ORIGINAL RESEARCH

published: 22 July 2021

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.691183

Tourism Experience and

Construction of Personalized Smart
Tourism Program Under Tourist
Psychology
Feiya Lan 1 , Qijun Huang 2 , Lijin Zeng 3 , Xiuming Guan 4 , Dan Xing 5 and Ziyan Cheng 1*
1
Faculty of International Tourism and Management, City University of Macau, Macao, China, 2 Faculty of Law, Hebei
University, Baoding, China, 3 School of Public Economics and Administration, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics,
Shanghai, China, 4 School of Business, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macao, China, 5 Department of
Environmental Art and Design, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China

The present work aims to boost tourism development in China, grasp the psychology
of tourists at any time, and provide personalized tourist services. The research object is
the tourism industry in Macau. In particular, tourists’ experiences are comprehensively
analyzed in terms of dining, living, traveling, sightseeing, shopping, and entertaining as
per their psychological changes using approaches including big data analysis, literature
analysis, and field investigation. In this case, a model of tourism experience formation
Edited by: path is summarized, and a smart travel solution is proposed based on psychological
Mehmet Efe Biresselioglu, experience. In the end, specific and feasible suggestions are put forward for the Macau
Izmir University of Economics, Turkey
tourism industry. Results demonstrate that the psychology-based smart travel solution
Reviewed by:
exerts a significant impact on tourists’ tourism experience. Specifically, the weight of
Linchuan Yang,
Southwest Jiaotong University, China secular tourism experience is 0.523, the weight of aesthetic tourism experience is
Liubov Skavronskaya, 0.356, and the weight of stimulating tourism experience is 0.121. Tourists prefer travel
University of the Sunshine
Coast, Australia destinations with excellent urban security and scenic authenticity. They give the two
*Correspondence: indexes comprehensive scores of 75.14 points and 73.12 points, respectively. The
Ziyan Cheng proposed smart travel solution can grasp the psychology of tourists and enhance their
t17091105091@cityu.mo
tourism experiences. It has strong practical and guiding significances, which can promote
Specialty section:
constructing smart travel services in Macau and enhancing tourism experiences.
This article was submitted to
Keywords: personalization, smart tourism, Macau tourism, tourism psychology, tourism experience
Environmental Psychology,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Psychology
BACKGROUND
Received: 05 April 2021
Accepted: 23 June 2021 While China’s national strength is improving continuously, people’s requirements for the quality of
Published: 22 July 2021
life also becomes higher, and tourism expenditure has increased its share of all living consumption
Citation: expenditures (Sun et al., 2020). Tourism is an important indicator to measure the happiness
Lan F, Huang Q, Zeng L, Guan X,
and life satisfaction of people; it also reflects the level of living standards. In China, the central
Xing D and Cheng Z (2021) Tourism
Experience and Construction of
government proposed a strategic plan for the development of smart tourism in 2011 (Watson
Personalized Smart Tourism Program et al., 2017). Supported by the national tourism policy, many smart tourism cities have emerged
Under Tourist Psychology. one after another. The key to smart tourism is to integrate tourism data, including traffic,
Front. Psychol. 12:691183. weather, management, passenger flow, and other data that need to be integrated and considered
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.691183 (Gretzel et al., 2015). Before tourists leave for their destinations, various types of consultation,

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Lan et al. Personalized Smart Tourism Program

navigation, and information-sharing services are very critical. As LITERATURE REVIEW

