in Tyumen, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Ufa, Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg). Road P-404 connects Surgut with Tyumen. Places to stay in Surgut include the Ob, Den, Ark, and Center hotels

Old Surgut is a historical and ethnographic complex with 14 restored copies of wooden houses that once stood in the city. Among them “house of nature”, “House of local historian”, “house of Cossacks”, “House of indigenous peoples of the North” and others. Every winter, the center hosts a festival of ice sculptures.

Barsova Mountain Tract (west of Surgut) is located he state natural and archaeological park. Barosova Gora stretches for eight kilometers along the right Bank of the Ob river. Along the tract there are remains of ancient buildings, sanctuaries, burial grounds, some dating back to the Stone Age. In total, there are more than 400 archaeological sites on Barsova Mountain. It is better to visit this place in the summer or early autumn. The standard tour lasts about three hours.

Nefteyugansk

Nefteyugansk(30 kilometers west of Surgut) is located to south of the Ob River and is home to about 125,000, people. It was founded on October 16, 1967, after an oil field had been discovered on a small forest clearing in the middle of the taiga marshland in 1961. The main and the only big enterprise in the city, Yuganskneftegaz, was founded in February 1966. The name 'Yugansk' comes from the indigenous Khanty name of a small river near the city, neft' means oil in Russian, and gaz is natural gas.

The economy of the city remains petroleum-based, and was a major center for the Russian oil enterprise YUKOS, which owned Yuganskneftegaz. In fact, the "Yu" in "YUKOS" comes from the "yu" in "Nefteyugansk" and therefore from "Yuganskneftegaz". The other three letters come from the oil-refining factory "Kuibyshev-Org-Sintez", situated in Samara.

Nefteyugansk has been at the center of violence and drama involving YUKOS. On June 26, 1998, city mayor Vladimir Petukhov was shot dead on the way to his office. Before his murder, Petukhov had been on a hunger strike demanding that the chairmen of municipal and district tax offices be dismissed from their positions and a criminal case against Yukos be filed on counts of tax evasion. Petukhov's widow later on called for an investigation into Mikhail Khodorkovsky's role in events. Back then Khodorkovsky was head of Yukos. On September 20, 2005 Dmitry Yegortsev, acting mayor of Nefteyugansk, was assaulted and wounded with a knife. After the stabbing of Yegortsev, Igor Gribanov took over City Hall as acting mayor. Just a few months later, he died of carbon monoxide poisoning at his home on January 6, 2006. Since January 2005, Yuganskneftegaz has been owned by the state-owned oil company Rosneft. [Source: Wikipedia]

Hay Al Ruv Ethnographic Center of Indigenous Peoples of the North is an 1.5-hectare open air ethnographic which recreates the Khanty camp and has a house, storage shed, traditional tent, "red" tent for visitors and a bread oven.

Nizhnevartovsk

Nizhnevartovsk (220 kilometers east of Surgut) is home to about 250,000 people. Since the 1960s, the town has grown rapidly in the coat-tails of the Western Siberian oil boom due to its location beside the Samotlor oil field along the right bank of the Ob River. The presence of the petroleum industry has made it one of the wealthiest cities in Russia. Accommodation is available at the Hope, Aviator, Venice and Waters hotels.

Nizhnevartovsk is situated in the Sredneobskaya Lowland of West Siberian Plain, in the middle course of the Ob River on its northern bank. It remained a relatively small settlement until the 1960s when the Soviet authorities began widespread prospecting for the petroleum industry in the Western Siberia region, discovering the Samotlor oil field, one of the largest oil fields in the world, beneath the nearby Lake Samoltor to the north of Nizhnevartovsk. During the early boomtown years, Komsomol volunteers were brought in from across the country to construct the city, whose population soared from 2300 people in 1959 to 15,663 in 1970.

Lake Samotlor is the home of the massive Samotlor oil field. A visit to the lake is part of a local oil tour, during which you can see how oil is produced, and study the history of the development of fields in Western Siberia. Tourists visit the Samotlor oil field, the school of drilling masters and eat in the dining room with the oilmen. The tours are hard to arrange on the spot, They need to booked in advance through a travel company. Oil tours can be combined with a visit to a Khanty camp.

