How Smart Cities Can Be Leveraged to Create Sustainable Tourism Destinations: A Case of New Alamein City

Abstract

Smart cities integrate sustainability into their agenda while integrating technological and informational components as supplementary layers. The purpose of the study is to enrich the understanding of how a smart city affects its sustainable development as a tourist destination. Consequently, this study aims to determine the effect of the smart city dimensions on the sustainable development of a tourism destination from a residents’ perspective. The objective of the current study was attained using the quantitative approach. The hypotheses proposed in this study were validated by utilizing Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with the assistance of Partial Least Squares (PLS). The findings resulted from the data collected with the help of an online questionnaire distributed to 256 residents of New Alamein City, which is being developed as a smart city by the government of Egypt. The study found that the five dimensions (smart governance, smart people, smart mobility, smart economy, and smart environment) are significant predictors of the sustainable development of New Alamein City. Ultimately, the study proposed several implementations to guide policymakers, urban planners, and stakeholders in promoting the sustainable development of New Alamein as a smart tourism destination.