Smart insights, stronger performance: Leveraging business intelligence and dynamic capabilities in tourism and hospitality

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and business intelligence (BI) compels tourism and hospitality firms to redefine their capabilities. This need stems from the growing imperative to fully leverage these technologies for performance enhancement—an area still underexplored in the tourism and hospitality literature. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities view, this paper investigates the interrelationships among resource orchestration capabilities (ROCs), digital marketing capabilities (DMCs), AI capabilities, and firm performance, with a specific focus on the mediating role of BI adoption and the moderating effect of technology orientation (TO). Using data from 297 tourism and hospitality firms across four major Japanese cities, the findings reveal that BI adoption mediates the relationships among ROCs, DMCs, AI capabilities, and firm performance. As anticipated, TO does not moderate the DMC–BI adoption link, potentially due to firm-specific factors warranting further exploration in different contexts. The study contributes to theory by proposing an integrative framework that conceptualizes ROCs, DMCs, and AI capabilities as distinct yet interrelated dynamic capabilities driving performance in tourism and hospitality firms. Practically, the findings encourage tourism and hospitality managers to refine their strategies to better leverage these capabilities, particularly in pursuing digital transformation. • This study explores links between resource orchestration capabilities (ROCs), digital marketing capabilities (DMCs), AI capabilities, and organizational performance. • This paper focuses on the mediating effect of business intelligence (BI) adoption and the moderating effect of technology orientation. • Findings show BI adoption mediates links between ROCs, DMCs, AI capabilities, and performance in tourism and hospitality firms. • Contrary to our expectation, technology orientation does not moderate the link between DMCs and BI adoption. • The findings will stir up scholarly interest to further unravel how firm capabilities and resources enhance performance.