When residents speak: how smart tourism drives destination advocacy

This paper examines how smart tourism initiatives influence residents’ perceptions of brand equity and their willingness to recommend the destination through word-of-mouth (WOM). While most research emphasizes the tourist-centric approach, this study highlights the role of the local population, acknowledging their central contribution to co-creating and supporting the destination brand. Using survey data from 353 residents of Gijón—a well-established smart destination in northern Spain—a partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) is applied, followed by an importance–performance map analysis (IPMA). The results underscore the significance of the indirect effects of smart destination initiatives on residents’ WOM intention through perceptual brand equity. They also reveal that perceived quality is a critical factor which, while highly relevant for fostering WOM, underperforms in practice. These findings offer practical insights to help destination managers strengthen the link between smart destination development, brand equity, and residents’ willingness to recommend.