Understanding Pro-Environmental Behaviour in Smart City Tourism: The Interplay of Sustainability, Technology Readiness, and Place Engagement in Kuala Lumpur

Urban tourism is being reshaped by two parallel transitions: the sustainability and digital transitions. On the one hand, cities face accelerating environmental pressures (energy use, waste, air quality, urban heat, mobility emissions) that intensify during peak visitor periods and are concentrated in iconic districts. On the other hand, tourists increasingly navigate, consume, and co-create experiences through smart infrastructures and services such as location-based information, mobility platforms, cashless payment systems, e-tickets, real-time crowding dashboards, and digital wayfinding. The convergence of these transitions is often labelled smart city tourism or smart tourism destinations, in which technology is expected to increase efficiency while supporting sustainability outcomes [1-3].

Kuala Lumpur cannot be considered as a generic smart tourism location but instead, as a concrete case of urban sustainability. The Smart City Master Plan 2021-2025 by Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur places tourism experience under the umbrella of technology, smart mobility, smart environment, smart waste management, and smart traffic management, along with the issues of traffic congestion, interconnected transport, first and last mile accessibility, carbon footprint, and recycling awareness as ongoing challenges [4]. Meanwhile, the Kuala Lumpur Traffic Master Plan 2040 aims at a 70:30 modal split between public transport and private vehicles and highlights active mobility and supporting first mile and last mile access as the precondition of the changing travel behaviour [5].

As a behavioural problem, these conditions pose a practical problem to tourists commuting between high-demand precincts like the KLCC district, Bukit Bintang, Central Market and heritage districts. There might be lower-impact solutions, but these variants are competing with time constraints, incomplete information in the city, and routines based on convenience. The current research streams do not explain this problem as a whole. Smart tourism literature has been keen on adoption, satisfaction, and revisit results whereas pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) literature has been keen on the values, norms as well as attitudes without analyzing the influence of digitally mediated urban infrastructure in determining behavioural opportunity structures within the urban environment. The current research thus starts with a problem context in Kuala Lumpur and poses a question of how perceived sustainability of smart city tourism (PSS), place engagement (PENG) and technology readiness (TR) combine to influence PEB of tourists in this metropolis.

Tourist PEB in cities includes actions such as using public transport or walking instead of private vehicles, reducing littering, sorting waste, respecting green spaces, and complying with local environmental practices during the visit [6-8]. While these behaviours are often studied in nature-based and rural destinations, the urban tourism context is distinct because behavioural options are strongly shaped by infrastructure, information architectures, and service design. Smart city tourism, in principle, can make sustainable choices easier through real-time information, choice architecture, and low-friction access to public transport [9, 10]. Yet, tourists differ substantially in their willingness to act and in their capability to use technology to support action.

Three constructs are increasingly highlighted as key to understanding sustainable behaviour in smart destinations: PSS of the destination offer, tourists’ TR, and their engagement with the place. First, PSS captures tourists’ assessments that a destination’s smart services, infrastructure, and governance support environmental and social well-being. When sustainability cues are visible and credible, tourists may interpret them as signals that PEB is valued and normative in the setting [11]. Second, TR reflects a person’s propensity to embrace new technologies and feel confident using them for travel decisions. TR shapes whether tourists can leverage smart tools (apps, QR systems, digital ticketing, trip planners) that reduce the ‘effort cost’ of sustainable choices [12, 13]. Third, PENG refers to the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural connection tourists develop with the destination. Engagement and attachment have been shown to predict stewardship and environmentally responsible behaviour because tourists feel a sense of care and responsibility toward the place [14-16].

Existing research streams often treat these drivers separately: smart tourism studies emphasise satisfaction and behavioural intentions related to technology (e.g., use intention, revisit, recommendation), while sustainable tourism studies emphasise values, norms, and attitudes toward responsible behaviour. Bridging these streams is increasingly recommended, because technology is not merely a service channel; it is also a behavioural infrastructure that can shape what tourists notice, value, and do [2, 10, 11]. In parallel, engagement-based perspectives suggest that sustainability interventions may be more effective when tourists feel psychologically connected to the destination and see themselves as part of its story, rather than as transient consumers [14, 15].

