Authors - Tiurida Lily Anita, Farah Levyta, Teguh Prasandy, Mohd. Nor Shahizan Ali Abstract - This necessitates accelerating the digital transformation of remote marine destinations under pressure to maintain ecological quality and community value. Yet, over the course of implementing digitalization, many such destinations continue to face issues like disjointed stakeholder coordination, heterogeneous technological preparedness and lack of empirical research on sustainability-oriented evaluations of digital tourism frameworks. This research tests the interrelationships of Smart Tourism Readiness, Perceived Sustainability Value, Perceived Usefulness, Adoption Intention, and Perceived Destination Competitiveness. Using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), quantitative surveys of 180 local tourism stakeholders were analysed. The results indicate that Smart Tourism Readiness gives a positive effect on Perceived Usefulness, as well as Perceived Sustainability Value, where the latter has a superior influence. Conversely, the results show that Adoption Intention is strongly predicted by Perceived Usefulness, and that both Adoption Intention and Perceived Sustainability Value significantly contribute to making Perceived Destination Competitiveness a more appealing choice. The findings show that the model has significant explanatory and predictive power regarding endogenous constructs. The findings indicate that stakeholders only tend to support digital transformation initiatives if they are perceived as practical, relevant and aligned with local sustainability priorities. How this paper contributes · The study extends the theory of technology adoption, sustainability value and destination competitiveness in a holistic empirical framework. The findings provide strategic insights to managers on how to implement digitally driven sustainable tourism development.
