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e-Tourism beyond COVID-19: a call for transformative research

Ulrike gretzel.

1 USC Center for Public Relations, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, 3502 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA

Matthias Fuchs

2 Department of Economics, Geography, Law and Tourism, Mid-Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden

Rodolfo Baggio

3 Bocconi University, via Röntgen, 1, 20136 Milan, Italy

4 National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, 30 Lenin Avenue, Tomsk, 634050 Russia

Wolfram Hoepken

5 Institute for Digital Transformation, Ravensburg-Weingarten University, Doggenriedstr, 88250 Weingarten, Germany

6 School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 17 Science Museum Road, TST East, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Julia Neidhardt

7 Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology, Favoritenstraße 9-11, HC0204A-1040 Wien, Austria

Juho Pesonen

8 Business School, University of Eastern Finland, Yliopistonkatu 2, 80100 Joensuu, Finland

Markus Zanker

9 Faculty of Computer Science, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Dominikanerplatz 3, piazza Domenicani, 3, 39100 Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

Zheng Xiang

10 The Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Virginia Tech, 295 West Campus Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA

This viewpoint article argues that the impacts of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 call for transformative e-Tourism research. We are at a crossroads where one road takes us to e-Tourism as it was before the crisis, whereas the other holds the potential to transform e-Tourism. To realize this potential, e-Tourism research needs to challenge existing paradigms and critically evaluate its ontological and epistemological foundations. In light of the paramount importance to rethink contemporary science, growth, and technology paradigms, we present six pillars to guide scholars in their efforts to transform e-Tourism through their research, including historicity, reflexivity, equity, transparency, plurality, and creativity. We conclude the paper with a call to the e-Tourism research community to embrace transformative research.

Introduction

Since being first reported by the Chinese government to the World Health Organization (WHO) on December 31, 2019 and later declared as a pandemic by the WHO on March 11, 2020 (WHO 2020 ), the COVID-19 virus, within a short period of only several months, has caused an unprecedented global crisis with enormous impacts on our political, social, and economic systems (Carlsson-Szlezak et al. 2020 ; Fuchs 2020 ). As of May 18th, 2020, more than 316,000 deaths have been recorded with more than 4.8 million people infected (see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ ). As its negative effects continue to ripple throughout the world, governments at both regional and national levels have so far issued and implemented policies involving travel bans, community lock-down, stay-at-home orders, self- or mandatory-quarantine, and other business-specific restraints to varying degrees (Gössling et al. 2020 ). As a result, travel and tourism have literally come to a halt, and the economic activities of the airline industry and hospitality sector have been reduced to a small fraction of what they used to be prior to the pandemic. While some economies are gradually reopening, the overall situation remains volatile due to the high contagiousness of the virus and the lack of an immediate treatment or vaccine.

Crises are by no means new to tourism (Blake and Sinclair 2003 ; Sönmez et al. 1999 ); however, the impact of COVID-19, at least from an economic point of view, has so far been more devastating than any other crises in recent history (Hall et al. 2020 ; UNWTO 2020 ). As such, the crisis has brought forth new questions of how the tourism industry can respond to and recover from this crisis and, ultimately, how travel and tourism will evolve as a socio-economic activity in our society. Finding solutions and answers to these questions is becoming an increasingly important challenge for stakeholders of tourism including the research communities (Gössling et al. 2020 ; Hall et al. 2020 ; Higgins-Desbiolles 2020 ; Jamal and Budke 2020 ). More importantly, technology plays a central role in all of this.

Ever since the introduction of the Internet to business, information technology (IT) has been an important enabler, catalyst and, in some cases, disruptor for travel and tourism (Werthner and Klein 1999 ). This is particularly true in today’s world in that IT has been woven into every fabric of travel and tourism involving essentially every facet of the travel process, every stakeholder of tourism, and every subdomain of the industry (Benckendorff et al. 2019 ; Werthner et al. 2015 ; Xiang 2018 ). In light of this pandemic, there are early signs that IT has been widely used, adapted and developed to address some of the pressing problems in our daily life, including work, travel, leisure, business as well as governance. Technology has become a major factor in building resilience in tourism (Hall et al. 2017 ; UNWTO 2020 ). On the one hand, IT appears to be highly effective and, in many ways, even essential in confronting these pandemic-related problems (e.g., traveler screening, case and contact tracking, online education, and entertainment during lockdown, to name just a few). On the other hand, there are a range of broader issues and concerns resulting from society’s reaction to the crisis such as the new digital divide, vulnerability, privacy, misinformation and ethics of using technology, which would have profound and long-term effects across all layers of e-Tourism (Werthner et al. 2015 ).

Over the last three decades, e-Tourism, as a field of scientific inquiry, has evolved into a substantial body of knowledge with the focus of theory and information technology development aligned with core problems in tourism (Xiang et al. 2021 ). The profundity and complexity of the impact of COVID-19 require both a short-term reaction and a long-term readiness in order to understand some of its far-reaching effects at the fundamental level. As the intersection between IT and tourism, the field of e-Tourism must now grapple with the two “fronts” of a fast-changing new reality and tremendous prospects for long-term change. As e-Tourism researchers, we find this new reality provides both enormous challenges and exciting opportunities from the perspectives of scientific inquiry and technological innovation. e-Tourism research must now elevate itself to be ready to ask, and prepare to find answers to, some critical and significant questions regarding the role of IT in contributing to a better future of tourism and society.

As such, as the editorial team of the Journal, we strongly believe COVID-19 presents an opportunity and also an obligation for us to critically reflect on the field of e-Tourism and, as a result, to offer an outlook for a “transformative” research agenda for e-Tourism research. We develop this call for transformative research based upon a careful and critical assessment of the basic assumptions and value propositions of the existing literature in relation to the broader conversations about the future of tourism and the role of IT in society. Even though the future is uncertain, it is our responsibility to think about the challenges, opportunities, threats and possibilities that exist in the future that can be shaped by e-Tourism research in an impactful way. We believe a paradigm shift is much needed at this watershed moment, and we hope this essay will be of keen interest to the communities surrounding this journal and will help advance e-Tourism research as a whole. To achieve this aim, the paper reviews e-Tourism as a field of study, challenges the paradigms through which it is predominantly shaped, and then suggests six pillars on which to build transformative e-Tourism research.

e-Tourism as a field of study

Neidhardt and Werthner ( 2018 : 1) define the field of e-Tourism as encompassing the “ analysis, design, implementation and application of IT/e-commerce solutions in the travel and tourism industry, as well as the analysis (of the impact) of the respective technical/economic processes and market structures ”. This definition describes the existing research streams within the field, and especially within the Information Technology & Tourism journal, very well (Buhalis and Law 2008 ; Wang et al. 2010 ). First, the notion of IT as a “solution” represents a particular instrumental view of technology as a tool that serves businesses. Second, it stresses micro- and meso-level perspectives while ignoring macro-level questions regarding the systems and governance approaches that promote, facilitate and regulate specific kinds of technologies. This has already been criticized by Werthner et al. ( 2015 ), who emphasize the need to study e-Tourism across all five identified layers, from individuals to government/policy issues, such as ethics and sustainability. Third, this definition of e-Tourism highlights that e-Tourism research so far has been firmly rooted in a conventional rather than a post-digital, humanist paradigm. Individuals are defined and studied as consumers, users, or data sources rather than affective human beings embedded and embodied in physical and virtual communities and places. Like the businesses that provide and use technologies, they are typically conceptualized as beneficiaries of technological “solutions” and therefore willing to be participants in e-Tourism. Technology as such is seen as a given or something that should be improved rather than questioned.

e-Tourism as a subject of scientific inquiry is a dynamic field that has penetrated mainstream tourism research and is continuing to attract the attention of computer science and engineering scholars in search of application areas. However, recent review papers confirm that while the specific technologies studied constantly evolve, the research streams within e-Tourism have remained remarkably stable (Law et al. 2019 ; Navío-Marco et al. 2018 ; Touray, 2020 ; Yuan et al. 2019 ). What can be seen over the course of e-Tourism research development is the emergence of focus areas and research-activity clusters that correspond to technological advances, like Web 2.0, big data, virtual reality and smart technologies (Buhalis 2019 ). It is expected that COVID-19 related technology development and implementation will spur similar bursts in e-Tourism research.

In many ways, e-Tourism research has not necessarily been affected by the crisis. While physical tourism has come to a stand-still, past and potential tourists have been busy ruminating about past trips on social media by sharing vacation memories and/or dreaming about future vacations on destination or travel agency websites. Museums have opened virtual doors to their exhibitions and bored wannabe tourists stuck in quarantine are flocking to these and other virtual experiences. Disappointed tourists stranded on trips or at home have been using websites and mobile apps to cancel the trips and make complaints. Residents discuss in forums whether they are delighted or devastated about the disappearance of tourists from their communities and images of the positive effects on nature of the sudden disappearance of tourists from a hotspot like Venice went viral. Airbnb hosts now offer virtual experiences, social media travel influencers continue to produce contents for their audiences, and tourism providers use a multitude of online channels to maintain customer relationships and reassure future tourists. At the same time, tourism providers and their trade associations are engaging in online activism to reveal their dependence on global online platforms. These intensified or new technology use scenarios create a plentitude of data for e-Tourism research.

Simultaneously, the need for technological solutions has been heightened, encouraging the formative side of e-Tourism research to think about, and get ready for, new designs and applications. Specifically, the crisis demands technologies that can facilitate tracking and monitoring of tourists. It requires solutions that can enable the low-touch economy and controlled access scenarios necessary for physical tourism to restart. The crisis further incites thinking about scalability, dynamic systems and real-time information to accommodate rapid changes in demand and supply in anticipation of differential effects of the crisis across the globe and the likelihood of future lock-downs. e-Tourism research should find creative business intelligence solutions for destinations and tourism providers to better forecast markets, simulate scenarios and understand risks. Technologies are also needed to encourage smart business networks and strategic partnerships/information exchanges with regulatory agencies. Further, post COVID-19 technology has to accommodate shifts in consumer behavior (e.g. risk perceptions, last-minute booking, desires for advance reservations in new contexts such as museums, need for highly personalized packages) and likely changes in the interaction modus (e.g. from physical touch to voice or from input to automated detection).

