Digital Twins in Smart Tourist Destinations: Addressing Overtourism, Sustainability, and Governance Challenges

Digital twins are emerging as promising yet underexplored tools for addressing overtourism, sustainability, and governance challenges in tourism. This study assessed their acceptance using a mixed-methods design that combined a large-scale survey of tourists (N = 1,286) with semi-structured stakeholder interviews across four Spanish destinations (Barcelona, Málaga, Valencia, and Benidorm). Factor analyses validated a six-dimensional acceptance model comprising trust, usefulness, ease of use, perceived risks, sustainability attitudes, and awareness. The quantitative results demonstrated that trust, usefulness, and ease of use strongly predicted adoption intentions, while risk perceptions negatively influenced acceptance. Sustainability orientations and digital familiarity further enhanced support. Qualitative insights revealed that governance capacity, equity concerns, and readiness critically shaped stakeholder evaluations, highlighting that adoption is mediated not only by individual perceptions but also by local infrastructural and institutional contexts. The study advances technology acceptance theory by integrating sustainability and awareness as domain-specific constructs and by showing how governance dynamics condition adoption across destinations. Practically, it underscores the need for institutional trust, transparent risk management, equitable participation, and alignment with sustainability agendas. While limited to Spanish destinations, the findings offer broader lessons for European cities seeking to embed digital twins in tourism governance.