Exploring the role of information technology in tourism informatics: state of the art

ABSTRACT

With the deepening application of information technology in the field of tourism, tourism informatics as a new research field came into being. In this study, qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to systematically summarize and evaluate the related research of tourism informatics. First, the history and global structure were summarized; Second, the research theories, data, and methods were analyzed. Third, five genres of content were explored: the tourism information industry; spatiotemporal analysis of tourism informatics; data mining in tourism informatics; tourism information behavior; tourism network marketing. The study found that the emerging topics of tourism informatics are constantly proposed, and the research boundaries are constantly expanded. The research gradually develops from the static phenomenon to the comprehensive application of multidisciplinary methods, theories and multiple heterogeneous data. But the research of tourism informatics has many problems, this paper discusses these problems and puts forward the the future research direction.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism informatics
• emerging disciplinary
• information technology
• information industry
• literature analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation, Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China [grant number 21YJCZH140]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 72001191, 42101225]; Henan Province Key Research and Development and Extension Special Project (Soft science research) [grant number 232400411184]; 2023 Zhengzhou University Education and Teaching Reform Research and Practice Project (International student education special) Key Project [grant number 2023ZZUJGXM-LXS010]; Ministry of Education Ideological and Political Work Team Training Center (Zhengzhou University) 2022 Special Open Project [grant number ZZUKFZC202209].