Samotlor Field

Samotlor Field (near Nizhnevartovsk) is the largest oil field of Russia and the sixth largest in the world. Owned and operated by Rosneft, it is located at Lake Samotlor in Nizhnevartovsk district and covers 1,752 square kilometers (676 square miles). The field was discovered in 1965; development began in 1967 and first oil was produced in 1969. Nearby Nizhnevartovsk went from being a small village into a booming oil city as Samotlor became the most important oil production base of the Soviet Union. After breakup of the Soviet Union the field was owned by Samotlorneftgaz and TNK-Nizhnevartovsk, which later formed TNK-BP.

At Samotlor Field a total of 2,086 well clusters (containing more than 17,000 wells) have been built and about 2.6 billion tons of oil has been produced. The peak production occurred in 1980 when Samotlor produced 158.9 million tons of oil. Production has been in decline ever since, although according to TNK-BP the field production has stabilized over the past few years.

The proven reserves are approximately 44 billion barrels. The field is 80 percent depleted with water-cut exceeding 90 percent. At the end of the 1990s, production rate dropped to 300,000 barrels per day. However, through an aggressive exploration program and application of cutting-edge technologies TNK-BP had raised production up to 750,000 barrels per day. TNK-BP plans to invest US$1 billion per year for maintaining oil production at the level of 30 million tons per year. The production of oi in 2012 was 332,782 barrels per day. The estimated oil in place is 4 billion barrels. The oil comes from Cretaceous formations.

Ural Mountains

Ural Mountains are the traditional dividing line between Europe and Asia and have been a crossroads of Russian history. Stretching from Kazakhstan to the fringes of the Arctic Kara Sea, the Urals lie almost exactly along the 60 degree meridian of longitude and extend for about 2,000 kilometers (1,300 miles) from north to south and varies in width from about 50 kilometers (30 miles) in the north and 160 kilometers (100 miles) the south. At kilometers 1777 on the Trans-Siberian Railway there is white obelisk with "Europe" carved in Russian on one side and "Asia" carved on the other.

The eastern side of the Urals contains a lot of granite and igneous rock. The western side is primarily sandstone and limestones. A number of precious stones can be found in the southern part of the Urals, including emeralds. malachite, tourmaline, jasper and aquamarines. The highest peaks are in the north. Mount Narodnaya is the highest of all but is only 1884 meters (6,184 feet) high. The northern Urals are covered in thick forests and home to relatively few people.

Like the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States, the Urals are very old mountains — with rocks and sediments that are hundreds of millions years old — that were one much taller than they are now and have been steadily eroded down over millions of years by weather and other natural processes to their current size. According to Encyclopedia Britannica: “The rock composition helps shape the topography: the high ranges and low, broad-topped ridges consist of quartzites, schists, and gabbro, all weather-resistant. Buttes are frequent, and there are north–south troughs of limestone, nearly all containing river valleys. Karst topography is highly developed on the western slopes of the Urals, with many caves, basins, and underground streams. The eastern slopes, on the other hand, have fewer karst formations; instead, rocky outliers rise above the flattened surfaces. Broad foothills, reduced to peneplain, adjoin the Central and Southern Urals on the east.

“The Urals date from the structural upheavals of the Hercynian orogeny (about 250 million years ago). About 280 million years ago there arose a high mountainous region, which was eroded to a peneplain. Alpine folding resulted in new mountains, the most marked upheaval being that of the Nether-Polar Urals...The western slope of the Urals is composed of middle Paleozoic sedimentary rocks (sandstones and limestones) that are about 350 million years old. In many places it descends in terraces to the Cis-Ural depression (west of the Urals), to which much of the eroded matter was carried during the late Paleozoic (about 300 million years ago). Found there are widespread karst (a starkly eroded limestone region) and gypsum, with large caverns and subterranean streams. On the eastern slope, volcanic layers alternate with sedimentary strata, all dating from middle Paleozoic times.”

The fauna of the vertebrate animals in the Reserve includes 19 fish, 5 amphibian and 5 reptile. Among the 48 mammal species are elks, roe deer, boars, foxes, wolves, lynxes, badgers, common weasels, least weasels, forest ferrets, Siberian striped weasel, common marten, American mink. Squirrels, beavers, muskrats, hares, dibblers, moles, hedgehogs, voles are quite common, as well as chiropterans: pond bat, water bat, Brandt's bat, whiskered bat, northern bat, long-eared bat, parti-coloured bat, Nathusius' pipistrelle. The 174 bird bird species include white-tailed eagles, honey hawks, boreal owls, gnome owls, hawk owls, tawny owls, common scoters, cuckoos, wookcocks, common grouses, wood grouses, hazel grouses, common partridges, shrikes, goldenmountain thrushes, black- throated loons and others.