the internet advances, applying new information technology to
the tourism industry has become a general trend; as a result, data Related Works of Smart Travel
of the tourism industry has become a hot issue (Alaei et al., 2019). Smart travel uses new technologies such as cloud computing and
Big data technology is developed on the basis of information the Internet of Things (IoT) to actively perceive information
technologies, including the internet and cloud computing. This about tourism resources, tourism economy, tourism activities,
technology plays a vital role in developing tourism products, and tourists through the internet or mobile internet using
improving tourism services, and tourism marketing (Lv et al., portable terminal internet devices. It then timely releases the
2019). A smart tourism service platform is built according to the perceived information, allowing people to access the information
data of the tourism industry to provide tourists with diversified they need in time to arrange their schedules. Eventually,
services and make the tourism experience more personalized and intelligent perception and convenient use of all kinds of travel
authentic. This model is of great significance for promoting the information can be achieved (Kharisma and Muni, 2017). Smart
transformation, upgrading, and sustainable development of the travel can be reflected in tourism management, tourism services,
tourism industry. and tourism marketing. When people propose the concept of
The smart tourism is centered on the personalization of smart travel, they put forward various thoughts on smart travel
tourists. Supported by the new generation of communication as per different research directions (Cui and Long, 2019). Li
and internet technologies, smart tourism increases interactive et al. (2017) believed that smart travel was a unique creative
experience, gathers tourism information, and promotes tourism. Liberato et al. (2018) thought that smart travel was first
the upgrading and transformation of the tourism industry a change in the concept of development. Buhalis (2019) pointed
(Skavronskaya et al., 2020a). The research on psychology- out that smart travel was an integration of the new generation
based tourism experience focuses on the travel psychology of information and communication technologies. Femenia-Serra
and preferences of tourists. Analyzing several reports on and Neuhofer (2018) researched the development momentum of
tourism psychology, Cicerali et al. (2017) found that the smart travel regarding its driving factors. Thakuriah et al. (2020)
most critical factors that harmed tourism satisfaction among introduced the relationship between smart city and smart travel
tourism environmental factors were sanitary conditions, and expounded the role of smart travel from multiple angles.
social influence, scenic area design, and tourism atmosphere. Shafiee et al. (2019) introduced the history, framework, value,
Studying the negative psychology of tourists, Nawijn and and development trend of smart travel. Gretzel and de Mendonça
Biran (2019) discovered that different types of negative (2019) explained the deficiencies of smart travel. Sun et al.
emotions would affect the lives of consumers, while (2019) researched smart travel according to the current situation
traveling could promote the emotional experiences and and problems, development countermeasures, and development
improve the negative emotions. Skavronskaya et al. (2020b) prospects. Gretzel and Koo (2021) proposed to build and manage
proposed a conceptual model called “cognitive evaluation a “smart travel public service platform.” Smart travel is a
of novelty in unforgettable tourism experience.” They significant innovation in the tourism industry. Its innovation
believed that future works should consider applying this path is formed based on the efficient flow and effective integration
model to advance the tourism experience and analyze such of tourism information in the tourism industry. The innovative
experience as a psychological phenomenon. However, the means include the internet, big data, cloud computing, and other
existing methods cannot solve the problems hindering new-generation information technologies, as well as business
the sustainable development of tourism fundamentally. model innovation. Ultimately, the purpose of innovation is to
Therefore, constructing a smart tourism platform based improve tourism services and tourists’ satisfaction.
on tourists’ psychology is a critical and urgent issue in the
tourism industry. Development and Application of Big Data
Therefore, influencing factors of the smart tourism Big data refers to a collection of data whose content cannot be
industry are analyzed to clarify the specific evaluation captured, managed, and processed with conventional software
indexes. Besides, three tourism experiences, namely tools within a time frame. Big data technology can quickly obtain
secular tourism experience, aesthetic tourism experience, valuable information from various types of data. Technologies
and stimulating tourism experience, are analyzed from applicable to big data include massively parallel processing
six perspectives: dining, living, traveling, sightseeing, databases, data mining grids, distributed file systems, distributed
shopping, and entertaining. At last, a personalized smart databases, cloud computing platforms, the internet, and scalable
tourism platform founded on tourism psychology is storage systems (Le et al., 2019). Lately, new technologies such
proposed. Through simulation experiments, the platform’s as IoT, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing have been
effectiveness is validated; on this basis, countermeasures accepted in various fields. Chen et al. (2019) believed that these
and suggestions are put forward for constructing the new things were inseparable from the support of big data. A
smart tourism of Macau. To sum up, a smart tourism large number of research results have also emerged in the process
platform is built using data mining technology, which can of assisting in the transformation and upgrading of various
promote the smart tourism development in Macau and industries (Chen et al., 2019). Zhu et al. (2019) proved that
provide a basis for the sustainable development of Macau’s combining big data and cloud computing could give new value
tourism industry. to the data held by operators. Liu et al. (2020) suggested that big

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Lan et al. Personalized Smart Tourism Program