Accordingly, the present study proposes and tests a model in which PSS influences tourist PEB directly and indirectly via PENG, while TR strengthens the conversion of sustainability perceptions into behavioural action. This approach aligns with contemporary stimulus–organism–response logic, frequently used to explain sustainable consumer behaviour in tourism settings, in which destination cues (stimuli) influence internal states such as engagement (organism), which in turn lead to behaviour (response) [15]. It also resonates with digital sustainability research suggesting that technology enables sustainability when it reduces friction, provides feedback, and reinforces social norms for action [10, 13].

The contribution of this study lies not in introducing entirely new constructs, but in specifying their interplay in a concrete urban smart tourism problem. First, the study shifts attention from smart tourism as a technology adoption issue to smart tourism as a behavioural sustainability issue, namely whether tourists in a dense metropolitan destination convert destination-level sustainability cues into everyday low impact action. Second, it positions PENG as an action-proximal mechanism that is more suitable than a purely enduring bond construct for explaining behaviour during a short urban visit. Third, it conceptualises TR as a dual digital capability mechanism that operates both directly and conditionally, clarifying why the same smart sustainability environment can produce different behavioural outcomes across tourists. Kuala Lumpur is therefore not treated as a convenient application site, but as a theoretically relevant context in which digital infrastructure, urban mobility frictions, and place-based meanings intersect.

1.1 Perceived sustainability of smart city tourism of smart city tourism

PSS refers to tourists’ evaluations of whether the destination’s tourism system—its infrastructure, services, governance, and visitor management- supports environmental protection, socio-cultural integrity, and long-term urban well-being. In smart city tourism, sustainability cues may be embedded in both physical systems (walkable districts, rail connectivity, recycling facilities, green public spaces) and digital layers (e.g., apps that recommend eco-routes, congestion information, digital tickets that reduce paper use, real-time air-quality dashboards, and digital interpretation that replaces printed brochures). Recent research emphasises that smart destinations should not define ‘smartness’ purely as technological sophistication, but as a socio-technical capability that improves quality of life and sustainability outcomes [1, 3, 9].

From a behavioural perspective, PSS is a ‘destination-level stimulus’ that can shape what tourists believe is expected, feasible, and valued in the setting. When tourists perceive that a city invests in sustainable systems, they infer that pro-environmental conduct is socially supported and institutionally facilitated. Studies using norm-based frameworks highlight that sustainability initiatives can activate personal responsibility and a moral obligation to act, especially when tourists view destination actors (institutions, businesses, communities) as credible stewards [6, 11]. Similarly, value–belief–norm approaches suggest that sustainability cues influence PEB through eco-destination image and environmental knowledge, and that these influences can be strengthened by personal values [17].

In smart city contexts, sustainability cues may operate through digital choice architecture. Digitalisation can reduce the transaction costs of sustainable behaviour by making eco-options visible and convenient (e.g., showing the fastest low-carbon route, indicating live public transport arrivals, or highlighting nearby water refill points). Digitalisation can also provide feedback loops (e.g., carbon footprint estimates, rewards for green mobility) and facilitate social coordination (e.g., shared mobility platforms). Empirical studies increasingly report that tourists’ perceptions of digitalisation and smart development can strengthen perceptions of sustainability and foster environmentally sustainable lifestyles and behaviours [10, 13].

However, sustainability perceptions do not always translate into action due to the well-documented attitude, behaviour gap. In urban tourism, the gap can be widened by time pressure, convenience seeking, unfamiliarity with local systems, and the cognitive load of navigating complex cities. This highlights the importance of identifying psychological mechanisms that connect sustainability perceptions to behaviour [2, 15]. In this manuscript, PENG is proposed as such a mechanism: PSS can make visitors feel that the city is worth caring about, thereby strengthening their engagement and stewardship orientation [14, 16].

The positive effect of smart sustainability cues should not be treated as automatic. Tourists often behave less pro-environmentally during travel than in everyday life because time pressure, novelty seeking, and convenience priorities can override prior environmental habits [7]. In smart tourism settings, further frictions may arise when digital systems create information overload, undermine digital well-being, or trigger privacy and security concerns that reduce willingness to use data-intensive services [18-20]. Moreover, efficiency gains can create rebound effects if digital convenience encourages additional movement or consumption rather than lower-impact choices [21]. These countervailing mechanisms justify the present model, which examines when sustainability perceptions are translated into behaviour and why that translation may be stronger for some tourists than for others.