Mount Narodnaya: the Highest Mountain in the Urals

Mount Narodnaya (700 kilometers northwest of Khanty-Mansiysk) is the highest mountain in the Urals. Also known as Naroda and Poenurr and "People's Mountain", it is 1,894 meters (6,214 feet) high. It lies in in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug but is only 500 meters east from the border of Komi Republic. The name is derived from the nearby Naroda River.

Mount Narodnaya is the highest point in European Russia outside the Caucasus and rises 1,772 meters (5,814 ft) above the landscape. Narodnaya is located in the Ural mountains water divide, and therefore on the border between Europe and Asia: The mountain is formed with quartzites and metamorphosed slates of the Proterozoic Eon and Cambrian Period. There are some glaciers on the mountain. Also, there are sparse forests of larch and birch in the deep valleys at the foot of the mountain. The slopes of the mountain are covered with highland tundra.

Mount Narodnaya was identified in 1927. If you ascend from the territory of Ugra, you first need to get to the village of Saranpaul (by helicopter from Berezovo, in the winter you can snowmobile), then about 180 kilometers to overcome by all-terrain transport to the camp site “Desired”, where you can climb Narodnaya and Manaragu. The cost of the tour, depending on the time of year, transport and service varies from 15,000 to 200,000 rubles, with a lot of the cost depending on whether you use a helicopter or not..

The easiest route to the summit is a technically easy hike on the moderate north-west slope. Depending on snow and ice conditions, crampons may be required. The south wall of Narodnaya is steeper and less commonly used to reach the summit. Accommodation: The cost of living at the camp site “Desired” — from 2300 rubles per day. In the forest in tent-for free.

Numto Natural Park

The Numto Natural Park (400 kilometers north of Surgut) is in the center of the Western-Siberian plain. The park covers 7,217 square kilometers and was created in 1997 to preserve the unique natural complexes of the Siberian Uvaly and protect the places where the the northern Khanty and forest Nenets live and work. The area is also inhabited by many animals and birds included osprey, white-tailed eagle, golden eagle, red-footed falcon, gyrfalcon, and others.

Because of its remoteness and difficulty to access, the Numto lake area remained a “blank space” during the development of Siberia. It was explored properly only in the early 20th century. It was first described by A. Dunin-Gorkavitch, who reached the place with reindeer teams in November 1901. He wrote: “Thus, during this journey I was able to explore the Kazym River and the watersheds of four other rivers: Kazym and Nadym on one side, Pima and Trom-Yugan on the other, as well as the Samoyed Lake Numto, known as “the lake of God”. The lake is located at the following coordinates: 63°30'N 41°30'E. It's oval in shape and has a narrow sandy spit from the northwest”.

The traveler gives a rather detailed description of some of the area's features: “...to the south from the lake, some 35 kilometers away, there is a watershed of four- rivers, from which the Kazym River begins. The watershed area is actually a tundra with huge hills up to 64 meters high with bogs in between. And these very bogs have springs and that is where the rivers Kazym, Nadym, Pim, and Trom-Yugan begin”.

Numto Lake was a kind of a sanctuary for peoples of the northern Ob. It was worshiped like a living creature. Even fishing was prohibited there. Some of these religious bans still exist; for example, it is not permitted to chop ice with an axe, fix anchoring poles in the lake bottom or block the connection between the lake and the Ukhlor Gulf with nets. With the coming of the winter, the Khanty and Nenets people come to Holy Island to offer a deer in sacrifice.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Federal Agency for Tourism of the Russian Federation (official Russia tourism website russiatourism.ru ), Russian government websites, UNESCO, Wikipedia, Lonely Planet guides, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Yomiuri Shimbun and various books and other publications.

Updated in September 2020

•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  Google+
•  e-mail

 Page Top

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of country or topic discussed in the article. This constitutes 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. If you are the copyright owner and would like this content removed from factsanddetails.com, please contact me.