data could bring new ideas to the operation and management tourism informatization and smart travel research worldwide,
of the hotel industry. Du et al. (2020) believed that big data domestic and foreign tourists have big differences in tourism
would contribute to tourism management and the development behaviors; in particular, domestic tourists pay more attention
of global tourism. As mobile internet and big data develop to sightseeing, while foreign tourists pay more attention to
rapidly, research on smart travel has gone beyond the theoretical leisure. Therefore, there are different tendencies toward smart
level; scholars begin to combine smart travel with big data and travel research. For example, the research on smart travel in
cloud computing to explore a way to practice smart travel (Du foreign academia is biased toward the tourism informatization.
et al., 2020). Joubert et al. (2021) studied the operation mode of In contrast, coincided with the explosion of innovation in China
smart travel by combining value chain management, supply chain due to the demographic dividend, the domestic academia focuses
management, and other operation management theories. Gao on defining smart travel from different aspects, such as the
(2021) improved the practicability of smart travel by studying theory of management changes derived from the research on
the technical implementation methods behind smart travel. They how information technology affect the management of tourism
also explored the combination of smart travel and rural tourism enterprises, the theory of technology application derived from
from different angles. directly applying information technology to the tourism industry,
and the theory of how information technology affects the tourism
Related Works of Tourism Psychology experience from the perspective of tourists. However, most of
People participating in tourism activities include actual tourists, these works focus on researching the concepts of smart travel; the
potential tourists, and various practitioners of the tourism essence of smart travel is rarely discussed, and the research on the
industry. They have different psychological activities in tourism relationship between big data and smart travel and studies taking
activities and therefore behave differently (Skavronskaya et al., smart travel as the core are seldom reported, which can hardly
2020c). There are always contacts and connections among reference the actual smart travel practice.
tourists, “tourism products,” tourism service personnel, and
tourism enterprise management personnel in tourism activities.
These mutual contacts and interpersonal relationships depend METHODOLOGY
on people’s psychological activities. Tourism psychology studies
the laws of these people’s psychological activities and behaviors SWOT Analysis of Tourism Industry in
in tourism activities. Psychological activities and behaviors are Macau
inseparable. Psychology governs behavior, and behavior reflects SWOT analysis discusses the strengths, weaknesses,
psychology (Kesenheimer and Greitemeyer, 2021). Tourism opportunities, and threats of the research object to formulate
experience is a comprehensive experience based on super- policies accordingly (Peng, 2019). As the leading industry in
utilitarian experience. While enjoying this experience, tourists Macau, tourism plays a significant role in coordinating and
can obtain aesthetic pleasure by observing the scenery, appreciate consolidating Macau’s economic development. Through the
a colorful life in the interaction with others, discover and develop SWOT analysis, the advantages and opportunities of Macau’s
themselves in the process of actively imitating other roles, and tourism industry can be utilized to make improvements;
also relish secular pleasures through tourism consumption. meanwhile, the disadvantages and deficiencies encountered in
the developmental process can be adjusted and upgraded.
A Review of Related Works
Related works analyzed above suggest that research results of Strengths Analysis
big data, smart travel, and platform operation are very rich after (1) Macau is located between Hong Kong and Guangdong
decades of exploration. These findings provide important ideas Province, China. During its development, Macau can take
and methods for designing smart travel platforms and operating advantages of Hong Kong’s convenient seaport transportation
systems based on big data, laying a firm theoretical foundation. and international background, as well as Guangdong’s rich
However, previous works rarely discuss how to give full play to human resources and vast market. Macau has a vast potential
the important role of big data in global tourism, how to build a market, and simple entry procedures have attracted tourists from
new model of smart travel platform operation, how to promote all over the world. (2) Macau, as a platform for cultural exchanges
the development of the modern tourism service industry, and between China and the West, continues to develop more broadly
how to adapt to the upgrade of tourism consumption needs under the background of inheriting Chinese traditional culture
(Elizabeth et al., 2021). Smart travel is not just the internetization and integrating Western culture. Macau’s unique advantage has
of the traditional tourism industry that is common in the current played an essential role in opening up the mainland and foreign
“Internet +” era, such as “Internet + travel e-government,” markets, especially in cooperation with Portuguese-speaking
“Internet + travel e-commerce,” and “smart scenic spots.” New countries. (3) Although Macau has a small land area, it has
issues often appear during development, which must be solved many natural and cultural resources. The historic city of Macau,
through new technologies. which has a long history, has been listed as a United Nations
Regarding new demands and new problems, the deep cultural heritage. Tourists to Macau can feel the local customs
integration of modern big data technology and traditional and appreciate the long history and culture of Macau. On the
tourism has created a new operation model for tourism one hand, these cultural resources have greatly enhanced tourists’
platforms, called smart travel. Because of the differences in yearning for Macau. On the other hand, the development of

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Lan et al. Personalized Smart Tourism Program