There is no danger of e-Tourism running out of data or application scenarios. Consequently, e-Tourism research could continue as usual, adapting its theories, methodologies, data and design efforts to new business/government requirements and travel realities. However, COVID-19 prompts us to rethink the ontology and epistemology of e-Tourism research. We believe that, in order for e-Tourism research to contribute to knowledge creation that truly benefits the future of tourism and society, fundamental assumptions about technology need to be challenged and e-Tourism as a field of scientific inquiry needs to change.

Paradigms challenged: rethinking science, growth, technology in response to COVID-19

In this section, we reflect upon the opportunity the crisis provides for the transformation of e-Tourism research. Beyond the immediate health crisis, COVID-19 is essentially a crisis of economized societies rooted in the growth-paradigm (Ötsch 2020 ). In fact, governments worldwide reacted to the crisis based on prognosed GDP shortfalls and steep increases in unemployment with “rescue packages” and “shock therapies” on an unprecedented scale. At the same time, economists downplay the pandemic as a purely natural event that has originated outside of the economic system (i.e., an exogenous shock) and, thus, has nothing to do with economic structures (Nowlin 2017 ). Further, technology continues to be seen as independent from natural, social and economic systems and, rather, as something that can be used to solve specific problems associated with the crisis without considering larger societal consequences. Last but not least, science is perceived as a means to achieve the medical and technological progress needed to overcome the crisis and to resume previously charted economic growth trajectories. By referring to Brodbeck ( 2014 , 2019 ), we criticize ontological and epistemological foundations that underpin the current science, technology and growth paradigms.

The science paradigm

Historically, sciences are characterized by three assumptions: all phenomena are reducible to their own physically explainable foundations. As a necessary precondition, an independent researcher subject is capable of observing phenomena as factual objects. Finally, mathematics is considered the ideal methodological, logical and argumentative foundation to conduct “value-free” science. However, like all languages, mathematics, but also theories and facts, have shown to be aspects of the same social world and, thus, cannot be considered as separable entities (Gödel 1930 ; Putnam 2004 ). Indeed, theories and their ontological correspondence in reality are socially construed phenomena with perceived specific relevance and meaning (Brodbeck 2019 ). Scientists in general, but also researchers in e-Tourism, usually reflect too little on the “values” on which theories are based and how they are matched with data, i.e. the social practice of science.

Kuhn’s ( 1962 ) seminal work ‘ The structure of scientific revolutions ’ describes paradigm shifts as breaking-points driven by the social, psychological and ethical nature of sciences. A crisis like COVID-19 has the potential to challenge current paradigms because it rapidly changes conditions and allows “thinking about the unthinkable”. This is what Kuhn referred to as the “revolutionary” aspect of paradigm shifts and what Popper ( 1974 ) termed the “essential incompleteness of all sciences”. Particularly in times of crises, sciences are showing their paradoxes and point to the fact that not only their fundamental notions and theories, but also objectified facts and artifacts, such as experiments and technologies, are rooted in the social sphere (Latour 1987 ). It is impossible to separate theories from societal processes and to develop, discover and approve theories in an illusory separated world of scientific thinking (Brodbeck 2019 ). Therefore, a scientific paradigm shift needs to be accompanied especially by a shift in the way we think about “values” and “facts” in relation to the economic and technological foundations of society (Latour 2000 )—and of tourism in particular.

The growth paradigm

As a “calculative form of thinking”, the nature of money reproduces an empty abstract unit and, worse, executes an automatism of the more as the form of money follows the infinite series of numbers—“ the archetype of abstract growth ” (Brodbeck 2019 , 12). Being an empty abstract measuring unit itself, money needs to be related to objectivized and measured things so as to receive their price. This task of objectivization is exactly what modern sciences are primarily specialized in. However, as a consequence, production processes, but also social acts of exchange, technological processes and even skills and the arts, stop being social processes initiated by humans, and rather become “equations” of production functions (Brodbeck 2011 ). In fact, ‘ an ontic social act is ontologically redefined through a mathematical form ’ (Brodbeck 2019 , 16). Therefore, qualitative distinctions appear as numeric identities, i.e. become quantitative differences—or disappear. The uniqueness and diversity of social acts of exchange is transformed into “identical” monetary values (Brodbeck 2019 ). Moreover, monetary thinking enforces the abstract perspective, i.e. things and humans become comparable but empty units. Economic actors do not appear as humans, but as objectivized “rational” decision making machines maximizing their utility or profit.

However, the reference to such a misleading ontology leads to the paradox that economics cannot be considered an empirically exact science, exactly because “free” humans do not behave like mechanical objects of classical physics. Despite the empirical failure of economics, its successful global application and propagation show that it is, first and foremost, not a “value-free” exact science, but rather an “implicit ethic” (Brodbeck 2014 , 8). Although economic theory is not capable of explaining economic agents’ behavior empirically, its political function seems to influence and “program” human action through the prescription of what is considered economically “rational” (Brodbeck 2014 ; Ghoshal 2005 ). While represented through a system of factual statements, economic theories should be uncovered as “implicit ethics” guided by the thought model of calculative thinking and the ontological assumptions of modern science: physicalism, empiricism and mathematization (Allen 2003 ; Brodbeck 2019 ). Despite emergent questioning of the growth paradigm for tourism already before the crisis (Dodds and Butler 2019 ; Higgins-Desbiolles et al. 2019 ; Saarinen 2018 ), much of the current discourse around tourism during and after the pandemic is colored by the notion that tourism as a “demand-driven” economic activity needs to be “stimulated” so that it can “grow” again. Both science and technology are means to serving this end, rather than as transformative forces.

The technology paradigm

Growth ideology is not only the result of the economic imperative, but also of technology (Illich 1992 ; Rendall 2015 ; Samerski 2018 ). Technology is best understood as the relation of humans to their instruments (Illich 1992 ). In turn, tools and instruments are defined as means with which humans try to realize their goals, from simple knives to complex technological systems and socio-technical institutions, like factories and universities (Illich 1975 ). In fact, it is important, not to understand technology as an inevitable product of a determinist technological evolution, but rather as a “historically and culturally shaped meaning relation of man to his tools” (Samerski 2018 , 1639). However, the continuous equipping of human with productive tools inverts the relation between people and their instruments, i.e., as machines force people to behave like machines, means turn to ends (Illich 1975 ).

While today’s techno-genic institutions form a technological system that colonizes our imagination, reshapes not only our activities, but also our self-perception and social relations, it is crucial to distinguish between two types of tools (Cayley 2005 ; Illich 1975 ). “Convivial” tools are fostering the natural ability of their users to act autonomously and mindfully, thus, the tools are modified by, and adapted to, their users. By contrast, “manipulative” tools reduce man to a programmed machine operator, a client whose heteronomous behavior is unconsciously commanded to adapt (Samerski 2018 ). In fact, convivial tools are easy to use, thus requiring just learning by doing. However, as usage demands a programming of the user or societal structures and technocratic elites make tools indispensable or obligatory, their use is manipulative and out of democratic control. Convivial tools serve the purpose of the user and not vice versa, thus, “ allow the expression of personal and societal meaning ” (Samerski 2018 , 1640). Indeed, we should ask whether, e.g. smartphones, whose role in travel has been highlighted in recent e-Tourism literature, are actually means for the realization of humans’ well-being, despite all the ‘user-friendly’ designs. They not only pre-program desires and habits, but also affect the sense of the self to a degree that users might become addicted to their devices. Countless examples of such manipulative tools have been cited and discussed in recent critiques of those technologies that aim to persuade, surveille, and even “hijack” people’s mind (Harris 2016 ; Tufekci 2014 ).

Transformative technologies should limit manipulation and comprise all the powerful tools for democratic engagement, participation, transparency, deliberation and political action, as digital commons, open source technologies and open access technologies impressively show (Kallis 2011 ; Samerski 2018 ). In addition, publicly shared information is essentially a public good. Whenever new information emerges, due to its socio-historical character, it incorporates the whole societal history of information, thus, should belong to no one in particular. However, in global capitalism, information becomes a resource that favors capital accumulation, and is, therefore, treated as a commodity and ever more controlled by powerful corporations (Fuchs 2009 ). To sum up, “manipulative” tools embedded into broader paradigms of calculative thinking are programming the behavior of humans and, thus, restrict the freedom inherent to a convivial society. By contrast, “convivial” technologies convert current efficiency-focused economies of scarce means towards sufficiency-focused ecologies of desirable social goals (Dierksmeier and Pirson 2010 ; Samerski 2018 ).

The COVID-19 crisis has put e-Tourism research at a crossroads. One path leads us to focus on research that subscribes to existing scientific paradigms, conventional notions of technology and growth-driven thinking and, thus, supports bringing back tourism as we knew it. The other path takes a critical stance at what was before and how things were done and helps envision a better future. The latter path requires “transformative” research.

Transformative e-Tourism research

By transformative e-Tourism research we mean research that makes underlying value systems, institutional logics, scientific paradigms and particular notions of technology visible and therefore transformable. Transformative e-Tourism research encompasses research that critically analyzes and explicitly questions the designs, resulting affordances and likely consequences of technologies and presents alternatives. Further, transformative e-Tourism research transcends immediate industry needs and actively shapes e-Tourism futures. We propose that the following six pillars, namely historicity, reflexivity , transparency , equity , plurality and creativity , are especially important for guiding transformative e-Tourism research:

Historicity

There is a real danger that the COVID-19 crisis will prompt e-Tourism researchers to overly focus on new realities and ignore theory and practice established before the pandemic. By historicity we therefore mean acknowledging historical origins and development of theories and technologies over time and in close relationship with the evolution of social and political ideologies and institutions. Conceptualizing the crisis as a clean break in relation to e-Tourism and consequent dismissal of past research will only heighten the replication crisis in science, which did not receive enough attention in e-Tourism, even before COVID-19.