Our Associated Organizations

Our Usefull Links

World Wildlife Fund

Baikal Environmental Wave

• Bahasa Indonesia
• Slovenščina
• Science & Tech
• Russian Kitchen

Khanty-Mansiysk: Why you simply must visit this northern land of mammoths

“I have been to Yugra many times. I was sworn in as a Siberian in a cedar forest,” producer Andrey Suleikov writes in the preface to a collection of legends called Yugra. It’s My Land . “I tasted lingonberries in the cold and could not tell whether the berries were coated in sugar or ice. I also enjoyed outdoor hot springs while taking a traditional Siberian bath." 

Fuel pumping stations

Sounds more like time travel than a present-day tourist trip, doesn’t it? But that is what Yugra is like: a fusion between prehistoric things like mammoths and modernity, which has brought oil, gas and new buildings. Even the region’s official name (which is quite long: the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area – Yugra) combines the present with the past.

Tying a ribbon is a national tradition

There is a beautiful legend about Yugra’s origins. In one very bright, warm and sunny city, twins of unprecedented beauty were born: a brother named Yug and a sister named Ra. At first, they grew up like ordinary small children, but with age they began to argue and fight, so much so that when they did flames flared up around them. The townspeople were afraid that they would burn everything down, so they exiled Yug and Ra to a remote northern land covered with ice and snow. The brother and sister illuminated this land with their light and made it warm so that people could come here to live. Yug and Ra stopped fighting and began living together in harmony. Since then, this northern land has been called Yugra.

When you look at the map, it may seem that Khanty-Mansiysk is located almost in the middle of Russia. However, the climate here is similar to regions of the Far North. In winter, the temperature here drops to below -40 degrees Celsius.

We asked local residents and people who know this region well to tell us more about it and to share some tips for tourists who come to visit.

Why should a foreigner visit Khanty-Mansiysk?

“If you want to feel the coldness and colors of Russian winter, then you should definitely stop by in our small cozy town,” says a local tattoo artist, Semyon Chepurnoy.

A Khanty man in a traditional dress

Yevgeny Zinovyev, a journalist and the former editor-in-chief of a local media outlet, says that Khanty-Mansiysk provides the opportunity to experience a real and not touristy part of Russia. “In winter, there are frosts, snowdrifts and wind. In summer, heat, midges and bears. At any time of the year, you can experience the everyday life and customs of the indigenous peoples: the Khanty and Mansi. And of course, in Khanty-Mansiysk you can get to know the backbone of modern Russia – its oil and gas sector."

“We have unique scenery here. Khanty-Mansiysk is located on seven hills and is surrounded by the taiga. There are a lot of fish in the rivers, and a lot of mushrooms, berries and pine nuts in the forests surrounding the city,” says local insurance company employee Sergey Yankovich.

View of the city and the Irtysh River

The harsh climate of the region influences how local residents relate to visitors. “Residents of the city are very good-natured and welcoming and are always ready to offer help in any situation, even to a stranger, because in the north, there is an unspoken rule: If you see that a person is in distress, be sure to help them, because tomorrow, it may be you in their place. The harsh climate and surrounding scenery leave no room for error, especially in winter,” Sergey says.

Things to see/do/taste in Khanty-Mansiysk

Mammoths at the Archeopark

According to Irina Pudova, a local resident and the author of a collection of legends called Yugra: It’s My land , the first thing to do in Khanty-Mansiysk is to see the local mammoths. Seven life-size bronze prehistoric animals "roam" the area near Samarovsky Hill on the grounds of the Archeopark complex. Here you will also find a prehistoric bison, a pack of wolves, a cave bear, two woolly rhinos and prehistoric people themselves.

Sculptures of bisons at the Archeopark cultural and tourist complex

“Then you could get something to eat,” Irina advises. “The thing to do is to go to any local restaurant of Siberian cuisine and ask for muksun. It is a valuable freshwater fish of the salmon family, which is highly prized by locals and tourists alike.”

Khanty-Mansiysk is a relatively new city and only received this status in 1950. Soo oil was discovered in the region, prompting a dramatic push in its development. Prior to that, there were just Siberian settlements built by Russia in the late 16th century. Irina is impressed that a modern city was built in such harsh conditions.

The Church of the Protection of the Holy Virgin

“Cultural objects, squares, houses - all this is unique. And everything is new, there is nothing very ancient here. Except for mammoths!” she says.