the tourism industry has also promoted the upgrading of other between Macau’s land area and population makes the tourism
industries to better serve tourists. infrastructure incomplete. Famous scenic spots, such as Ruínas
da Antiga Catedral de São Paulo, Largo do Senado, and Avenida
Weaknesses Analysis de Almeida Ribeiro, will be overcrowded during the holidays,
(1) Because Macau has a small land area, a large population, and which will not only affect road traffic but also induce safety
not too many important enterprises, tourism has always been accidents. (2) The competition is fierce in the surrounding
a pillar industry of Macau. This is undoubtedly a significant tourism market. As tourists continue to travel abroad, more
drawback for a city seeking comprehensive development. countries and regions begin to focus on developing tourism. The
Adjusting the industrial structure and realizing all-round rapid development of tourism in Southeast Asia has impacted
industrial development is the direction of Macau’s continuous Macau’s tourism. Fierce market competition makes Macau
advancement of reform. (2) Macau is close to Hong Kong. tourism industry have to face a new round of reforms and
Many tourists drop by Macau after visiting Hong Kong. Macau’s upgrades (Su and Zhao, 2019).
convenient transportation also makes many tourists choose to go The above analysis reveals the following demands: (1)
to Hong Kong or Zhuhai, Guangdong instead of staying in Macau the demand for tourism industry development. The current
after a day of sightseeing. According to statistics, the average time development of Macau’s tourism industry has entered a tough
of tourists staying in Macau is 1.4 days, which is much lower than period of transformation and upgrading. The imbalance between
the time that tourists stay in the true sense. Therefore, Macau the supply and demand structure of the tourism market is
needs to speed up the construction of supporting facilities, add very prominent. The development and operation modes of
a wealth of tourism projects, and attract the attention of tourists the industry are relatively traditional. (2) The demand for
as much as possible to extend the stay time of tourists. (3) The liberalized, diversified, and personalized tourism consumption.
rapid development of tourism is inseparable from the support of Looking up information and booking travel services anytime
human resources. As the training of talents cannot keep up with and anywhere are new demands for tourism consumption. This
the development of the tourism industry, gaps in professional has put forward an unprecedented high standard of demand for
talents and job vacancies appear, which limits the development the comprehensiveness, vividness, and detail of tourism public
of Macau’s tourism industry to some extent. information services. (3) The demand for the transformation
of service-oriented government functions and improvement of
Opportunities Analysis administrative efficiency. In the past, Macau’s tourism industry
(1) The support of national policies and the influence of was supervised and supported by government administration.
surrounding areas have brought new development opportunities They have acted as rule-makers and executors more often.
to Macau’s tourism industry. Macau is backed by mainland China With the deepening of marketization and the development
and facing foreign markets; it is supported with a strong human of modern information technology, this type of management
market and resources. The advantages of “One Country, Two cannot solve tourism problems in Macau during the development
Systems,” the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau of the industry.
Greater Bay Area, the establishment of the Guangdong Free
Trade Zone, the signing of the Guangdong-Macau Cooperation
Framework Agreement, and the implementation of “The Belt and Smart Travel Big Data Analysis Platform
Road” initiative all contribute to the development of Macau’s Based on Resources and Psychology
tourism industry and the overall economy, infusing the city The present work is based on the resource-based smart travel
with vitality and vitality. (2) Macau can exploit various types service platform. On this basis, big data processing methods
of tourism and develop the exhibition industry. Macau has the are added to analyze the impact of the smart service platform
intersection of Chinese and Western cultures, which significantly through different indexes. Hence, a big data travel service
promotes the “going out” and “bringing in” of the local economy. platform that is more suitable to the Macau region can
Enterprises in mainland China hope to strengthen cooperation be proposed through data optimization. The analysis and
with international enterprises via Macau, and international application of big data can ensure the sustainable development
enterprises can enter the vast mainland market via Macau. The of tourism (Ardito et al., 2019). Figure 1 presents the structure of
development of the convention and exhibition industry not the designed platform.
only promotes the development of tourism but also increases Data used in the present work are collected through data
the visibility of tourist destinations, attracts more tourists, and mining, including data collection, data analysis, and result
extends their stay time. Moreover, it has also promoted local analysis. Figure 2 shows the data collection method of web
economic development. The improvement of various large-scale crawlers. Data can also be obtained through third-party purchase
infrastructures has attracted more investment and strengthened (after filtering out the privacy information, data about the user’s
scientific and technological exchanges with different countries consumption status and ability are obtained). The tourism data
and regions (Liu and Li, 2019; Li, 2019). can be captured in real-time through the above approaches.
Government and enterprises need to fill in and report the data.
Threats Analysis Hence, the personnel need to enter the big data platform and
(1) The narrow land area and inconvenient transportation input the information manually to ensure the data integrity.
restrict the further development of tourism. The imbalance The collected data are analyzed and compared using algorithms

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Lan et al. Personalized Smart Tourism Program

FIGURE 1 | The standard system of smart travel service platform.