In particular, e-Tourism research is called to critically discuss and evaluate relevant past studies. This should lead to extracting possible common frameworks needed to assess how the modifications due to the technological solutions that will probably emerge in response to the present crisis will restructure the domain. The aim is to better understand the impacts of technologies at individual, social, economic and political levels, with an obvious focus on the tourism and hospitality domain, but also to consider other domains to avoid possible, and dangerous self-referentiality (DeSanctis and Poole 1994 ).

Reflexivity

The term is used with many variations and meanings (D’Cruz et al. 2007 ; Widmer et al. 2009 ). These variations and meanings have, however, all in common a call for a critical evaluation of, and reflection on, the research in a certain domain and awareness of the factors that influence knowledge creation. In essence, reflexive research problematizes knowledge, specifically its relationship to power and its embeddedness in social institutions. Whether referred to as a researcher’s individual history/positionality or to a team’s attitude, reflexivity is about acknowledging and scrutinizing the tacit knowledge that results from different approaches and outcomes that emerge from the literature and the practice.

Reflexive e-Tourism research explores the ways in which individual researchers, culture, social conditions and structures shape the design and use of technology, and how technology in turn influences cultural and social settings. It is also important to consider the structure of the “institutions” and industrial entities of e-Tourism and their relationship to other institutions as well as their influence on the construction of knowledge in this domain. This “sociology-of-technology” approach (Sassen 2002 ) also argues for a higher sensitivity to social and cultural differences (Lynch 2008 ).

A reflexive approach is important to provide e-Tourism research with rigorous theoretical frameworks. It is a prerequisite for implementing meaningful and effective applications and for building architectures that aim at regaining control and independence from frameworks defined or imposed by the dominant technological powerhouses. Reflexivity is also a critical step towards transparency.

Transparency

By transparency we mean revealing of implicit values. Modern science has replaced value-based argumentation with calculative forms of thinking. However, the history of science has shown that eliminating value-based ontologies is impossible. Thus, by questioning the utilitarian and instrumental nature of the current scientific mainstream, transformative e-Tourism research should acknowledge that science cannot be value-free. Both rigor and relevance of e-Tourism research have to be scrutinized from this perspective. Indeed, for rebuilding tourism in the post COVID-19 era, ontological and ethical aspects related to e-Tourism phenomena should be debated more strongly.

When making implicit values explicit, transformative e-Tourism research is critical not only because of devoting its attention to socially problematic aspects, but also by being aware that “scientifically” developed concepts and technologies always refer to certain values that are promoted and strengthened if these technologies will later be applied in society. A particularly critical stance is needed against the utopian welfare and salvation promises of artificial intelligence (AI), especially because of its incapacity to make its knowledge and value structures explicit. This stance is essential because the “learning” of AI does not take place adjacently to the external human and non-human world; rather, the learning process is intrinsically tied to it. Transformative e-Tourism research should not accept a world where AI is guiding human patterns of speaking and action as constitutive forces of an increasingly artificial sphere. Consequently, transparency is particularly important in prominent e-Tourism domains such as big data analytics or recommender systems design and evaluation.

Equity means assessing how research impacts different groups in society. In the wake of COVID-19, the equity of the impacts of e-Tourism research needs to be thoroughly considered. Social equity of the research refers to how the social impacts are distributed regarding costs and benefits and whether this distribution is considered fair and appropriate (Behbahani et al. 2019 ). We now have the tools to assess and evaluate research both as an academic output as well as based on its effects on society (Hinrichs-Krapels and Grant 2016 ).

An emphasis on equity requires e-Tourism researchers to embrace diversity and discuss the meaning and outcomes of the research from a broader perspective. For example, gender issues in AI and robotics design are becoming a pressing concern (Pritchard 2018 ). With COVID-19, we are seeing an increasing interest in automation and robotics in tourism and hospitality, but the equity of these choices are not thoroughly analyzed. Academic research should aim to develop new tools to rapidly assess the equity of e-Tourism innovations, and equity perspectives should be incorporated in e-Tourism research and design. It is also time to acknowledge the destructive side of e-Tourism research and innovations (Adner and Kapoor 2016 ; Fuchs et al. 2020 ). COVID-19 seems to drive faster innovation adoption and we need to reflect upon how this affects different groups in society.

Equity can be achieved by embracing participative society initiatives such as citizen science, enabling voluntary participation in research (Xiang and Fesenmaier 2017 ). Such opportunities are currently missing from e-Tourism research. Most research in the world is done by universities located in Europe, North America, Australia/New Zealand and East Asia. As research in science and social sciences is increasingly seen as a source of national prosperity (Meo et al. 2013 ), many countries without their own research infrastructure are under-represented in tourism research (Shen et al. 2018 ). Equity is built globally, and e-Tourism research should be able to help those most in need, including e-Tourism researchers with limited resources. Open e-Tourism initiatives could provide one pathway towards equity by democratizing data and processes. Participatory software development, for example AI algorithms developed using open source initiatives, allows the wider community to utilize technology and increases the potential to understand the effects of specific technologies on different groups in society.

e-Tourism research that embraces more than one worldview and a diversity of approaches will significantly enrich options available for transformation in a post-COVID-19 world. E-Tourism research should not conform to a “mainstream” research agenda by narrowly defining itself as a sub-discipline of tourism or information systems. It is applied; it focuses on a variety of contexts surrounding the activities of travel and tourism; and, as such, it is problem-driven (Werthner et al. 2015 ). However, the problems it tackles emerge from a multitude of areas. It is obvious that today’s scientific inquiry fundamentally requires multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and sometimes even anti-disciplinary perspectives; and, this is particularly true in e-Tourism which is situated, by definition, at the intersection between IT and tourism as well as other increasingly important fields such as data science and digital sociology. As such, e-Tourism research should expand its ontology to enable “outside the box” thinking, and should ask more niche and critical questions that can help the field create new meanings. There are early signs of this movement in some of the recent publications in this journal on topics related to digital nomads and wellbeing in travel, which are relevant to understand emerging mobile life styles and consequences of using technology in travel within the new contexts of COVID-19 (Cook 2020 ; Mancinelli 2020 ).

COVID-19 also creates a surge in scientific research, with developments in medicine, technology and data analytics generating an unprecedentedly large amount of literature at an incredibly fast pace (Brainard 2020 ). Because of this (and the complexity of the new reality), it is much needed for e-Tourism to engage with other scientific fields with urgency, in both an ontological and an epistemological sense. Researchers must come out from their own silos to build bridges that lead to fruitful collaboration. e-Tourism research should not focus only on academic exercises; instead, it should also aim at developing innovative solutions to real world problems, such as enabling policy making around issues like societal well-being and sustainability in a prescriptive way. For example, we should encourage a bottom-up approach to technology development that focuses on creating alternatives to a purely growth-driven philosophy that assumes the more, the better. While applied, e-Tourism research should aim to improve its scientific rigor in developing conceptual and theoretical frameworks that articulate both emerging needs and emerging solutions. However, this does not mean neglecting theoretical grounding; instead, we should encourage applying theories in meaningful contexts and continuing testing and retesting them in order to establish their intellectual merit.

Major interruptions to global tourism due to COVID-19 incite a refocusing to the core and fundamental matters in many domains, including science. Mounting critiques proclaim that science in general is very good at micro-innovations but lacks vision and ambition. Even worse, reality checks analyzing the progress made in different IT fields have reached conclusions that improvements over time are marginal at best. For instance, when surveying well-cited recent deep learning techniques in recommender system development, Dacrema et al. ( 2019 ) showed that many of them cannot be reproduced and even those that could were outperformed by comparably simple heuristic methods. Similar observations were made by Musgrave et al. ( 2020 ) who identified serious flaws in experimental setups and evaluation procedures.

This lack of creativity, originality and vision is also not unknown in e-Tourism research, a field that often deliberately self-restricts by primarily focusing on the analysis of existing IT solutions and their adoption and acceptance in tourism. These IT solutions have, however, been largely developed outside the e-Tourism community, and even worse, the e-Tourism research community has no or only limited influence on their conceptualization and design (such as, for instance, social media platforms like TripAdvisor). That said, already Hevner et al. ( 2004 ) postulate for design science research in information systems, thus the simultaneous pursuit of rigor and relevance is as timely as ever. Science should not only limit itself to rigorously re-applying widely adopted theories such as the Technology Acceptance Model (Lee et al. 2003 ; Pourfakhimi et al. 2018 ), but should also aim at creating novel and original technical artefacts and frameworks with high practical relevance or high scientific impact. Creative e-Tourism research goes beyond linear extrapolation from past developments and focuses on deliberately identifying and breaking existing boundaries.

Closing remarks

The preeminent American biologist and Pulitzer Prize winner E. O. Wilson once said: “ The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. ” The COVID-19 crisis has revealed the problematic nature of this situation to a great extent—from selfish panic buying of toilet paper to nations and corporations racing to re-establish the status quo, to an almost religious belief in technology as the ultimate savior. Indeed, much of the COVID-19 recovery efforts in tourism now foresee IT to be the indispensable conditio-sine-qua-non : without IT no tourism during and post-COVID-19. In many ways, this has heightened the need to better understand but also challenge, responsibly manage, and proactively create IT as both a short-term response and a long-term means for the renewal of e-Tourism.

