Building trust in the tourism supply chain: The role of logistics competency and integrity with digitalization as a moderating variable

The tourism industry contributes significantly to Indonesia’s economy. Yet, its long-term sustainability depends not only on appealing destinations but also on the reliability of logistics systems that coordinate the flow of goods, services, and information. Existing studies have largely emphasized technical capability or digital solutions, providing a limited understanding of how ethical conduct and operational competence jointly shape trust within tourism supply chains. Drawing on the resource-based view and social exchange theory, this study examines how logistics competence and integrity impact trust and whether digitalization enhances these relationships. A quantitative approach using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed, with data collected from ۱۰۰ tourism managers and logistics actors across diverse tourism settings. The results show that integrity plays a dominant role in fostering trust, whereas competence and digitalization do not exhibit direct effects. However, digitalization significantly amplifies the influence of both competence and integrity on trust, indicating its role as an enabling mechanism rather than a primary driver. This study contributes by demonstrating that, unlike much of the existing literature that highlights technology and technical skill, trust in community-oriented tourism contexts is fundamentally shaped by integrity, with digital tools enhancing rather than replacing ethical reliability. These findings suggest that managers should reinforce transparency and ethical consistency while adopting digital solutions strategically to support trustworthy and sustainable tourism supply chains.

کلیدواژه ها:

tourism industry ، Supply chain ، Digitalization ، Trust ، Integrity