1.2 Technology readiness

TR reflects the extent to which individuals are inclined to embrace and use new technologies to accomplish goals. In tourism, TR shapes not only whether tourists adopt smart tourism technologies, but also how effectively they can use these tools to navigate destinations, reduce uncertainty, and customise experiences. A growing body of evidence shows that tourists differ in digital confidence, perceived control, and willingness to try new travel technologies, which in turn influences satisfaction and behavioural intentions in smart destinations [12, 13].

Within smart city tourism, TR can be conceptualised as a capability that converts the ‘potential’ of smart infrastructure into realised behavioural outcomes. For example, a city can provide real-time public transport dashboards, integrated ticketing, and micro-mobility sharing systems, but visitors who are not technology-ready may not use these systems and may default to carbon-intensive choices. Conversely, technology-ready tourists are more likely to engage with eco-apps, scan QR-based interpretation, accept digital nudges, and plan routes that balance convenience with sustainability [9, 10].

TR is also conceptually linked to perceived behavioural control, a key mechanism in many behaviour models. When tourists feel competent using smart systems, they perceive sustainable choices as easier, reducing psychological and practical barriers [22, 23]. This aligns with digital sustainability research showing that digital solutions can promote sustainable development when users perceive them as usable, reliable and supportive of meaningful goals [11, 24].

In this study, TR is not only treated as an antecedent of sustainable behaviour (because technology-ready tourists can access enabling tools), but also as a moderator that shapes the strength of the sustainability–behaviour relationship. In other words, sustainability perceptions are expected to lead to stronger PEB among tourists with higher TR, as these tourists can translate perceptions into concrete actions through smart services [10, 13].

1.3 Place engagement

In the present study, PENG refers to an active, visit-specific state of cognitive attention, emotional involvement, and behavioural participation directed toward Kuala Lumpur as a destination [25, 26]. It is related to, but distinct from, place attachment and psychological ownership. Place attachment refers to a more enduring affective bond with the place, whereas psychological ownership captures a felt sense that the place is “mine” and therefore deserves care, stewardship, or protection [14, 27]. We focus on engagement because urban tourists often develop meaningful yet relatively short-term connections through exploration, interaction, and digitally mediated experiences rather than through deep or enduring bonds. In a smart city setting, this action-oriented construct is theoretically appropriate because it captures the degree to which visitors notice, interpret, participate in, and become involved with the place during the visit, which is the psychological state most proximal to pro-environmental action.

PENG is particularly relevant in urban destinations where tourists interact with local communities, everyday mobility systems, cultural institutions, and public spaces. Urban tourism experiences that encourage participation—such as heritage exploration, local food engagement, community events, and cultural learning—can foster place meaning and attachment. When tourists see themselves as ‘temporary citizens’ rather than passive consumers, they are more likely to reduce negative impacts and comply with environmental rules [15].

From a stimulus–organism–response perspective, sustainability cues and smart services (stimuli) can enhance engagement (organism) by making the city legible, navigable, and personally relevant. Digital layers can deepen engagement by enabling storytelling, personalisation, and co-creation [2]. At the same time, PENG can bridge the attitude–behaviour gap, because engagement provides an affective and identity-based reason to act consistently with sustainability norms [14, 16].

In this study, PENG is modelled as both an outcome of PSS and as a direct predictor of PEB. Furthermore, it is proposed as a mediator that explains how sustainability perceptions are internalised and translated into action. This is consistent with recent moderated-mediation work demonstrating that engagement and destination bonds can transmit the effect of experience quality and creativity to environmentally responsible behaviour among younger cohorts [15].

3.1 Research design

The study employed a cross-sectional quantitative design to test an explanatory model integrating sustainability perceptions, PENG, and TR in a smart city tourism context. To match contemporary reporting practices in tourism and sustainability research, the quantitative hypotheses were analysed using PLS-SEM, which is suitable for prediction-oriented models with mediation and moderation and for handling complex measurement structures [30]. Following best practice guidance, the analysis reports measurement reliability, convergent validity (average variance extracted (AVE)), discriminant validity (HTMT), and bootstrapped structural paths [31].