We believe IT holds the key to understand the new pandemic-related conditions in relation to how we manage travel along with our everyday life and how we envision a better future for e-Tourism as a phenomenon and a field of inquiry. As such, in this essay we critique and question the ontology and epistemology of existing e-Tourism research, which is deeply rooted in classical assumptions about science, growth and technology and in the “medieval institutions” that shape it. We envision transformative e-Tourism research as being critical of these assumptions but also constructive by building the necessary foundations for change. Specifically, we call for e-Tourism research that is:

• mindful of the past and the value of continuity (historicity);
• aware of the factors that influence knowledge creation (reflexivity);
• explicit about its values (transparency);
• sensitive to differential opportunities to participate in research and varying impacts of its findings (equity);
• open to diversity in topics and approaches (plurality); and
• willing to break boundaries and be prescriptive (creativity).

The six transformative e-Tourism research pillars are, obviously, by no means all-encompassing and should not be treated as a requirement for every research project e-Tourism researchers engage in. These pillars are intended, rather, as general views that should guide future e-Tourism research as a whole to ask deeper, more impactful, and more critical questions. In addition, some of the views are not mutually exclusive because they share some even higher-level threads that are eventually connected to our fundamental value systems as a society and a civilization, which are also constantly evolving as we continue to battle this and potential future crises. Nonetheless, it is expected that this essay serves as an intellectual ‘ steppingstone ’ that supports the communities surrounding this journal, and beyond, to truly elevate e-Tourism research through rigor, relevancy, creativity, and, ultimately, more significant, diverse and equitable contributions to society.

No funding was received for the preparation of this manuscript.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Contributor Information

Ulrike Gretzel, Email: ude.csu@lezterg .

Matthias Fuchs, Email: [email protected] .

Rodolfo Baggio, Email: [email protected] .

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A bibliometric review on the development in e-tourism research

International Hospitality Review

ISSN : 2516-8142

Article publication date: 3 August 2021

Issue publication date: 12 June 2023

E-tourism is instilling in the tourism industry with the advancement in the technological infrastructure all over the world and fetching tremendous tourists’ attention. The dynamic changes in the technological aspects unveil varied developments in the tourism industry. This paper attempts to reveal the developments in the field of e-tourism by a systematic review of the literature using bibliometric analysis.

Design/methodology/approach

In total,146 research articles were retrieved from the Web of Science data during the period of 2004 – 2020, for further analysis using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny package of R Studio.

Useful insights resulted in the form of most cited papers, contribution in e-tourism research by different authors, countries, institutions, journals and so on, co-occurrence analysis and cluster analysis for major trends or themes of e-tourism. This study solicits an elaborated review of e-tourism research and unveils the future directions for the researchers.

Originality/value

This study adds substantial value to the research of e-tourism by analysing the bibliometric data of the last 16 years, that is, from 2004 – 2020, procured from the Scopus by analysing the significant trends developed in the e-tourism research. It also adds value by indicating the emerging areas of e-tourism.

• Bibliometric analysis
• Biblioshiny

Singh, S. and Bashar, A. (2023), "A bibliometric review on the development in e-tourism research", International Hospitality Review , Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 71-93. https://doi.org/10.1108/IHR-03-2021-0015

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Shalini Singh and Abu Bashar

Published in International Hospitality Review . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

The tourism industry has undergone a paradigm shift with the advent and use of more affordable and accessible information and communication technologies (ICTs) ( Cranmer et al. , 2020 ; Fodor and Werthner, 2004 ; Garcia et al. , 2011 ; Maswera et al. , 2009 ; Tribe and Mkono, 2017 ). The advent of tourism specific sophisticated Internet applications has changed the way the consumers as well as tourism service providers were operating ( Guo, 2011 ; Kolahkaj et al. , 2020 ; Stiakakis and Georgiadis, 2011 ; Szopinski and Staniewski, 2016 ; Tribe and Mkono, 2017 ). The term e-tourism refers to the use of ICT by the tourism services providers to offer travel-related services remotely to the prospective travellers ( Kazandzhieva and Santana, 2019 ), where they can transact as and when required ( Borras et al. , 2014 ; Subramaniyaswamy et al. , 2019 ; Valdivia et al. , 2019 ).

The tourism industry is a multibillion business, online are allowing travellers to get real-time information about the various services which help them to plan, pay and book their future trips in few clicks as per their convenience of time and location ( Buhalis and Jun, 2011 ; García-Crespo et al. , 2009 ; Isfandyari-Moghaddam, 2012 ; Mekkamol et al. , 2013 ; Moreno et al. , 2013 ). E-tourism also allows consumers to read reviews and compare about various services and decide on the basis of real-time data analytics and intelligence. ( Banerjee and Chua, 2016 ; Kontogianni and Alepis, 2020 ; Nilashi et al. , 2019 ; Subramaniyaswamy et al. , 2019 ; Valdivia et al. , 2019 ).

This tourism industry is one of the most important components for revenue pulling not only in developed countries but in developing and rural economies as well ( UNWTO, 2017 ). Applications of internet technologies may enable the tourism to flourish tourism at both rural and urban levels. As the rural tourism sector is not having the enough resources as compared to urban counterpart, therefore electronic applications may persuade travellers to transact at the rural level as well ( Chi et al. , 2020 ; Khan et al. , 2017 ; Lee et al. , 2017 ). E-tourism may help service providers to have the technical collaborations for the upliftment of infrastructure and dissemination of lucid information ( Batet et al. , 2012 ; Johnson and Samakovlis, 2019 ; Kolahkaj et al. , 2020 ).

The technological upgradation now seems very attractive to all the industry practitioners, and hence arises the industry 4.0 not only in manufacturing sector but it may lead a transformation in tourism industry as well ( Stankov and Gretzel, 2020 ). The scholars have given great attention to understand the importance of the technology, its impact and various other changes which are disrupting the tourism industry ( Buyukozkan and Ergun, 2011 ; Pilar Latorre-Martinez et al. , 2014 ; Steinbauer and Werthner, 2007 ). For example, researchers have shown interest in studying the value chain and how it has reshaped the business to business (B2B) and customer to customer (C2C) relationship in tourism sectors ( Fodor and Werthner, 2004 ). The virtualization and digitalization technologies such as the availability of smart phone adoption of Internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and robotics has also got attention from researchers ( Biswas and Abdul-Kader, 2018 ; Nilashi et al. , 2018 , 2019 ).

Recently researchers have shown interest in studying the smart tourism destination which resulted with the continuous evolvement of smart technologies such as sensors, cloud computing, RFID (radio frequency identification) and so on ( Borras et al. , 2014 ; Lee et al. , 2019 ; Straker and Wrigley, 2018 ). E-tourism is also emerging as a substantial need for the tourism industry in this pandemic scenario ( Gretzel et al. , 2020 ) though bearing several challenges such as lack of technical infrastructure, insufficient technical skills of employees as well as end users, cost of installation and so on ( Al-Hassan et al. , 2015 ; Kolahkaj et al. , 2020 ). The various aspects of e-tourism that help in creating an exceptional customer experiences and combating various challenges in this sector are very important to be studied for getting a big picture of e-tourism ( Kulkarni and Rodd, 2020 ; Trunfio and Campana, 2019 ; Weismayer and Pezenka, 2017 ). Since more than two decades ago, researchers have been trying to throw some light on the different aspects of e-tourism and try to develop some significant interventions of Internet technology in tourism. The main objective of this study is to systematically review e-tourism research to evaluate the overall past developments, collaborations, interventions and different aspects of e-tourism, to provide a conclusive remark. For attaining this objective, bibliometric analysis is proposed to systematically review the past studies.

Literature review

Information and communication technological upgradation brings a paradigm shift in the tourism industry ( Baggio and Fuchs, 2018 ; Buhalis and Deimezi, 2004 ; Ying et al. , 2016 ). Now travellers and tourism professionals both are using the Internet technology to facilitate the e-tourism ( Buyukozkan and Ergun, 2011 ; Casillo et al. , 2019 ; Stiakakis and Georgiadis, 2011 ). Travellers and consumers are often using Internet for the decision-making process in the tourism consumption ( Cao and Schniederjans, 2006 ; David-Negre et al. , 2018 ; Steinbauer and Werthner, 2007 ; Zhu et al. , 2019 ). Internet technology transforms the way of individual conduct of tourists and unveils a more improved and convenient version of tourism industry for travel planning and sharing lucid information ( Buhalis and Deimezi, 2004 ; Buhalis and Jun, 2011 ; Gretzel et al. , 2020 ). E-tourism is the innovative way of Web 2.0 and is a web application that generates the recommendations for the travel bookings in a personalized way ( Banerjee and Chua, 2016 ; Cristobal-Fransi et al. , 2017 ; Sebastia et al. , 2009 ). The proliferation of social media and online travel communities encourages the virtual discussion and somehow influences the travellers’ decisions also ( David-Negre et al. , 2018 ; Gärtner et al. , 2010 ; Pantano and Pietro, 2013 ; Pilar Latorre-Martinez et al. , 2014 ). Businesses across the different countries embrace the Internet technology and the logical sequence of the digital channels in the value chain of the travel and tourism industry ( Batat and Prentovic, 2014 ; Kazandzhieva and Santana, 2019 ; Maswera et al. , 2008 ; Stankov and Filimonau, 2019 ), and hence it leads to the development of varied travel destinations ( Buhalis and Deimezi, 2004 ). In other words, e-tourism can be defined as the web marketing that fosters the globalization through implications of ICTs or e-commerce ( Choudhary et al. , 2020 ; Liu et al. , 2014b ; Montejo-Raez et al. , 2011 ; Ying et al. , 2016 ). The impact of Internet technology on the tourism industry in undeniable ( Choudhary et al. , 2020 ; Tribe and Mkono, 2017 ).

