Smart tourism services (STS) aim to integrate convenience and accuracy through accessible platforms. STS platforms (e.g., mobile apps) integrate service proposals in a unified environment. They assist tourists in trip planning and enable practitioners to manage services. Smart systems connect online reservations and preferential services across attractions, transportation, accommodation, diet, and purchases. STS platforms interconnect local organizations and tourists for efficient service delivery, satisfying personalized needs. Tourists co-create value by interacting with stakeholders, actively participating, and sharing experiences. Sustainability in technology-denominated services and the value co-creation process are crucial. However, existing studies lack a systematic framework for STS platforms. This paper aims to develop a 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 may be unique due to its exploration of tourist demands by examining smart service measures across travel phases (pre-travel and during the trip). Based on service-dominant (S-D) logic, a functioning service ecosystem enables co-creation of customer experiences; thus, tourist value co-creation behaviors can be observed from service measures applied in the ecosystem. This paper explores emergent and potential smart service measures, aiming to integrate smart service providers and constitute a smart tourism ecosystem. The locus of value co-creation is formed based on tourist behaviors in smart service application. The paper uses a literature review to illustrate STS and the relationship between S-D logic, smart tourism ecosystems, and value co-creation behaviors. It then identifies fundamental service elements of smart tourism and proposes a conceptual base for an STS platform. The research methods involve developing and validating an STS scale through a series of studies. The conceptual framework is deduced from the scale, identifying sustainable value co-creation from tourist behaviors. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications are provided.

The literature review examines the nature of smart tourism services, emphasizing the integration of ICTs, information access, and convenient travel methods to enhance individual tourist experiences. Smart tourism integrates high-quality services to meet evolving tourist needs. STS is empowered through the connection of smart technology, smart tourism experiences, and smart business ecosystems. The key players include tourists, service providers, and government agencies. Smart technology integrates multiple tourism factors through intelligent connectivity, providing actionable data and improved support for decision-makers. A smart tourism experience emphasizes technology-mediated experiences, personalized services based on real-time data, and facilitating interaction with the environment. Smart tourists use technologies to self-manage their experiences. A smart business ecosystem uses ICT to deliver smart services, creating a network of interconnected stakeholders that collaborate and co-create value. The service-dominant (S-D) logic provides the theoretical framework, highlighting service provision, value co-creation, and value realization within networks of actors, emphasizing resource integration and collaborative activities leading to value co-creation. A service ecosystem integrates actors through institutions and technologies, co-producing and exchanging service offerings. The smart tourism ecosystem is a platform for creating, managing, and delivering services through technological advancement, fostering information sharing and value creation. The literature review also identifies the fundamental service elements in a smart tourism ecosystem, which include attractions, transportation, accommodation, diet, and purchase, which are identified as potential dimensions of an STS scale. The relationships among service-dominant (S-D) logic, smart tourism ecosystem, and tourist value co-creation behaviors are also discussed.

An exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was used, employing a multi-stage recursive psychometric process with three studies and seven stages. **Study 1 (Qualitative):** * **Stage 1 (Item Generation):** A systematic literature review (83 articles) and Fuzzy Delphi expert interviews (17 experts) were conducted to generate items for the STS scale. Two rounds of Delphi questionnaires were used, with experts rating item importance on a five-point Likert scale. The first round focused on item identification, with space for supplementary explanations and new item additions. The second round incorporated statistical analysis of the first round for reference. The sample included tourism experts and internet/e-commerce experts. * **Stage 2 (Item Purification):** Expert reviews assessed item clarity, readability, redundancy, representativeness, and suitability; items were revised or combined. **Study 2 (Quantitative):** * **Stage 3 (Dimensionality Determination):** Surveys were administered to 379 tourists in Taipei City to explore the dimensional structure of the STS scale. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed to identify the underlying dimensions and remove poorly fitted items. **Study 3 (Quantitative):** * **Stage 4 (Scale Validation):** Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted on a second sample (815 respondents) to confirm the scale's six-factor structure. The sample included both pre-travel and during-trip data; snowball sampling was used to recruit pre-travel respondents. * **Stage 5 (Common Method Biases):** Harman's single-factor test assessed common method bias; the findings showed negligible bias. * **Stage 6 (Model Invariance Test):** Model invariance testing evaluated the scale's consistency across pre-travel and during-trip phases. * **Stage 7 (Nomological and Construct Validity):** Second-order structural equation modeling tested the predictive power of the STS scale dimensions.

The seven-stage process resulted in a six-dimensional STS scale with 32 items, explaining approximately 70% of the variance. The six dimensions are: 1. **Smart Attraction Services:** Focuses on interactive multimedia systems, weather forecasting, tourist flow control, online reservation, queuing-time forecasting, smart guide systems, and itinerary planning systems within attractions. 2. **Smart Transportation Services:** Includes public transport information, e-map navigation, intelligent transport scheduling, parking information, and real-time traffic information. 3. **Smart Accommodation Services:** Covers self-service counters, smart room access control, and mobile room booking systems. 4. **Smart Diet Services:** Includes service request systems, touch-screen self-service ordering, smart guide systems, mobile reservation and ordering, cloud service systems, and reservation and queue systems for catering. 5. **Smart Purchase Services:** Encompasses aspects like harvesting good purchase experiences, obtaining post-purchase services, purchasing limited/new goods, getting preferential/fair prices, and convenient electronic payment methods. 6. **Smart Payment Services:** Focuses on existing smart card systems, mobile payment systems for catering and accommodation, and mobile payment systems within attractions. EFA and CFA analyses showed good reliability (Cronbach's alpha > 0.70), internal consistency (composite reliability > 0.80), and validity (good model fit indices). Model invariance testing confirmed the scale's applicability across different travel phases. Second-order CFA demonstrated a strong hierarchical factor structure, with each dimension explaining over 50% of the variance. Common method bias was minimal.

The six-dimensional STS scale identifies core aspects of tourists' experiences within a smart tourism ecosystem, encompassing attractions, transportation, accommodation, diet, retail, and payment. The scale's dimensions capture tourists' demands for smart services across travel phases, contributing to sustainable value co-creation by connecting tourists and service providers. The findings support the concept of sustainable value co-creation, encompassing economic, socio-cultural, and environmental aspects. The scale provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the smart tourism ecosystem and offers specific measures for assessing tourists' demands. The findings are discussed in relation to existing literature on smart tourism, highlighting the unique contributions of the developed scale. The scale's findings contribute to understanding how smart service measures influence tourist behaviors and facilitate sustainable value co-creation. The study's findings support the “STS → behavior → sustainable value co-creation” pathway.

This paper contributes to the literature by proposing a six-dimensional STS scale and a conceptual framework for an STS platform. The scale provides a comprehensive tool for measuring tourists' demands for smart services across various travel phases and tourism elements. The platform framework highlights the interplay between technology, information services, tourist behavior, and sustainable value co-creation. The study offers managerial implications for tourism practitioners, emphasizing the importance of understanding and responding to tourists' demands for smart services to enhance their experiences and foster sustainable value co-creation. Future research should explore the scale's generalizability across different smart cities and tourist typologies, and investigate the role of specific smart technologies and moderators in shaping the relationship between the STS platform and sustainable value co-creation.

The study's focus on Taipei City might limit the generalizability of the findings to other contexts. Further research is needed to validate the scale in diverse settings and with different tourist groups. The study predominantly relies on self-reported data, which might be subject to biases. Future research could incorporate objective measures to strengthen the findings. The study focuses on tourists' perspective. The perspective of service providers needs further consideration.