3.2 Study context

Kuala Lumpur was selected because it represents a theoretically relevant smart city tourism setting in which digital governance ambitions intersect with unresolved sustainability pressures. Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur’s smart city agenda explicitly links tourism experience through technology with smart mobility, smart waste management, smart pollution control, and city data analytics, while the city’s traffic planning framework identifies continuing congestion, limited public transport interconnection, and first mile and last mile access as major barriers to mobility transition [4, 5]. These characteristics make Kuala Lumpur suitable for examining whether PSS, PENG, and TR jointly explain tourist PEB in a dense, high-mobility, digitally mediated urban destination.

3.3 Research sampling

The intended field protocol uses on-site intercept and QR-assisted surveys in high-tourist-flow locations (KLCC precinct, Bukit Bintang corridor, Central Market, heritage districts) combined with online distribution through accommodation partners. Respondents are tourists aged 18 or older who stayed in Kuala Lumpur for at least 1 day. Participation is voluntary and anonymous, with informed consent presented at the start of the survey.

Data were collected from tourists in Kuala Lumpur through a field survey. Respondents were aged 18 years or older and had stayed in Kuala Lumpur for at least one day. Participation was voluntary and anonymous, and informed consent was obtained at the start of the survey. The final valid sample comprised 420 responses, which were used for the measurement and structural model analyses reported in this study.

3.4 Measurement and questionnaire design

All constructs were measured using multi-item Likert scales (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). Items were adapted from recent tourism and sustainability literature and reworded to fit the Kuala Lumpur smart city tourism context. PSS items captured perceptions that smart tourism services support environmental protection and responsible urban management [10, 13]. PENG items captured emotional connection, cognitive involvement, and behavioural participation in Kuala Lumpur [14-16]. TR items captured confidence, optimism, and innovativeness regarding the use of smart travel technologies [12, 13]. PEB items captured sustainable mobility, waste reduction, and compliance with environmental practices during the visit [6, 15].

3.5 Control and moderation specification

TR was included as an exogenous predictor of PEB and as the moderator of the PSS → PEB path via an interaction term (PSS × TR). All constructs were standardised prior to interaction computation to reduce multicollinearity. Mediation was assessed through the indirect effect PSS → PENG → PEB using bootstrapping, consistent with contemporary SEM recommendations.

3.6 Data analysis

The analysis followed a two-stage approach. First, the measurement model was assessed for indicator loadings, internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha, ρA, ρC), and AVE. Second, discriminant validity was evaluated using HTMT and Fornell–Larcker criteria, in line with current PLS-SEM guidance [30, 31]. Third, the structural model was evaluated using path coefficients (β), bootstrapped t-statistics and p-values (3,000 resamples), effect sizes (f²), and predictive accuracy measures including R² and Q² predict with cross-validated RMSE/MAE.

3.7 Questionnaire profile

Table 1 below is the questionnaire profile applied in this research study.

Table 1. Questionnaire profile

Note: PSS = Perceived Sustainability of Smart City Tourism; PENG = Place Engagement; TR = Technology Readiness; PEB = Pro-environmental Behaviour.

This paper describes tourist PEB in Kuala Lumpur as a contingent urban process and not a mere byproduct of positive sustainability attitudes. The favourable impact of PSS indicates that visitors view apparent systems of sustainability not just as qualities of a destination, but also as clues as to the types of behaviour that are possible and socially correct in the urban area. This understanding is particularly significant in Kuala Lumpur, where tourist mobility is played out through repetitive choices of mobility in dense areas of tourism and where smart city policy attempts to unload congestion and enable more sustainable patterns of movement.

The mediating effect of PENG shows that cues of sustainability are more behaviourally strong when internalised in a sense of an important relationship with the city. This result aligns with earlier studies that have connected smart tourism experience to place-based psychological connection to environmentally responsible behaviour [6, 8, 14]. But in a metropolitan destination, the current paper proposes that engagement is particularly consequential experience since tourists tend to have the city in small bursts of navigation, interpretation, interaction as opposed to long-term or attachment. Here, PEB signifies the encouragement of this behaviour when visitors shift to being temporary consumers to active users of the location who value urban cleanliness, the effectiveness of mobility as well as the quality of the public space as a common good.

