Tourist Evaluation and Reliance on AI-Generated Content for Sustainable Digital Tourism: A Process-Oriented Systematic Review

This study addresses the fragmented understanding of tourist responses to AI-generated content (AIGC) in tourism and hospitality by developing a process-oriented systematic review. While prior studies have examined AIGC-related trust, authenticity, credibility, and adoption, these constructs have often been treated separately, limiting theoretical understanding of how tourists evaluate and rely on AI-generated tourism content. Based on a systematic review of 98 peer-reviewed journal articles retrieved from Scopus and the Web of Science Core Collection and published between January 2023 and March 2026, this study synthesizes the literature around four connected stages: perceived AIGC attributes, evaluative judgments, trust calibration, and behavioral responses. The findings show that tourist responses to AIGC are not direct reactions to technological exposure, but emerge through a layered process in which tourists assess content quality, credibility, authenticity, and contextual appropriateness before deciding whether and how far to rely on AI-generated outputs. The review contributes by reconceptualizing trust as a dynamic calibration mechanism, distinguishing authenticity from credibility and trust, and identifying reliance as a key bridge between evaluation and behavior. The study offers a process-oriented framework and a future research agenda for advancing more theoretically integrated and context-sensitive research on AIGC in sustainable digital tourism. By clarifying how tourists evaluate, trust, verify, and rely on AI-generated tourism content, the review contributes to sustainable tourism development by highlighting the conditions under which AIGC can support more responsible, transparent, and human-centered tourism communication. These insights are relevant to destination sustainability because trustworthy and context-sensitive AIGC can improve information quality, reduce misleading representations, and support more informed tourist decision-making.