Territories rebuilt from war are almost absent from smart tourism research, which has developed around mature cities that add digital tools to infrastructure accumulated over decades. This matters because reconstruction offers a rare chance to design a destination and its digital layer together from the ground up, yet no instrument exists to assess how ready such a place is. This study fills that gap with the Smart Tourism Readiness Index (SITRI), a five-dimension composite weighted through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) at a confirmed consistency ratio of CR = 0.018. Using a mixed secondary-data design and four-category source triangulation, the index is applied to Azerbaijan's Karabakh and East Zangezur regions across the 2020–2026 reconstruction period, scoring five destinations against documented evidence. The regional mean readiness is 3.63 on a 1–5 scale; Zangilan (4.17) and Fuzuli (4.03) reach the High band through purpose-built airports and greenfield settlement design, while heritage-anchored Shusha (3.95) leads on demand. The central finding is a sequencing signature: the mobility backbone is built first and fastest, while the traveller-facing services that turn a reachable place into a usable one are deferred behind physical construction. The study repositions readiness as a reconstruction-phase variable and offers a diagnostic transferable to other post-conflict contexts.

Keywords: smart tourism readiness, post-war reconstruction, spatial assessment, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Karabakh, destination competitiveness

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