This mediating impact of TR also explains why smart city infrastructure does not necessarily lead to sustainable behaviour. Kuala Lumpur can offer digital forays to the action of lower impacts, but digital forays can be only behaviourally effective when the tourists are prepared to exploit them with a positive attitude and a low perceived effort. This is one of the reasons why one should not judge smartness based on the presence of technologies. Its sustainable worth is determined by the presence of friction at the point of decision in digital tools, particularly in situations where visitors experience novel transport systems, various routes, and schedule-bound traveling habits.

Combined, the results render Kuala Lumpur unique rather than just another instance over smart cities due to the fact that it is a city with the implementation of sustainability results within the unresolved urban movement. There is accessibility via rail, enhancements of walkability, online services, and constant congestion. The research thus adds value by demonstrating that to achieve sustainable tourist behaviour in smart cities, the joint availability of plausible destination cues, a dynamic psychological association with place, and adequate digital capacity to respond to the cues are necessary.

In terms of explanatory power, the model accounted for 44.4% of the variance in PEB. For an applied behavioural model in a heterogeneous tourist population, this level of explained variance is meaningful and suggests that the combination of sustainability perceptions, PENG, and digital readiness provides a useful prediction-oriented explanation of sustainable tourist actions [32]. At the same time, the modest R² for PENG (16.3%) indicates that engagement is shaped by additional factors beyond sustainability perceptions, including destination experience quality, cultural affinity, service encounters, and social interactions. This provides a direction for future studies to expand the engagement formation model by incorporating experience and emotion constructs linked to eco-behaviour in tourism [15].

Interpreting the findings for Kuala Lumpur, the results suggest that city-level sustainability investments and communication strategies can directly influence tourist behaviour, but the largest gains may occur when these efforts are paired with engagement-building experiences and user-friendly technology layers. For example, integrating sustainability information into tourism apps and transport platforms can support low-carbon decisions, but the content should be framed in ways that strengthen tourists’ attachment to KL (highlighting local narratives about green public spaces, cultural heritage stewardship, and community well-being) [33, 34]. Such a design is consistent with recent smart tourism work emphasising that smartness should be interpreted as a duality of place and technology, where the human meaning of the destination co-evolves with digital infrastructures [2, 3].

This study contributes theoretically by advancing smart city tourism research from a technology-adoption focus toward behaviour-based sustainability outcomes, positioning tourist PEB as a core performance indicator for smart destination initiatives. The findings reinforce engagement-based explanations, demonstrating that PENG not only directly predicts PEB but also mediates the relationship between sustainability perceptions and behaviour, thereby translating perceptions into stewardship actions. Additionally, TR is identified as a key boundary condition that explains heterogeneous behavioural responses to smart sustainability cues. From a managerial perspective, the practical priority in Kuala Lumpur is to reduce behavioural friction in the visitor journey rather than merely increase the volume of sustainability messaging. In high-flow corridors linking rail stations with major tourist areas such as the KLCC area, Bukit Bintang, Central Market, and nearby heritage districts, destination managers should provide multilingual real-time wayfinding that integrates walking times, interchange guidance, and lower-impact route recommendations. Because the city’s mobility agenda prioritises greater public transport use and stronger first mile and last mile access, tourist-facing digital systems should make rail, bus, pedestrian, micromobility, and Park and Ride options legible to short-stay visitors who may not be familiar with local transport routines. Visible sustainability cues in the built environment, such as refill points, recycling facilities, shaded pedestrian links, and concise digital prompts, should be paired with place-based storytelling that frames responsible behaviour as contributing to Kuala Lumpur’s urban liveability and heritage stewardship. Digital interventions should also minimise data requests, use clear consent language, and prioritise usability across languages and devices. Policy-wise, digital inclusion, usability, and data governance are essential, as accessible interfaces and privacy protection enhance trust and ensure that sustainability benefits are equitably distributed across tourists with varying levels of TR.