according to the specific knowledge base and the corresponding of entering life. It is based on the utilitarian understanding
database to draw and visualize the conclusions (Del Vecchio et al., of the perceived object through other organs other than the
2018). Data mining is applied at the most basic layer of the audiovisual senses. It is the collective term for all the pleasures in
model. Different classifications and algorithms are practiced to addition to the aesthetic pleasure experienced by tourists during
achieve the best model efficiency and ensure the integrity of the the traveling process. The prerequisite and intensity of secular
information on the travel service platform. pleasure are related to the accumulation of previous experience,
Tourism experience refers to the visual aesthetic experiences which varies with time, place, person, and event. It is a kind of
and the spiritual experience that tourists feel during traveling, pleasure that is obtained by a single low-level sense organ (such
such as learning and cognition; tourists not only observe the as touch, taste, and smell) other than audiovisual. The aesthetic
external expressions of things but also think about the rational tourism pleasure is the primary goal of tourism experience. It is
world (Sedera et al., 2017). As one of the representative studies, a kind of psychological experience that gets rid of the sense of
Luo et al. (2018) classified tourism experience in their research. interest and utilitarianism. It refers to a psychological experience
They believed that the ultimate pleasure of tourists through generated by tourists when they appreciate the beautiful nature,
compensation or realization was defined as travel pleasure. artwork, and other artificial products. In essence, experience
Pleasure was the core of the tourism experience, and the purpose is “a comprehensive aesthetic practice that integrates natural
of the tourism experience was to seek happiness or pleasure. beauty, artistic beauty, and the beauty of social life.” Figure 3
Pleasure could be divided into tourism aesthetic pleasure; that is, shows the “4E” tourism experience model proposed by Pine and
the pleasure obtained through transcendental tourism experience Gilmore (Santos et al., 2019). According to Pine and Gilmore,
was tourism secular pleasure, which was the pleasure obtained the essence of tourism is to obtain a pleasant experience.
through regressive tourism experience (Luo et al., 2018). The They divide the pleasure of tourism into aesthetic pleasure and
so-called secular tourism pleasure is the usual pleasure form secular pleasure.

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FIGURE 2 | Schematic diagram of web crawler data scraping steps.

platform specifically includes: (1) the basic service layer: this

layer adopts the big data processing method. It includes the
functions of data analysis and data collection, such as the
corresponding calculation rule, storage pool, and network pool.
(2) The psychological analysis of tourists: the tourism experience
is divided into secular experience, aesthetic experience, and
stimulating experience according to the consumption data and
consumption-ability of tourists. These three experiences are
analyzed from the six perspectives: dining, living, traveling,
sightseeing, shopping, and entertaining to draw the psychological
prediction of tourists. (3) The software service layer: as per
the predicted psychological data of tourists, the software service
layer is oriented to the special application subsystem, which
FIGURE 3 | “4E” model based on tourism experience. implements business applications such as real-time passenger
flow analysis and prediction, tourist value prediction, passenger
flow monitoring analysis, and satisfaction index analysis. At the
same time, the software can be expanded and updated. The
Indicator Analysis and Model Construction system not only runs independently but also exchanges and
Literature about tourism psychology is reviewed and reorganized shares data, which continuously expands the functions of the
to build the three-level index system. As shown in Table 1, the smart tourism service platform.
system includes the secular experience, the aesthetic experience,
and the stimulating experience (Li, 2019; Li et al., 2020).
The secular experience is reflected in dining, living, and Model Performance Evaluation and Data
sightseeing, including food safety, food delicacy, accommodation Sources
safety, accommodation comfort, and traveling convenience. The Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a qualitative and quantitative
aesthetic experience is reflected in the sightseeing activities, analysis tool that classifies factors affecting the decision-making
including the convenience of sightseeing, the condition of according to the target layer, the criterion layer, and the plan
nature/culture, and the comfort and safety of sightseeing trips. layer. Through AHP, the optimal solution can be obtained
The stimulating experience is reflected in the freshness and (Ho and Ma, 2018). Figure 5 illustrates the AHP structure of
stimulus brought by shopping and entertaining. Macau’s tourism industry. Here, factors affecting the services of
According to the investigations of literature, models, and Macau’s tourism industry are determined by the scaling method.
data, problems in the smart tourism construction in Macau Besides, the opinions of experts are combined to score the
are analyzed. On this basis, a smart tourism platform based indexes objectively. Suppose that Wn represents the variable of
on tourism psychology is built, as shown in Figure 4. This the matrix, and aij refers to a collection of various variables. In

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TABLE 1 | Construction of smart tourism index system based on tourist psychology.

Target layer Criterion layer Object layer Secondary indexes

Overall decision level B1-Secular experience P11-Food hygiene Food testing compliance, health, and safety.
P12-Food delicacy Delicious, cheap, distinctive, and flavorful.
P13-Accommodation security Own financial security, personal safety, and hotel staff mobility.
P14-Accommodation comfort Hotel health, services, supporting facilities, and follow-up.
P15-Travel convenience Convenient, fast, comfortable, and cheap.
B2-Aesthetic experience P21-Convenience Convenient, fast, the number of tourists in scenic spots, traffic convenience, and
traffic conditions.
P22-Natural/cultural restoration The authenticity of the original features of natural scenic spots and the reduction
of cultural scenic spots.
P23-Play safety Whether the safety measures for play are sufficient and whether the signs of
dangerous areas are in place.
P24-Play comfort Whether the scenic area can bring pleasant feelings and happiness.
P31-Freshness Data indexes, data Arouse people’s inquiry and curiosity about new things.
B3-Stimulate the experience P32-Irritation Give people an unprecedented sense of stimulation and increase pleasure.

