This study explored how AI affects the sustainability of competitive advantage in the tourism and hospitality sector, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of digital culture and digital skills in the lens of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Data were collected via a structured questionnaire distributed to a purposive sample of 488 managers and supervisors working in five-star hotels, travel agencies, and DMCs across Saudi Arabia. The findings revealed that AI has a significant direct effect on sustainable competitive advantage and also exerts strong positive effects on both digital culture and digital skills. In turn, both of these internal enablers significantly contribute to sustaining a competitive advantage. Mediation analysis further showed that both digital culture and digital skills partially mediate the relationship between AI and sustainable competitiveness. The study addresses a notable gap in tourism research by providing localized evidence from a market undergoing rapid transformation under Vision 2030, and, taken together, extends TAM to an organizational lens by demonstrating AI’s role in shaping culture and skills that underpin a durable advantage while pointing to actionable priorities—targeting high-value AI use cases, conducting capability audits, institutionalizing continuous learning through visible leadership and role-based upskilling, and embedding culture- and skills-oriented KPIs within AI governance.

Generative AI is becoming increasingly embedded in digital travel planning and decision-making, reshaping how tourists search for information, evaluate alternatives, and navigate the customer journey. Yet, less is known about how engagement with conversational AI is associated with customer journey enhancement and the evaluative mechanisms and user-level conditions that accompany this association. This study examines the relationship between ChatGPT engagement and customer journey enhancement, with perceived system reliability and recommendation neutrality modeled as parallel mediators and technology readiness as a moderator. Using a quantitative, cross-sectional design, data were collected from 1012 tourists with prior decision-oriented experience using ChatGPT for travel-related purposes and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings show that ChatGPT engagement is positively associated with customer journey enhancement, perceived system reliability, and recommendation neutrality. Perceived system reliability and recommendation neutrality are also positively associated with customer journey enhancement, with significant indirect associations consistent with complementary partial mediation. Technology readiness positively moderates the associations between ChatGPT engagement and customer journey enhancement and between perceived system reliability and customer journey enhancement. Supplementary analysis further indicates that the indirect association through perceived system reliability becomes stronger at higher levels of technology readiness. By distinguishing AI engagement from tourists’ evaluations of system reliability and recommendation neutrality while incorporating technology readiness as a user-level boundary condition, the study offers a more differentiated account of generative AI-supported travel decision-making and digital customer journeys. It also emphasizes that perceived reliability and recommendation neutrality represent user evaluations rather than verified properties of AI performance. Practically, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between general-purpose generative AI, which tourism organizations do not directly control, and organization-managed AI services, where data quality, transparency, verification, and user support can be more actively governed.

This study aims to examine how celebrity-endorsed travel livestreaming, as a digital marketing innovation, influences booking intention through the mediating roles of perceived authenticity and emotional engagement. Drawing on the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) framework, the study conceptualizes livestreaming as a stimulus that activates both cognitive and affective responses, which are subsequently associated with consumer behavioral intentions. A quantitative approach was adopted using a structured questionnaire distributed online to a diverse sample of 609 respondents. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the proposed relationships and mediation effects. The findings reveal that celebrity-endorsed travel livestreaming has a significant positive effect on booking intention, perceived authenticity, and emotional engagement. In addition, both perceived authenticity and emotional engagement positively influence booking intention, with emotional engagement demonstrating a stronger effect. The mediation analysis further confirms that both perceived authenticity and emotional engagement partially mediate the relationship between livestreaming and booking intention, indicating that the impact of livestreaming is largely transmitted through cognitive and affective mechanisms. The study makes several key contributions by extending the SOR framework to digitally immersive marketing contexts, reconceptualizing authenticity as an interaction-driven construct within celebrity-endorsed environments, and highlighting the prominent role of emotional engagement in consumer decision-making. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of how innovative digital marketing formats are associated with consumer behavior and offer practical insights for designing more effective livestreaming strategies in the tourism industry.