In addition to the Archeopark mentioned above, Yevgeny Zinovyev’s list of favorite places in the city includes the Museum of Geology, Oil and Gas, along with the Museum of Nature and Man and the centuries-old cedars in the Samarovsky Chugas natural park. He recommends checking out the views from the observation deck near the Monument to the Explorers of the Yugra Land and paying a visit to a local bathhouse.

'Red Dragon' bridge over the Irtysh River

Yevgeny also provided us a checklist of culinary delights that anyone visiting Khanty-Mansiysk should be sure to try:

• Muksun (in any form but best of all frozen and sliced as Stroganina).
• Wild berries (cranberry, cowberry, cloudberry).
• Venison (in any form but best of all stewed and sprinkled with frozen berries and pine nuts).

Sergey Yankovich recommends visiting the open-air ethnographic museum Torum Maa, which means "Sacred Land" in Mansi. “There you can get acquainted with the history of the city and the district, as well as with the life of the indigenous peoples of the Khanty and Mansi, who belong to the Finno-Ugric group,” Sergey says.

Torum Maa ethnic center

In addition, he advises anyone who comes to Khanty-Mansiysk to visit the spot where the Ob and Irtysh rivers meet, pay a visit to Misne Hotel’s restaurant and taste traditional dishes there, as well as dishes prepared by local fishermen and hunters while in the taiga.

According to Semyon Chepurnoy, the Valley of Streams natural park is another must for any visitor. It is one of local residents’ favorite recreation areas, where you can stroll along a dedicated footpath offering stunning views of the city. Semyon also advises trying pancakes at the GoodFood chain of cafes.

What are the best souvenirs?

“We all love something mystical and supernatural. There is a strong culture of shamanism here, so I think it’s cool to take with you some local amulets charged by a shaman—a bear claw or a pendant made of beads and deerskin,” says Irina Pudova.

A Khanty woman in the traditional dress selling souvenirs

Sergey Yankovich advises that authentic souvenirs can be found at the Crafts Center on Roznina Street. “There you can also see and even try on the national costumes of the Khanty and Mansi and try to solve traditional puzzles that representatives of the indigenous peoples made for their children.”

According to Yevgeny Zinovyev, the best souvenirs are Khanty and Mansi amulets, clothes, jewelry, as well as traditional local treats such as muksun, wild berries, pine nuts and venison.

Cowberry bush

For his part, Semyon Chepurnoy recommends bringing away memories and photographs as well as a little bit of Siberian Frost ❄.

If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

to our newsletter!

Get the week's best stories straight to your inbox

• 10 main stops on the Trans-Siberian Railway
• Naryan-Mar: Why you should visit this remote Arctic city
• An expat’s confession: Why I miss the city by the Amur – Khabarovsk

This website uses cookies. Click here to find out more.

References provide the information necessary for readers to identify and retrieve each work cited in the text .

Check each reference carefully against the original publication to ensure information is accurate and complete. Accurately prepared references help establish your credibility as a careful researcher and writer.

Consistency in reference formatting allows readers to focus on the content of your reference list, discerning both the types of works you consulted and the important reference elements (who, when, what, and where) with ease. When you present each reference in a consistent fashion, readers do not need to spend time determining how you organized the information. And when searching the literature yourself, you also save time and effort when reading reference lists in the works of others that are written in APA Style.

Academic Writer ®

Master academic writing with APA’s essential teaching and learning resource

Course Adoption

Teaching APA Style? Become a course adopter of the 7th edition Publication Manual

Instructional Aids

Guides, checklists, webinars, tutorials, and sample papers for anyone looking to improve their knowledge of APA Style

• Visit Our Blog about Russia to know more about Russian sights, history
• Check out our Russian cities and regions guides
• Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to better understand Russia
• Info about getting Russian visa , the main airports , how to rent an apartment
• Our Expert answers your questions about Russia, some tips about sending flowers

Russian regions

• Chelyabinsk oblast
• Khanty-Mansi okrug
• Nefteyugansk
• Nizhnevartovsk
• Kurgan oblast
• Sverdlovsk oblast
• Tyumen oblast
• Yamalo-Nenets okrug
• Map of Russia
• All cities and regions
• Blog about Russia
• News from Russia
• How to get a visa
• Flights to Russia
• Russian hotels
• Renting apartments
• Russian currency
• FIFA World Cup 2018
• Submit an article
• Flowers to Russia
• Ask our Expert

Khanty-Mansiysk city, Russia

The capital city of Khanty-Mansi okrug .