FIGURE 4 | The smart tourism platform based on tourist psychology.

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Lan et al. Personalized Smart Tourism Program

FIGURE 5 | The AHP structure of Macau’s tourism industry.

that case, the judgment matrix between them is: TABLE 2 | Experimental development environment.

  Resource type Model

W1 /W1 · · · W1 /Wn
A=  ... Development PC Model ASUS X555YI
 

Wn /W1 · · · Wn /Wn Operating system Windows 10

Processor Inter (R) Xeon (R) CPU E5-2650 v4
= aij n × n (1) RAM 128G
System type 64-bit operating system
In the meantime, (1) (2) aij = 1aji,(I, j = 1, 2, 3, · · · n) (3).
Graphics card Tesla M40
Therefore, the following equation is obtained:
Software configuration Dependency library Oracle10g
  Language Python
W1 /W1 · · · W1 /Wn
Development engine Version 2017.2.0f3
AW= 
 .. 
.  Script editor Visual Studio 2017
Wn /W1 · · · Wn /Wn Compiled language C/C#
AR SDK Vuforia
   
W1 W1
 W2  = n
 W2  = nW
= (2)
 ···   ··· 
Wn Wn
software is utilized to analyze the reliability and validity of all
The experimental environment is summarized in Table 2 below. questionnaires for subsequent in-depth research and analysis.
The operating system is Microsoft Windows 10. The platform is There are three data sources: (1) data provided on the
written in Python. The Oracle10g database is used as the basis for Macau official tourism website are collected. The Macau tourism
building the network framework. department is interviewed through telephone to obtain first-hand
Questionnaires are distributed to survey whether this platform field survey data. Through analysis, summary, and induction, the
is helpful to the tourism experience. The questionnaire is problems in the development of Macau’s tourism industry are
designed according to the indexes in the performance evaluation. summarized. (2) Comparative analysis: smart travel platforms
For each question, there are five options: “Excellent,” “Good,” in different provinces are compared to find feasible methods
“Fair,” “Poor,” and “Very Poor,” corresponding to 1, 0.8, 0.6, 0.4, for the Macau tourism industry. In practical applications,
and 0.2 points, respectively. A total of 300 questionnaires were the shortcomings and deficiencies of traditional tourism in
issued, and 285 were returned, of which 270 were valid. The management, marketing, and services are listed and compared
response rate is 95%, and the valid rate is 94.7%. The statistical with big data processing results to show the role of big data in

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Lan et al. Personalized Smart Tourism Program

TABLE 3 | Index weight of the smart tourism platform based on tourism psychology.

Smart tourism platform based on tourist psychology B1-Secular experience B2-Aesthetic experience B3-Stimulate the experience Weights

B1-Secular experience 1 1.221 0.379 0.356

B2-Aesthetic experience 3.187 1 3.215 0.523
B3-Stimulate the experience 0.732 0.245 1 0.121

In the table, λmax = 3.030; CI = 0.001; RI = 0.58; CR = 0.001; CR < 0.1; the consistency has been verified.

