ABSTRACT
Modern-day tourism festivals in Asia have greatly embraced technology to boost festival quality, attendee's experience and marketing potential. With this development, technology enhances tourism festival demand, innovation, and attendance. This in turn boosts the market value since it creates a modernized, industrialized, and commercialized industry that can compete favorably on the global tourism market. Although the application of advanced technology particularly in festivals has been anticipated to be associated with several technical challenges, financial and human resource constraints, it is important to note that if appropriate and acceptable models are identified and factors that influence technological applied, a long-lasting impression on the minds of the festival visitors can be created. This study was done to both offer a theoretical overview of the application of technologies in tourism festivals and to inform development of strategy in the Asian tourism festival industry. Effective integration of innovative digital technologies in tourism festivals in Asia is anticipated to create a unique leisure experience, particularly in a unique form of festivals known as ‘Smart Tourism Festivals'. Besides sustainability, these highly impact on the key experience outcomes such as satisfaction and memorability of the festival attendees. The COVID-19 pandemic has given momentum to the current technological application processes in various film, music, culture, sport, art and other related carnivals and festivals in the tourism industry especially amongst the leading Asian economies such as China, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, India, Singapore, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and Thailand among others. This paper uses existing studies to provide a theoretical discussion of tourism festivals in the Asian context, areas of impact of digital technologies on festivals, emergence of smart tourism festivals, the underlying challenges and opportunities. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.