Khanty-Mansiysk - Overview

Khanty-Mansiysk is a city in Russia, the administrative center of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Yugra. This is one of the oldest, most beautiful, and unusual cities in Western Siberia. Located on seven hills about 20 kilometers from the confluence of two great Siberian rivers - the Ob and Irtysh, it has a unique natural landscape.

The population of Khanty-Mansiysk is about 106,000 (2022), the area - 10.5 sq. km.

The phone code - +7 3467, the postal codes - 628000-628991.

Khanty-Mansiysk city flag

Khanty-mansiysk city coat of arms.

Khanty-Mansiysk city map, Russia

Khanty-mansiysk city latest news and posts from our blog:.

4 March, 2017 / Khanty-Mansiysk - the view from above .

6 March, 2011 / Khanty-Mansiysk - the capital of the world biathlon for two weeks .

22 November, 2010 / The handicrafts center of Khanty-Mansiysk city .

15 June, 2010 / Khanty-Mansiysk city puppet theater project pictures .

History of Khanty-Mansiysk

Khanty-mansiysk in the 16th-18th centuries.

In May 1582, the Cossacks began a “yasak campaign” (to exact fur tribute from the indigenous peoples of Siberia) along the Ob and Irtysh rivers, and didn’t meet any serious resistance on their way until Samar, the chief prince of the local Khanty (Ostyaks) people, decided to fight back and was killed. The settlement that existed in this territory was plundered and deserted. The full inclusion of Siberia in Russia took another half a century.

In the 1630s, people from other parts of Russia began to arrive in the lower Irtysh to service the postal tracts. In 1635, one of the first official documents was signed on the creation of Samarovsky settlement, which was named after the Khanty Prince of Samar killed here.

In the 17th century, its favorable location at the intersection of important routes allowed Samarovskaya sloboda (settlement) to become a center of trade. Merchants from all over the world brought cloth, velvet, silk, spices, jewelry to Siberia. Russian merchants offered fur, fish, hides, dishes, buttons, gunpowder. A branch of the Tobolsk Customs was opened here, where screening and evaluation of goods were carried out, duties were collected.

In 1708, Samarovo became part of the Siberian Governorate. In the 18th century, the residents of the settlement had to master crafts and production, since Eastern Siberia was joined to Russia and the main trade routes shifted south. The settlement began to be called Samarovo. In 1748, the population of the village was 487 people.

More Historical Facts…

Khanty-Mansiysk in the 19th-20th centuries

In the 19th century, Samarovo began to attract more and more attention from travelers, researchers, and scientists. Edmond Cotteau, a French traveler, wrote: “Samarovo is a beautiful settlement built at the foot of hills covered with dense forest. The church with white domes stands in the middle of it. Previously, the capital of the Ostyak kingdom stood here, but its original residents left it and settled in remote valleys. Now, the only residents here are Russians…”.

At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, Samarovo became a prosperous village with numerous large two-story houses. In 1930, a decree was issued on the organization of the Ostyak-Vogul National District. In 1931, 5 km from Samarovo, construction of the new capital of the region began. It was named Ostyako-Vogulsk. In 1937, a road was built between the new village and Samarovo. Later, it began to be called “Khanty-Mansiysk Street”. In 1938, the population of Ostyako-Vogulsk was about 7.5 thousand people. In 1940, Ostyako-Vogulsk was renamed Khanty-Mansiysk.

In 1950, the village of Khanty-Mansiysk received the status of a town, the village of Samarovo became its part. In 1953, a natural gas field was discovered in the village of Berezovo located north of Khanty-Mansiysk. In 1960, oil was discovered in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. Khanty-Mansiysk began to grow and develop rapidly.

The airport was reconstructed, new apartment buildings, schools, kindergartens, libraries, and a cultural center were built. Thousands of people arrived to develop the oil region. In 1989, the population of Khanty-Mansiysk was about 34.5 thousand people.

The latest history of Khanty-Mansiysk

The beginning of the 1990s was a time of great changes for Khanty-Mansiysk. In 1993, the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug became a subject of the Russian Federation and received the right to independently form its own budget.