Along with several developments in the e-tourism industry, it inculcates some challenges too ( Kolahkaj et al. , 2020 ). Travellers usually face challenges while using mobile technology, web-based tools and e-commerce services ( Fermoso et al. , 2015 ; Pantano and Pietro, 2013 ; Valencia-Garcia et al. , 2011 ). Yet it may get minimized by optimally utilizing the basic managerial functions for e-tourism such as – e-commerce, e-marketing, e-finance and e-accounting, e-human resource management, e-procurement, e-research and development, e-production as well as e-strategy, e-planning and e-management ( Baggio and Fuchs, 2018 ; Lu et al. , 2015 ; Mekkamol et al. , 2013 ; Pantano and Pietro, 2013 ; Szopinski and Staniewski, 2016 ). In this era of highly integrated dynamic technological innovations and developments, the tourism industry thrives for the everlasting value-added services for soliciting better travellers’ experiences ( García-Crespo et al. , 2009 ; Ku and Chen, 2015 ). As per the existing literature, it may be concluded that developments and changes in technological environment are quite uncertain ( Fang et al. , 2016 ; Liu et al. , 2014b ), and to sustain in the highly competitive era, it is essential for the tourism industry to keep an eye over the technological aspects ( Szopinski and Staniewski, 2016 ). Therefore, it demands the elaborated illustrations of the contribution of the different studies in the e-tourism research area.

What are the unveiled associations that can be evolved by using the bibliometric analysis?

Who are the topped cited authors and research articles contributing to the e-tourism research?

What are the main keywords discussed in the research work done in e-tourism?

Methodology

Bibliometric analysis technique is used to analyse the bibliographic data, which is one of the most important measures for the evaluation of the scientific production, and we have considered Web of Science database, and articles from top-quality journals have been collected for analysis of research trends, main topics addressed, most influential contributors and articles in e-tourism research area. The rationale behind taking the Web of Science data is to provide a meticulous quality work in the area of e-tourism. There could be possibility to extract more research work on the e-tourism from the different directories, but it is dubious that all these papers would add a substantial quality value addition in the review study. For example, Google Scholar and Scopus both have more coverage than the Web of Science data ( Harzing and Alakangas, 2016 ; Martín-Martín et al. , 2018 ). But the data coverage of Web of science is more precise and valuable than Google Scholar and Scopus data ( Archambault et al. , 2009 ; Harzing and Alakangas, 2016 ; Martín-Martín et al. , 2018 ; Mongeon and Paul-Hus, 2016 ). Thus, bibliometric data has been collected from the Web of Science to provide more significant insights and development in e-tourism research.

We have used systematic searching and filtering of data – 1) first, we have searched the database with certain search keywords, 2) then we refine the search criteria and considered appropriate studies and 3) then we analysed the data.

The data has been first been extracted by using both search syntax and keywords in title of the research articles, and then all the data have been merged to convert into a single file. Search syntax for data collection includes (“e-tourism” OR “web tourism” OR “online tourism” OR “virtual tourism” OR “electronic tourism” OR “tourism through internet”). The keywords “e-tourism review” and “review of online tourism” are also separately used to obtain literature that consists review studies on the phenomenon of e-tourism.

The data extraction from the Web of Science has been done in comma separated value (CSV) format for further processing. The data inclusion is based on the research and review articles only to emphasize over the authentic and published findings. From initial search we got 398 articles, considered documents type as research and review articles and limited data from last 16 years (2004–2020), and data exclusion has been done further by eliminating studies which were not specific to the e-tourism and allied areas such as technology, modelling of e-commerce businesses and creating value chain in online tourism industry. Therefore, ultimately 146 articles were extracted for the current study.

We have used VOSviewer 1.6.15 for mapping and visualization of data, and Biblioshiny powered by R studio 1.3.1073 package has been launched ( http://127.0.0.1:7910/ ) for descriptive analysis.

Bibliometric results and discussion

Main information about data.

The consideration time span of 2004–2020 and total number of documents being considered for further analysis are 146. The average year from publication is 3.96 and average citations per year are 3.462 while average citations per document are 16.5. There are altogether 432 authors, out of them 419 are multi-authored documents while 13 are single authored. The collaboration matrix is 3.2, and co-authorship per document is 3.25.

Annual production per annum and most relevant research

The research in e-tourism is relatively new and expanding. Very few publications were available before 2015 ( Figure 1 ). Till 2015 only 18% of the total research output has been recorded. Figure 1 shows the trend in the publication of the articles in the fields of e-tourism, it is evident from the figure that this field is expanding and there exists an exponential growth in the publications, the scholars are engaging more with this area and expanding the knowledge further, the year 2020 has got 24 studies one more from the year 2019 and still 4 months are remaining in 2020. So, there exist a great opportunity in this area of research to explore further.

The journals specifically related to tourism and hospitality as represented in Figure 2 as Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Expert Systems with Applications and Tourism Management are the most relevant sources of publication followed by Journal of travel research and Sustainability.

Most influential contributions in terms of most cited sources, total citations and source impact

The quantity as well as quality of the contributions is taken into considered and analysed on the basis of the citations and relative strengths of the papers. The total number of contributions in subject area is the general indicator of the attractiveness of the topics and sub-topics. The impact of each source is determined by the average citation per paper per year. The average citations per paper are being determined by calculating the average citation for a particular paper in a given year.

The citation of a source reflects that it has been referred by the scholars in their studies and been cited for being the most relevant paper in that area. Figure 3 shows that Tourism Management journal tops the list of citation with 543 followed by Annals of Tourism Research 156, International journal of Hospitality Management 130, Journal of Travel Research 117 and so on. Tourism Management Journal is having five times more citation than any other journal in this discipline.

In the VOS viewer output, the size of the dot specifies the number of citations for a particular source. Figure 4 shows that Expert Systems with Applications are having highest citations among the sources with h-index of 6 and Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Scientometrics are having h-index of 4 and Journal of environmental protection is also having good number of citations.

Source impact and source growth over the period

The source impact is the analysis of the literature from the perspective of citations, self-citations and co-citation in a given area of study. The source growth is a measure of contribution of scientific literatures in the area of the research.

Decision Support Systems and Expert Systems with Applications and Tourism Management have the maximum source impact with 378, 335 and 310 respectively as depicted in Figure 5 .

As indicated in Figure 6 , Sustainability is having highest source growth. Tourism Management is also producing good number of sources every year followed by Journal of Vacation Marketing. Expert Systems with Applications were producing good number of literature during 2008–2012 and then suddenly saw an exponential decay in production. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research is also contributing less as compared to past duration of 2014–2017.

Key contributing authors, affiliations and country

We have considered 146 articles authored by 432 scholars. The number of citations on an author’s works signifies the quality of the research and relevance with the field of study. As represented in Figure 7 , the authors who have maximum impact are Lu J, Mao M, Wang W, Wu D, Zhang D and enjoying top position jointly with 378 citations. Then Moreno A and Walls A are at second position with 200 citations while Law R is at third spot. Others authors are having their positions according to citations.

The authors with more than four cited references have been organized in specific area of research who have used the similar references represented by the VOSviewer output ( Figure 7 ). In the visualization, the size of the dots shows the number of citations of each author. We have got five clusters of data; each cluster is representing specific sub-topic in the area of e-tourism that the researchers work on and published their work which seems to influence the characteristics of the clusters. The clusters are having 110 items, 1945 links and the total link strength of 2889. Cluster 1 is having 33 scholars, 39 cited references; it is largest among five data clusters. Bai, B, Fornell C, Law R and Davis FD are the highest cited authors in this cluster.

With 23 authors, 25 cited references, cluster 2 is the second largest cluster of authors on the basis of pre-set criteria. The most cited authors are Gretzel U, Litwin SW. and Filieri R. Cluster 3 is also having 25 items and 23 authors, the size of this cluster is exactly the same as that of cluster 2. The most cited authors in this cluster are Dimitrios Buhalis and Rob Law for their paper published in 2008 ( Buhalis and Law, 2008 ). The works of these authors are well cited as compared to cluster 2.

With 16 authors, 20 cited references, cluster 4 is the third largest cluster, and the most cited authors are Dimitrois Buhalis and Angel García-Crespo. Cluster 5 is the smallest one with one cited reference and one author, Rob Law. We can see that some of the authors such as Dimitrois Buhalis, Rob Law and Zheng Xiang are clustered in more than one cluster.

The universities that contributed most in terms of total scientific productions are Ton Duc Thang University and The University of Granada having almost 8.3 documents per year followed by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism contributing almost 7.8 documents annually (shown in Figure 8 ). National Taiwan University of Science & Technology, Griffith University, Sun Yat-sen University and University of Teknologi Malaysia are adding 7.3 literature per annum.

Most of the contributions have been from China as depicted in Table 1 , China alone is accounting 30% of total scientific production in the area of e-tourism, and the next biggest contributing country is Spain 14% and then USA 8%. So these three countries are achieving almost 50% of total production in e-tourism. This concentration of contribution is almost intact in almost every field of scientific production, and it may vary in specific sub-field of study.

The research production for e-tourism research has been also presented through map visualization in Figure 9 . This figure depicts the countries (China, Spain, USA, etc.) highlighted with blue colour which have major contribution to the e-tourism research. Whereas the countries highlighted with grey colour in Figure 9 have negligible contribution to this research area.

Main keywords

For preparation of data, we used various keywords and refined them to get most appropriate studies for e-tourism. We found most appropriate 93 keywords which are being used for the keywords analysis (see Figure 10 ). VOSviewer output for keyword co-occurrence divides the total keywords into seven clusters.

The most occurred keyword is e-tourism and falling in cluster 1 (red-coloured cluster). Cluster 1 (red-coloured) is having 18 keywords such as s-commerce, trust, sustainability, loyalty, framework and so on. Cluster 2 (green-coloured cluster) is also having 18 keywords, containing items such as hospitality, tourism advisor, online reviews and so on. Cluster 3 (dark-blue-coloured cluster) is also having 18 items and includes keywords such as attitude, behaviour, experiences, design, authenticity and so on. Clusters 4 (purple-coloured cluster) and 5 (yellow coloured cluster) both contains 11 items each, and major keywords are model, adoption, technology framework, user acceptance, virtual tourism and so on. With nine items, cluster 6 (light-blue-coloured) is more about social media, word of mouth, Facebook, netnography and so on. Cluster 7 (orange-coloured cluster) is having keywords related to community structure, Internet, information technology, destination image and so on.