the practical application of tourism. (3) Interview: heads of the

Macau Tourism Bureau and Macau Regional Tourism Bureau
are interviewed to understand the problems of Macau smart
travel. Moreover, heads of related technology enterprises such
as Beijing Golden Bridge Network Communication Co., Ltd.
are interviewed.
The questionnaire survey is conducted to verify and improve
the research design of smart travel ways and improve the tourism
experience. The purpose is to verify whether the smart travel
methods currently applied are helpful to the improvement of
the tourism experience. The Forbidden City is added to the
questionnaire as a case site. Through specific cases, it is hoped
to understand the impact of smart travel on the quality of
tourism experience in the current application. According to
Sthapit’s tourism experience model (Sthapit et al., 2019), the
influencing factors in the interference variables include delay, FIGURE 6 | Results of statistical analysis of Macau’s tourism data during the
comfort, convenience, accessibility to the destination, the nature National Day Holidays in 2019.
of the destination, the quality of accommodation, the number
of attractions and activities, and the ethnic nature of the
destination. The influencing factors in the interaction process rules, the system accurately counts the total number of tourists
include the gap between actual feelings and expectations, the entering Macau. Changes in the number of tourists during 1 week
nature of the interaction with the destination residents and are as follows: the number of tourists begins to increase on Oct.
fellow tourists, the ability to distinguish the authenticity and 1st; on Oct. 2nd, it continues to increase; on Oct. 3rd, it starts to
illusion of events, the ability of psychological adjustment, and decrease; on Oct. 5th, it reaches the peak. The actual number of
the ability to communicate. According to the nature of the case, tourists also show the same trend. Besides, the daily change index
the four factors of comfort, convenience, the gap between actual is analyzed. The curve can reveal the trend of tourists entering
feelings and expectations, psychological adjustment, as well as the Macau during the National Day Holidays. These results show
satisfaction of tourists’ overall tourism experience, are selected. that the smart tourism platform based on tourism psychology
The questionnaire is designed according to the indexes in the has strong data mining and analysis capabilities, and the visual
performance evaluation; each question has 5 options: “Excellent, display effect is noticeable.
Good, Fair, Poor, and Very Poor,” corresponding to 1, 0.8, 0.6,
0.4, and 0.2 points, respectively. Based on the indicator weights Index Weight of the Smart Tourism
of the smart tourism platform of tourism psychology are shown
in Table 3 above. A total of 300 questionnaires were sent out, and
Platform
Table 1 shows the result of the index weight analysis of the
285 were returned. Among them, 270 were valid questionnaires,
smart tourism platform based on tourism psychology. A detailed
with a response rate of 95% and a valid rate of 94.7%. Statistical
analysis of the questionnaire survey data reveal that tourists have
software is employed to analyze the credibility and validity of
a maximum weight of 0.523 for the aesthetic tourism experience,
all questionnaires.
followed by the secular tourism experience, with a weight of
0.356. This shows that the majority of tourists in Macau undergo
RESULTS aesthetic sightseeing.
Figure 7 summarizes the results of block analysis on the
Effectiveness of the Smart Tourism weights of the platform indexes under different index systems.
Platform As shown in Figure 7A, in the secular tourism experience, the
The visual data of the smart travel platform based on largest weight is the taste of food, reaching 0.396. The reason is
tourism psychology are illustrated in Figure 6. In particular, the that most tourists pay great attention to the cuisine of a region,
geographical distribution of tourists in Macau can be collected and the taste of food can represent the culture and custom of
more accurately through this platform. Through the crawling a region. The weight of accommodation safety ranks second

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Lan et al. Personalized Smart Tourism Program

FIGURE 7 | Weighted results of various indexes of the smart tourism platform based on tourist psychology [(A) is the technical level index weighting result; (B) is the
external environment index weighting result; (C) is the basic condition index weighting result].

TABLE 4 | Building an index system for the Macau smart travel service platform based on big data.

Target layer Criterion layer Object layer Index weight

Overall decision level B1-Secular experience 0.378 P11-Food hygiene 0.232

P12-Food delicacy 0.415
P13-Accommodation security 0.221
P14-Accommodation comfort 0.132
P15-Travel convenience 0.234
B2-Aesthetic experience 0.462 P21-Convenience 0.146
P22-Natural/cultural restoration 0.296
P23-Play safety 0.312
P24-Play comfort 0.216
B3-Stimulate the experience 0.16 P31-Freshness 0.625
P32-Irritation 0.375

position, reaching 0.198. The aesthetic tourism experience is more attention is paid to safety, and the sense of freshness id more
shown in Figure 7B, where the largest weight is the safety of the important to tourists.
scenic area, reaching 0.312. The reason is that the safety of the All index weights are analyzed comprehensively, and the
accommodation determines the degree of pleasure of traveling; results are demonstrated in Table 4. The weights of the criterion
traveling is a matter of spending money to enjoy happiness, layer are 0.378, 0.462, and 0.16, respectively. Impacts coming
and such enjoyment will be greatly reduced if tourists spend from indexes of the smart tourism platform in descending
more money due to personal safety. The stimulating tourism order are as follows: secular tourism experience > authentic
experience is shown in Figure 7C, where the weight of freshness tourism experience > stimulating tourism experience. The above
sense ranks first, reaching 0.665. The above results suggest that judgment matrix, single hierarchical ranking, and hierarchical
the safety psychology of dining and living in secular tourism total ranking analysis all pass the consistency test; thus,
experience affects tourism consumption. In terms of sightseeing, the calculated weights are acceptable. The results obtained

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Lan et al. Personalized Smart Tourism Program

from the above data analysis and block weight comparison

are consistent.