Significant funds began to be allocated for the development of the transport and communal infrastructure of the region, for the implementation of social programs aimed at improving the living conditions of the population, preserving the traditional culture of the indigenous peoples of the North.

In 1993, the IV International Folklore Festival of Finno-Ugric Peoples was held in Khanty-Mansiysk. In 1996, a federal highway connected the city with Surgut, Nefteyugansk, and Tyumen.

In 2004, a unique automobile bridge was built over the Irtysh River and the city received reliable communication with Nyagan and other cities of the western part of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Yugra. In 2010, the road built through the village of Gornopravdinsk reduced the distance from Khanty-Mansiysk to Tyumen by 300 kilometers.

In the 2000s, the city as the center of the largest Russian oil and gas region developed rapidly, its population more than tripled. A number of educational and scientific centers, cultural and sports facilities were opened in Khanty-Mansiysk: the Khvoyny Urman ski complex, the Ice Sports Palace, the Ugra-Athletics open stadium for 10,000 spectators, the Center for the Development of Tennis Sports, the cultural tourist complex “Archeopark”, the equestrian club “Mustang”, Yugra Chess Academy, and others.

In June 2008, Khanty-Mansiysk hosted the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples and the V International Festival of Finno-Ugric Peoples Crafts “Yugra-2008”. In September 2010, the 39th World Chess Olympiad was held in Khanty-Mansiysk. About 1.5 thousand chess players from 158 countries arrived here to participate in the most massive sporting event in the history of the city.

Pictures of Khanty-Mansiysk

General view of Khanty-Mansiysk

Author: Sergov

State Art Museum in Khanty-Mansiysk

Author: Igor Timoshok

Sculpture of a woman with a tambourine in Khanty-Mansiysk

Khanty-Mansiysk - Features

Khanty-Mansiysk is located on the territory of the West Siberian Plain in the central part of Western Siberia, on the right bank of the Irtysh River, about 20 kilometers from the confluence with the Ob River; in the natural zone of the taiga. The distance to Tyumen is 669 km, to Moscow - about 2,580 km.

It is the largest of the centers of the autonomous regions of Russia and the only one with a population of more than 100,000 people. At the same time, it is one of the few Russian administrative centers, which is smaller than other cities of the region. Khanty-Mansiysk is only the fourth largest city of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug after Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk, Nefteyugansk.

This city is equated to regions of the Far North and is located in the continental climate zone. The average temperature in January is minus 18.9 degrees Celsius, in July - plus 18.4 degrees Celsius.

In recent years, Khanty-Mansiysk has one of the highest, even by all-Russian standards, population growth rates. The annual growth is about three thousand people. Students and working youth make up more than 30% of its population. The average age of a city resident is about 35 years.

Khanty-Mansiysk is a green city. Almost a third of its territory is occupied by forest. The city is surrounded by Samarovsky Chugas Park - a natural reserve with relict species of conifers. The environmental situation in the city is very favorable, because there are no large industrial enterprises.

The airport of Khanty-Mansiysk offers regular flights to Moscow, Kazan, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Ufa. It is connected by road with other major cities of the Tyumen region (Surgut, Nefteyugansk, Tyumen).

Passenger ships connect Khanty-Mansiysk with a lot of towns and villages of the region, as well as with Tobolsk, Omsk, and Salekhard. The nearest railway stations are Pyt-Yakh (248 km from Khanty-Mansiysk) and Demyanka (238 km from Khanty-Mansiysk). The bus network of Khanty-Mansiysk is represented by 7 city and 1 country bus routes.

Khanty-Mansiysk is a center of skiing of world importance. Here, from the beginning of the 2000s, a modern biathlon center has been operating. In 2000, 2005, and from 2007 to 2016 (except for 2014), the stages of the Biathlon World Cup were held here.

The most interesting souvenirs you can bring from Khanty-Mansiysk are various leather and fur products, original Khanty tambourines, folk dolls and Khanty toys, beadwork, pine nuts, wicker products made from cedar roots and grass.

Main Attractions of Khanty-Mansiysk

Archeopark “Samarovsky Ostanets” - a cultural and tourist complex with sculptures of ancient animals and people. The main sight is the famous stone sculpture of 11 mammoths. In addition, there are sculptures of wolves and bison, lions, deer, bears, rhinos, and other animals from the Pleistocene. Obyezdnaya Street, 23.