The graph in Figure 11 shows the trend of the topic of research in e-tourism field, and service quality, progress, impact, destination tourism are most trending topics in current time.

The trends developed in the e-tourism research from 2004 to 2020 include some common topics such as ICTs, e-commerce, web page design and so on ( Cao and Schniederjans, 2006 ; Chiang and Huang, 2015 ; Cranmer et al. , 2020 ; Fodor and Werthner, 2005 ; Susser and Ariga, 2006 ; Szopinski and Staniewski, 2016 ) As per the review analysis, the time period 2004–2008 has been considered as one of the significant periods for e-tourism where genesis of various trends such as web-based technology ( Fodor and Werthner, 2005 ), reputation-based electronic tourism system ( Cao and Schniederjans, 2006 ), 3D e-tourism ( Berger et al. , 2007 ) and so on took place. The focus of the practitioners shifted from B2B to B2C using e-commerce technologies. To enhance the consumer interactivity on tourism e-commerce portals different techniques such as social network sites (Facebook tourism) ( Pantano and Pietro, 2013 ); computer modelling software ( Styliadis et al. , 2009 ); digital architecture ( Styliadis et al. , 2009 ); haptic equipment and e-learning technology ( Styliadis et al. , 2009 ) have been used in the period of 2009–2012. In the period of 2013–2016, the focus was to improve the customer’s web experiences ( Liu et al. , 2014a ) on e-tourism sites by addressing different issues including high-definition quality of video with stabilization and alignment; blurriness and frame detection; audio-visual graphics quality and so on ( Xu and Mulligan, 2013 ). This is the period when e-service quality, augmented reality, virtual reality and recommendation system ( Herban et al. , 2014 ; Yiakoumettis et al. , 2014 ) attracted most of the practitioners and brought a revolution in tourism industry. The development of different conceptual frameworks and models has been achieved in this period soliciting robustness to the e-tourism research ( Cristobal-Fransi et al. , 2017 ; Do et al. , 2020 ; Kazandzhieva and Santana, 2019 ; Zhu et al. , 2019 ). The last phase 2017–2020 discussed in Table 2 emphasized more over the advanced technologies used to upgrade the e-tourism such as smart and calm technologies; e-alienation; netnography; network science; mobile computing; big data; sequential pattern mining; tourism 4.0 and so on ( Baggio and Fuchs, 2018 ; Stankov and Filimonau, 2019 ; Tribe and Mkono, 2017 ). At the end of this phase 2020–2021, the implications of e-tourism with context to pandemic effect of COVID-19 have been also discussed ( Xie et al. , 2021 ), where the consumers are more relying on the Internet technology rather than traditional ways of communication. The entire trend discussed above highlighted the ever-increasing demand of e-tourism due to the continuous upgradation in the technological trends.

The aim of the current research is to enumerate and provide a comprehensive understanding in e-tourism research by determining the best journal, the most prolific author, the best journal, best university, best country in total contribution and the development and trends and to find out new areas for future research. By using Biblioshiny package of R Studio and VOSviewer software, a streamlined and lucid picture of e-tourism research has been emerged. The analysis is providing a great visualization of the bibliographical information about the area of research. There is an increase in the number of publications in last few years, and it shows that the area is in its developing phase. New areas e-tourism developments have been highlighted through this study. Smart tourism, robotic implementation, robust recommender system, implementation of virtual and augmented reality in tourism, social network sites, 3D visualization and web personalization, digital architecture, human-less interaction in tourism, tourism 4.0, ML and so on have emerged as the major trends in tourism industry. The dynamic changes evolved in tourism due to technological innovation soliciting a wider spectrum for the e-tourism. E-tourism is not only aiding in social and tourism infrastructure but also helping in attracting global tourism by creating valuable awareness. ICT implementation is also helping the tourism industry to survive in this pandemic situation of COVID-19 by reducing human interaction in tourism industry. In crux, it is obvious to state that technology is imbibed strongly in the tourism culture, and e-tourism is the real future of the tourism industry.

Implications

Research implications.

Results revealed that several branches of technological developments such as smart technology, virtual reality, augmented reality, digital architecture, ML, recommendation system and so on have emerged into e-tourism research. It provides a wider platform to the tourism researchers to evolve useful insights. The bibliometric review done for the time period 2004–2020 solicits a broader spectrum of understanding that may fill the research gap in e-tourism.

Managerial implications

Industry practitioners, tourism authorities and government and non-government bodies may get useful insights from the developments in e-tourism since almost two decades and make better policies and governance for the tourism sector. They may implement the recent technological developments to the tourism sector for the lucid awareness among global tourists and to improve their electronic experiences.

Social implications

The upgradation in technology and the effect of pandemic COVID-19 both are urging the adoption of ICT in the tourism sector. The adoption of e-tourism will uplift the social infrastructure with the proliferation of accurate tourism information. Society may access tourism opportunities and information without involving much human interaction and helps in maintain social distance. E-tourism also helps the society monetary as well by attracting international tourists.

Limitation and future research direction

The major limitation of the study is that it has considered only data from Web of Science software and the way of execution of the analysis. This analysis is based on software and algorithm and completely depends on the secondary data base which is indexed in Web of Science. This analysis is data-driven and findings depend on the indexed publications, while searching there exist certain terms which are multidisciplinary or allied to area which results in studies that might not be much relevant and difficult to exclude completely. The data search for other related keywords such as digital tourism; online travel agency; online tourism portal and so on has not been incorporated to avoid inclusion of some irrelevant literature. Future study may seek to incorporate these searches separately to develop a more intense spectrum for evaluating technology transformation in tourism industry.

The area of e-tourism offers lots of interesting avenues for further research in this field. As this area is relatively new and most of the aspects have not been studied much, and it can be expanded well in those prospective. The evolution of industry 4.0 technologies in tourism industry may be further studied. The scope and applications of e-tourism at rural level may also be discussed in future. The challenges in electronic media and Internet technology adoption in tourism industry as per the different geographical, economic and social aspects may also be an interesting area to be discussed. The impact of social commerce on e-tourism attractiveness can also be investigated. Impulsive purchasing in e-tourism can be studied further to determine the factors influencing the phenomenon. Considering the limited work done on the online service quality in tourism and hospitality industry, it can expand further.

Annual production per year

Most relevant sources/journals

Most cited sources

VOSviewer output for most cited sources

Source impact in terms of total citations

Source growth for e-tourism research

Author clusters on e-tourism

Most relevant affiliations

Maps of scholars of e-tourism

Keywords cluster analysis

Trend topics

Research contribution across the countries

Evolution of e-tourism trends as per the timeline

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Ten million tourists in 2010: how Morocco can succeed by developing e-tourism

Abstract: Since 2001 tourism development has become a priority in the economic expansion of Morocco. An agreement between the government and the business confederation (CGEM) expects ten million tourists in 2010. Achieving this objective should undoubtedly be done through a reinforcement of promotion campaigns towards overseas countries. In addition, Morocco also expects ten million Internet users on its domestic territory within the next three years.

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E-Tourism is the adoption of information technology in the field of tourism by transforming the processes thereby achieving effectiveness and efficiency in promoting the sector. Internet has revolutionized flexibility in both consumer choice and service delivery processes. Customers have become much more sophisticated and discerning because they have experienced high levels of service and standards of living has grown considerably. As a result, tourists have become more demanding, requesting high-quality products, value for their money and time, however many tourism sector are still using the traditional methods thereby not attracting many tourist both internal and external This paper will focus on emerging trends in E-tourism and get its impact on tourism sector. This development has changed the process within the tourism sector while reconfiguring the landscape of commerce. The e-tourism takes different forms accessed by the customers through different channels and distribution systems.

Mazilu Mirela

Tourism, being a service trade, has inevitably had the same development in the virtual field. What reasons would have persuaded tourism companies to expand or to start a business in the virtual space? Here is an answer to this question that the article tries to decipher it, although the Internet world is full of offers, exciting, accessible. E-tourism as well as E-commerce has grown with the boom of computer technology and the emergence of computer web pages. The premises of electronic commerce emergence are: the innovations in computing technology, the huge offline competition, the lower online costs, the speed of sale and purchase, the increased comfort of the buyer (no longer having to look in several stores, favourable elements capitalized by tourists, constantly running out of time or inspiration, the internet offering a wide range of offers with a simple click... This article examines the complex relationship Tourism-Internet and mutual benefits they provide.

Tourism Economics

Davide Provenzano

Dimitrios I Tseles

The tourism sector has changed rapidly since the dawn of the internet revolution in the late 1990s. At the same time, the digital divide has disadvantaged many in developing economies as well as the disabled population. It is interesting to observe, however, that the emerging computer technologies, especially mobile computing, are offering significant opportunities to this disadvantaged population. This chapter discusses these opportunities that increase the participation in and reaping of benefits from tourism.

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2003

Brychan Thomas

Marcin Staniewski , Tomasz Szopiński

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the frequency of the use of e-tourism by consumers/internet users of various European Union member states and to identify the socio-economic variables that determine this frequency. Design/methodology/approach – The secondary data regarding the use of e-tourism services in 28 European Union member states were used for analysis. Relationships between variables and the frequency of the use of e-tourism services by consumers in 28 countries in Europe were analyzed. For each of the 32 benchmarked countries, a representative sample of internet users was surveyed via local online panels. Also CATI approach was used in one country. Findings – The authors of this study identify a statistically significant relationship between the frequency of the use of e-tourism by internet users and their country of origin. Statistically significant relationships between the frequency of using e-tourism and socio-economic variables, such as age, sex, education level, occupation, and professional position, are also identified. Practical implications – The findings of this study can provide tour operators with useful suggestions on how to extend the utility of internet (e-commerce) in order to develop their business, get more customers and improve their profitability. Simultaneously, these results may contribute to enhancing competitiveness of the whole European Union and increasing its gross domestic product. Originality/value – With the worldwide rapid growth of internet (and e-commerce) many benefits can be reach by tourism sector especially in the growing competition. The paper is unique because it shows data collected from almost 25,000 respondents and it presents a comparison of the use of e-tourism among citizens of 28 European Union member states.