Overall Performance of the Smart Tourism

Platform
Figure 8 illustrates the scoring results of the designed platform
rated by the heads and staff from various industries. This
platform receives a comprehensive score of 68.45, which is
excellent. Overall, the secular tourism experience accounts for
a large proportion because most tourists seek for leisure and
entertainment, and therefore their consumptions are normal
and average. They prefer destinations and travel plans that can
improve mood and pleasure. From a partial perspective, the most
important factor that affects the platform is that people consider
the total score of tourism safety to be 75.14, followed by the
authenticity of the scenic spot, with a comprehensive score of
73.12. This is the most important issue to construct the smart
tourism service platform in Macau. The comfort requirement of FIGURE 8 | Scoring results of the smart tourism platform based on tourism
tourists for accommodation is not very high, which is only 60.85. psychology.
Therefore, the local tourism department of Macau should reduce
its investment in accommodation and increase its investment in
the safety and comfort of tourist attractions.
as tourism transportation, tourism safety public services, and
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION tourism environmental public services. The public service system
of smart travel takes the improvement of tourist satisfaction
To construct the Macau Smart Travel Service Platform, emphasis as the core and the tourism information service as the main
should be placed on designing and development according to body. Its purpose is to meet the needs of individual tourists
tourists’ travel psychology. This requires a large amount of for the richness, comparability, timeliness, and convenience
tourism data. However, in the actual research process, many of obtaining travel information during the dining, living,
scenic spots and enterprises cannot realize the importance of traveling, sightseeing, shopping, and entertaining process of
data compared to actual benefits, which cannot guarantee the the travel. For services that can be achieved through market
sustainable development of Macau’s tourism industry. Therefore, operations, the government should issue relevant policies and
on the basis of the data results, the following suggestions are implement supportive supervision; moreover, the government
put forward: (1) the data concepts shall be changed, and the should promote the tasks that enterprises are unwilling to do
data awareness shall be cultivated, including data openness and but are related to the overall situation. For example, online
sharing concepts, data analysis concepts, and data application services are mainly travel information services provided by local
concepts. Data involved in tourism works should be emphasized enterprises, aiming to meet the diverse needs of tourists. The
and respected to be used for publicity and services. (2) The major government regulates public information services extended by
tourism service platforms shall be centralized to collect tourist leveraging the nationwide database resources of travel enterprises
consumption data. Then, these data shall be analyzed using big such as Ctrip.com and eLong.com. The government should lead
data and in-depth mining technologies to find new growth points components of offline smart travel public service infrastructure.
of the tourism industry from these data. (3) The interaction with The tourism management department also obtains tourist
tourists shall be strengthened, the communication with tourists information and real-time market operation data by providing
shall be deepened through social media such as WeChat and smart travel public services to enhance the timeliness and
TikTok, and tourists’ travel needs shall be understood in time. pertinence of management. In short, by building a smart travel
In this way, a sustainable smart travel service platform can be public service system, methods to promote the tourism industry
established, and market-oriented approaches can be applied to can be changed thoroughly. The level of tourism services can
mobilize tourism enterprises to raise funds in various aspects and be improved to make tourists travel conveniently. The image
cooperate in constructing part of the smart travel platform. of tourism cities can be enhanced, and the supervision of the
The government smart travel public service system refers tourism market can be strengthened to provide tourists with fast,
to the general term for public products and services provided accurate, and comprehensive information services.
by the government or other social organizations that are not From the perspective of tourism experience, smart travel,
profit-oriented, have obvious publicity, and meet the common a new vane in the tourism field, is analyzed. The experience
needs of tourists as the core. It connects tourism suppliers, needs of tourists are understood by studying the ways of
tourism regulatory agencies, and other tourism market-themed experience generation. Through the six major elements of
activities in various tourism information demanding links, such tourism: dining, living, traveling, sightseeing, shopping, and

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Lan et al. Personalized Smart Tourism Program

entertaining, a research design for smart promotion of tourism data amount. Finally, there are few categories of psychology
experience is constructed, whose usability in practice is then research on tourists, only considering the sense of experience
validated, proving that some of the current smart travel measures brought by tourism rather than specific consumption data. In the
can improve tourists’ tourism experience. This is theoretically following works, these aspects will be analyzed and research in-
innovative. Besides verifying the active role of existing smart depth to realize the practical application of the platform as soon
travel methods in improving the tourism experience, practical as possible.
smart travel measures that can improve the tourism experience
are proposed, considering the smart travel participants in DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
real-world applications, such as hotels and scenic spots. The
smart travel model based on tourist psychology has strong The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be
data mining and analysis capabilities, and the visual display made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
effect is obvious. From a psychological perspective, tourists
prefer travel destinations with excellent urban security and
scenic authenticity. The comprehensive scores for the two are ETHICS STATEMENT
75.14 points and 73.12 points, respectively. Therefore, Macau’s
local tourism department should reduce the investment in The studies involving human participants were reviewed and
accommodation and increase the investment in the safety and approved by City University of Macau Ethics Committee. The
comfort of tourist attractions. patients/participants provided their written informed consent to
Despite the constructed big data smart travel platform based participate in this study. Written informed consent was obtained
on psychology, some weaknesses are found in the present work. from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially
First, due to time and research funding issues, only three regions identifiable images or data included in this article.
in Macau are surveyed, only covering a small amount of data.
Moreover, the questionnaires are mostly distributed on-site. In AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
the future, they can be issued online. Second, because the data
of the major tourism service platforms are commercial secrets, All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual
only the available network data are analyzed, with a small contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

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