Museum of Nature and Man - one of the oldest and most interesting museums in Khanty-Mansiysk. The collection of this museum numbers more than 120 thousand exhibits: various cultural and everyday objects of the Khanty and Mansi peoples, reconstructions and models of ancient buildings, skeletons and stuffed animals, expositions showing external and internal processes of the Earth. Mira Street, 11.

State Art Museum . The art collection of this museum consists of sections of icon painting, Russian painting, graphics, prints, arts and crafts, and sculpture. Here you can see the paintings of famous masters of Russian fine art: Rokotov, Tropinin, Repin, Aivazovsky, Surikov, Levitan, and other artists of the 18th-20th centuries. The section of old Russian art includes works of icon painting of the 15th-19th centuries. Mira Street, 2.

Museum of Geology, Oil and Natural Gas . Khanty-Mansiysk is considered the heart of the natural gas and oil industry in Russia. The largest oil and gas fields in the country are located in this region. The collection is based on historical documents and photographs, precious stones, minerals and rocks, samples of oil production equipment, and decorative items. Chekhova Street, 9.

House-Museum of the People’s Artist of the USSR Vladimir Igoshev . The purpose of the museum is to popularize the works of the artist, who depicted in his paintings the beauty of the Siberian land, its history and culture, and the people living in Yugra. In addition to the exhibition halls, you can also visit the artist’s workshop and apartment. The appearance of the building constructed in the Russian Art Nouveau style with mosaics and stucco moldings is also interesting. Lopareva Street, 7.

Ethnographic open-air museum “Torum-Maa” . Located in the picturesque forest of the Siberian taiga, this museum preserves the culture and traditions of the Khanty and Mansi peoples. Here you can see the constructions of the indigenous inhabitants of this land, their household items, clothes, jewelry, and various collections of old objects. Traditional festivals and ceremonies are also held here. The name of the museum means “Holy Land”. Sobyanina Street, 1.

Orthodox complex “In the Name of the Resurrection of Christ” . Its majestic buildings, crowned with gilded domes, can be seen from almost any part of Khanty-Mansiysk. Built in 2005, the complex includes more than 10 buildings, the main of which are the Cathedral of the Resurrection, an Orthodox gymnasium and a school, the Church of Prince Vladimir, and a 62-meter bell tower, which is one of the tallest buildings in the city.

Here you can also find the first in Russia Orthodox park of Slavic writing and culture “Slavic Square” decorated with sculptures on the theme of the Ten Commandments. In addition, the complex has monuments to saints, alleys, playgrounds, and places for recreation. Gagarina Street, 9.

Monument to the Discoverers of the Yugra Land - a picturesque 62-meter trihedral pyramid lined with glass. Each side symbolizes an important milestone in the history of Yugra - the appearance of indigenious peoples, the exploration of the region by the Cossacks of Ermak, and the discovery of oil and natural gas fields. The pyramid is visible from anywhere in Khanty-Mansiysk as it is located on the slope of a high hill surrounded by forest. Pervootkryvateley Lane, 1.

The Red Dragon Bridge over the Irtysh River - one of the most beautiful bridges not only in Western Siberia, but also in Russia. The 1,316-meter-long bridge was built in 2004. It connects Khanty-Mansiysk with the western part of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.

Samarovsky Chugas Nature Park - a great place for ecotourism lovers. Spread along the picturesque hills, Samarovsky Chugas covers an area of ??more than 6.5 thousand hectares with dense forests, streams, and blue lakes. This park, once called the Khanty-Mansiysk Hills, has the status of a natural monument. This is a favorite place for lovers of wildlife and walks in the fresh air. The visitors of the park are also offered ecological sightseeing routes with an experienced tour guide.

Khanty-Mansiysk city of Russia photos

Sights of khanty-mansiysk.

The Red Dragon Bridge in Khanty-Mansiysk

Yugra-Klassik concert hall in Khanty-Mansiysk

Author: Mariusz Rzetala

Cathedral of the Resurrection in Khanty-Mansiysk

Architecture of Khanty-Mansiysk

Apartment buildings in Khanty-Mansiysk

Khanty-Mansiysk cityscape

Author: Dmitry Sanatov

Yugra State University in Khanty-Mansiysk

The questions of our visitors

• Currently 2.90/5

Rating: 2.9 /5 (129 votes cast)