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Francesco Ricci

Has e-commerce passed its prime or is it just resting? While business and stock market expectations have not been fulfilled, online transactions in the travel and tourism industry are continuously increasing despite tough economic problems in this arena and fewer travelers overall. This industry is the leading application in the B2C (business-to-consumer) arena. Whereas other industries are displaying a stronger hold to traditional processes, the tourism industry is witnessing an acceptance of e-commerce to the extent that the entire industry structure is changing.

International Journal of Electronic Business

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What is e-tourism and how is it changing travel?

Disclaimer: Some posts on Tourism Teacher may contain affiliate links. If you appreciate this content, you can show your support by making a purchase through these links or by buying me a coffee . Thank you for your support!

We live in a digital world nowadays, or an ‘e’ world as some may like to put in. We have concepts such as ‘e-business’, ‘e-commerce’, ‘e-marketing’ and ‘e-service’, so it seems it was only time before the idea of ‘e-tourism’ emerged. But what exactly is e-tourism, how does it work and why is it important? Read on to find out…

What is e-tourism?

Research and development, reservation and bookings, marketing and promotion, the tourist experience, is smart tourism e-tourism, the benefits of e-tourism, the disadvantages of e-tourism, how is e-tourism changing travel, e-tourism- further reading.

E-tourism is all about the introduction of digitalisation into the tourism industry. This manifests itself in many different ways. We see e-tourism before, during and after a holiday or trip itself – and actually there is a lot of e-tourism that goes on behind the scenes, so we don’t actually ‘see’ it at all!

Dimitrious Buhalis is known as an expert in the field of e-tourism and he defines it as the digitization of all processes and value chains in the tourism, travel, hospitality and catering sectors that allow organizations to maximize their efficiency and effectiveness.

This digitalization, over the years, has changed the way that the tourism industry works and in turn has altered the structure of the tourism industry , often for the better- making it more efficient and productive. And this is not unique to the tourism industry by any means, our whole world has been becoming increasingly digitalised for many years now. In fact, we have become so reliant on the digital aspects of our lives that the functioning of the contemporary tourism system and its future seem unthinkable without the technological innovation that we have today!

Examples of e-tourism

E-tourism is ingrained throughout the tourism system, from the booking process right through to the tourist experience and everywhere in between. It would be impossible to discuss every way that technology is used in the tourism industry (ok, well perhaps not impossible, but I would be here a very long time!). Below I have outlined some of the most common ways that that e-tourism occurs.

E-tourism is used to a large extent during the research and development stages of a tourism product or service. There are a wealth of digital resources at the disposal of tourism industry stakeholders , which enables them to collect large amounts of data and research their (potential) customers. In turn, this helps organisations in the travel and tourism industry to better understand their customers and therefore to better satisfy their needs and desires.

Likewise, recent years have seen many options for the tourists themselves to research their travel choices to a greater extent than they have previously been able to. Reading blogs, looking at travel pictures on Instagram, scouring Pinterest… when it comes to heading off on a city break or relaxing beach vacay, tourists often turn to the internet as a source of location inspiration- this is also evidence of e-tourism.

Central reservation systems have come a long way in the past couple of decades. First introduced in the 1960s by airlines, central reservation systems were quickly adopted by hotels and other businesses operating in the travel and tourism industry. Most recently these have been further developed to allow the tourist to play a key role in the booking process by linking their reservation systems to popular online booking platforms such as Expedia or Syscanner as well as in-house developed booking systems.

Nowadays, pretty much everything can be booked online. Tourists don’t need to make a trip into town specifically to visit a travel agent, and sit there while they look through brochures and databases to find a trip that ticks every box for them- tourists can do it for themselves! There is far more freedom and independence now, as consumers are part of the process from the start. Bookings and changes can be made at the tap of a button or the click of a link. This not only makes the process simpler and easier for the tourist, but it also helps the business to operate faster and more efficiently, reducing overhead costs and maximising productivity.

Some years ago the likes of travel agencies and tourist boards would focus their marketing efforts on printed advertising such as posters, brochures and flyers… but those days are long gone now. Whilst there will always be a place for physical advertising of this type, travel and tourism organisations now have a wealth of valuable data at their fingertips that they can use to inform their marketing.

As we live more of our lives online (think shopping, researching, connecting with our friends on social media etc), the organisations that want to sell us their products and/or services are more informed to do so than they have ever been before. Adverts can be targeted to specific customers based on location, age and other relevant demographics. It can also be based around the user’s online activity- yes, if you begin to research ecotourism holidays it is likely that you may begin to be shown adverts about eco lodges in the Gambia or ecotourism in Costa Rica ! Whilst there are certainly some ethical questions about how much of our data is used by organisations for advertising purposes, there is no disputing that the organisations of today have a big foot up in comparison to their counterparts from a decade or two ago!

In addition to this, we have new platforms where marketing can take place. Social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook allow for both large companies and individuals to promote products, services or places. As I explain in my article about Instatourism , these social media platforms can be powerful tools for the purposes of marketing. And more and more people are working in the field too- many argue that the growth of travel influencers around the world has changed the marketing industry forever!

Technology has also enhanced the travel sector in many ways. More efficient aircraft, trains, cars etc have enabled us to travel further and faster than ever before. They typically create less damage to the environment too, with more environmentally friendly initiatives being researched and implemented such as bio fuels and hybrid models.

Travel is easier for the consumer these days too. No longer do we need to carry around our pocket-sized road maps, or get stressed out when we can’t read directions- all we need nowadays is a 4G connection and a navigation app! There are plenty of other apps that help us travel too, from train apps with timetables to flight comparison sites and more.

There are many ways that e-tourism has helped to enhance the tourist experience and to make the tourism industry more efficient. From having your room service brought to you by a robot, to checking a menu in a restaurant using a QR code, to downloading an app in a theme park that shows queue times for the rides to having an audio programme give you information on your phone as you walk through a museum. E-tourism is everywhere we look!

Is virtual tourism e-tourism?

Virtual tourism is an example of e-tourism in practice. It is essentially a hybrid concept- it combines both the notions of virtual reality and tourism. In essence, virtual tourism facilitates a tourism experience, without actually having to travel anywhere. Virtual tourism takes many different forms and comes in vary degrees of technological capability.

In its simplest form, virtual tourism may comprise of a video of a tourism destination. The ‘tourist’ watches the video, utilising their hearing and sight senses. More sophisticated forms of virtual tourism include being immersed in an environment through use of a headset or simulator. It may involve use of various props, users may be required to wear gloves and there may be additional sensations such as movement (like in a rollercoaster simulator), feeling (for example if the user is sprayed with water ) and smell. You can read a detailed article about the virtual tourism industry here.

Smart tourism and e-tourism are commonly interlinked, however smart tourism is not always an example of e-tourism. Smart tourism is all about tourism that is designed in a ‘smart’ way- the intention is to promote productivity and make the tourism industry efficient. Oftentimes this does require the use of digitalisation, or technology, hence making it a form of e-tourism, but this isn’t always the case 100% of the time. You can read all about the concept of smart tourism here.

Ultimately, e-tourism is a good thing. The use of technology in the tourism industry has helped to make it more efficient, run more smoothly (with less risk of human error) and making it more productive. This generally means that consumers (or tourists) are more satisfied with their tourism experience and that the organisations involved have increased profit margins and lower overheads.

E-tourism has introduced us to a whole new way of thinking and has helped to expose us to invaluable developments in the travel and tourism industry- it has helped to make parts of the industry more environmentally friendly, it has helped to have more effective marketing and product development and it has helped us to embrace new forms of tourism too, such as smart tourism and virtual tourism.

However, as is the case with any form of tourism, there are some negative impacts of e-tourism too. The use of technology sometimes takes away the ‘human’ aspect- customer service from a robot will never replace the smiles and conversations that a real person would bring to the situation. And using technology to a large extent may reduce the number of jobs in the tourism industry too, which can have a negative economic impact on the host community. Furthermore, technology can go wrong- a booking system that is down or a website that doesn’t work properly can cause loss of money and business, for example.

Ultimately, e-tourism is all about making the tourism industry more efficient through the use of technology. As I have outlined in this article, there are many ways that this can be done and the benefits of this can be far reaching. From the perspective of the tourism industry, the digitalisation of travel and tourism can help to enhance business prospects- income, productivity, performance etc. And from the perspective of the tourist it can help to make their tourism experience more enjoyable.

If you have found this article interesting, then I am sure that you will enjoy these too!

• What is smart tourism and why is it so BIG?
• Virtual tourism explained: What, why and where
• What is sustainable tourism and why does it matter?
• What is ecotourism and why is it so important?
• Niche tourism: What, why and where

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Connect eTourism: Nov. 20-22, 2024, Washington, D.C.

Connect eTourism returns in 2024 in the nation’s capital! This will be a forward-thinking show that will propel destination marketers toward a bright future. Look for a focus on cutting-edge topics curated specifically to address new trends and challenges that await the industry. In addition to education, Connect eTS will include one-on-one appointments for leading marketers to meet with future business partners. The timing could not be better, as Connect eTS falls at a perfect moment to reflect on an eventful 2024 while eyeing what the new year will bring.

To register, contact Ashleigh Osborne, Vice President eTourism Summit, at [email protected]

Click here to receive our weekly newsletter!

Drawing more visitors to P.E.I. over the next 5 years? Tourism industry has a plan for that

As an island, 'you can never take your foot off the pedal when it comes to air access'.

Social Sharing

The tourism industry on Prince Edward Island has a new five-year strategy that includes developing more tourism initiatives involving the sports and leisure, culinary and wellness industries, as well as continuing to stretch the season well beyond the summer months.

The 28 points in the strategy include goals like lobbying for more air access to the Island, addressing "workforce challenges" as businesses compete for staff, drawing in more entrepreneurs and investors, and pushing for more "niche package experiences" during the fall, winter and spring seasons to draw visitors in non-traditional ways. 

Another important pillar of the strategy is making sure Indigenous tourism offerings are identified and promoted, said Corryn Clemence, the CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of P.E.I.

Events like the annual Mawi'omis presented by local First Nations are one example, she said.

• Young generation proud to showcase Mi'kmaw culture on P.E.I.
• Lennox Island begins new tradition with Christmas Mawi'omi

"We really want to put a focus on helping them and supporting [the] growth and development of that product because we know there's a big interest really across the world on experiencing and learning about Indigenous culture," she said. 

"We have a number of communities here on the Island, between Scotchfort/Abegweit and Lennox Island, and both are really working hard to develop and grow that."

Clemence said hopes are high for the province's recent deal with the National Hockey League, which includes declaring P.E.I. the league's official travel destination and promoting the Island at NHL arenas.

She said the province's meetings and conventions business should grow as a result of the deal, and marketers will use the hockey platform to promote sport-based tourism in the region, including golf.

• Tourism P.E.I. shoots and scores NHL marketing partnership
• Westjet's return brings direct flights between P.E.I. and 3 Canadian cities this summer

John Cudmore, who's the general manager of the Holman Grand Hotel as well as the president of the Hotel Association of P.E.I., said operators knew the Canada Games bump in the first quarter of 2023 was not going to be repeated this year, but the industry is still optimistic.

"Everyone's leaning into it, the whole tourism industry this year," he said. "There seems to be a good push towards special events and sports tours and golfing, that sort of thing."

He said the NHL deal will mean exposure in key Northestern U.S. markets and beyond.

The strategy also mentions the importance of people being able to travel to the Island by plane, not just in a vehicle or cruise ship. 

Clemence quotes the consultant who delivered the five-year strategy at an event on Friday as saying: "You're an island, and you can never take your foot off the pedal when it comes to air access."

Last year, the Charlottetown Airport welcomed a record number of passengers, and officials hope this year will top those records.

Doug Newson, the CEO of the Charlottetown Airport Authority, said adding seats will help accomplish that. 

"We did have one airline, Swoop, that has been merged into WestJet. WestJet is adding some flights to Toronto we didn't have last year to make up for that change in schedules. We've got Flair growing as well," he said.

"Overall we're expecting total seat capacity to be similar, maybe up slightly, compared to last year."

With files from Tony Davis

Facing pressure from rights groups, World Bank suspends funding for Tanzania tourism project

KAMPALA, Uganda — The World Bank has suspended funding for a tourism project in Tanzania that caused the suffering of tens of thousands of villagers, according to a U.S.-based rights group that has long urged the global lender to take such action.

The World Bank’s decision to suspend the $150 million project, which aims to improve the management of natural resources and tourism assets in a remote part of southern Tanzanian, was “long overdue,” the Oakland Institute said in a statement Tuesday, charging that the bank’s “failure to take immediate action resulted in serious harms for the local communities.”

At least $100 million has already been disbursed for the project, which started in 2017. The suspension of World Bank financing took effect April 18.

The Oakland Institute, a California-based rights watchdog whose work focuses on marginalized communities, for years led calls for the World Bank to stop funding the project known by the acronym REGROW, documenting serious rights abuses suffered by Indigenous communities in the area.

The group in a report released in November accused the World Bank of failing to hold Tanzanian authorities accountable for extrajudicial killings and sexual assaults relating to the expansion of Ruaha National Park.

The report said the Tanzanian government’s tactics to force communities away and increase tourism in Ruaha National Park, a goal of the REGROW project, were “inextricably tied to its financing by the World Bank.”

The World Bank said at the time that it “has zero tolerance for violence in the projects it finances,” adding that a panel of inspectors was reviewing a complaint related to REGROW “to determine whether a compliance audit into the concerns raised is warranted.”

In recent correspondence between the World Bank and the Oakland Institute seen by The Associated Press, the lender confirmed the suspension of further disbursements to REGROW “until we are confident that the project is upholding our environmental and social standards.”

Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute, said the World Bank’s decision to suspend funding for “a dangerous project” is a victory for marginalized communities in the East African country.

“It sends a resounding message to the Tanzanian government that there are consequences for its rampant rights abuses taking place across the country to boost tourism,” Mittal said. “The days of impunity are finally coming to an end.”

It was not immediately possible to obtain a comment from Tanzanian authorities.

The Oakland Institute documented at least 12 disappearances or extrajudicial killings allegedly carried out by rangers, in addition to multiple sexual assaults of women. Government agencies allegedly seized and auctioned large numbers of cattle, imposing a heavy financial strain aimed at pressuring herders to leave.

“During the first months of 2024, rangers illegally seized and auctioned off thousands of cattle from herders while preventing farmers from cultivating their land -– devastating countless livelihoods as a result,” it said in its statement Tuesday.

Tanzania relies heavily on tourism to finance its budget, and the country has long been trying to develop its extensive national parks to attract more visitors.

Tens of thousands of communities in other parts of Tanzania have been caught up in the efforts, putting local authorities under the spotlight over civilian abuses. These efforts, cited by Amnesty International and others, include the violent eviction of 70,000 Maasai from grazing lands in the Loliondo area to clear vast tracts of land for trophy hunting.

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Facing pressure from rights groups, World Bank suspends funding for Tanzania tourism project

FILE - Giraffes and zebras congregate under the shade of a tree in the afternoon in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania on March 20, 2018. The World Bank has suspended funding for a tourism project in Tanzania that caused the suffering of tens of thousands of villagers, according to a U.S.-based rights group that has long urged the global lender to take such action. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

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KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The World Bank has suspended funding for a tourism project in Tanzania that caused the suffering of tens of thousands of villagers, according to a U.S.-based rights group that has long urged the global lender to take such action.

The World Bank’s decision to suspend the $150 million project, which aims to improve the management of natural resources and tourism assets in a remote part of southern Tanzanian, was “long overdue,” the Oakland Institute said in a statement Tuesday, charging that the bank’s “failure to take immediate action resulted in serious harms for the local communities.”

At least $100 million has already been disbursed for the project, which started in 2017. The suspension of World Bank financing took effect April 18.

The Oakland Institute, a California-based rights watchdog whose work focuses on marginalized communities, for years led calls for the World Bank to stop funding the project known by the acronym REGROW, documenting serious rights abuses suffered by Indigenous communities in the area.

The group in a report released in November accused the World Bank of failing to hold Tanzanian authorities accountable for extrajudicial killings and sexual assaults relating to the expansion of Ruaha National Park.

The report said the Tanzanian government’s tactics to force communities away and increase tourism in Ruaha National Park, a goal of the REGROW project, were “inextricably tied to its financing by the World Bank.”

The World Bank said at the time that it “has zero tolerance for violence in the projects it finances,” adding that a panel of inspectors was reviewing a complaint related to REGROW “to determine whether a compliance audit into the concerns raised is warranted.”

In recent correspondence between the World Bank and the Oakland Institute seen by The Associated Press, the lender confirmed the suspension of further disbursements to REGROW “until we are confident that the project is upholding our environmental and social standards.”

Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute, said the World Bank’s decision to suspend funding for “a dangerous project” is a victory for marginalized communities in the East African country.

“It sends a resounding message to the Tanzanian government that there are consequences for its rampant rights abuses taking place across the country to boost tourism,” Mittal said. “The days of impunity are finally coming to an end.”

It was not immediately possible to obtain a comment from Tanzanian authorities.

The Oakland Institute documented at least 12 disappearances or extrajudicial killings allegedly carried out by rangers, in addition to multiple sexual assaults of women. Government agencies allegedly seized and auctioned large numbers of cattle, imposing a heavy financial strain aimed at pressuring herders to leave.

“During the first months of 2024, rangers illegally seized and auctioned off thousands of cattle from herders while preventing farmers from cultivating their land -– devastating countless livelihoods as a result,” it said in its statement Tuesday.

Tanzania relies heavily on tourism to finance its budget, and the country has long been trying to develop its extensive national parks to attract more visitors.

Tens of thousands of communities in other parts of Tanzania have been caught up in the efforts, putting local authorities under the spotlight over civilian abuses. These efforts, cited by Amnesty International and others, include the violent eviction of 70,000 Maasai from grazing lands in the Loliondo area to clear vast tracts of land for trophy hunting.

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Handbook of e-Tourism pp 775–796 Cite as

Experimental Research in E-Tourism: A Critical Review

• Lawrence Hoc Nang Fong 5 ,
• Erin Yirun Wang 5 ,
• Rob Law 6 , 5 &
• Shousheng Chai 7  
• Reference work entry
• First Online: 02 September 2022

2029 Accesses

Tourism researchers have been using experimental design for many years. Although e-tourism studies are well documented in the literature, their trend and rigor remain unknown. Therefore, this review critically analyzed corresponding publications by focusing on five major aspects, namely, article characteristics, research design, sample characteristics, data analysis, and advanced technology used to assist experiments. A total of 50 articles consisting of 60 studies were analyzed after a thorough literature review. Findings revealed that experimental design has been recently gaining popularity in e-tourism research, featuring the use of advanced technology to assist manipulation in experiments. Future e-tourism experimental research should have diversified disciplinary foci, conduct multidisciplinary studies in various contexts, avoid excessive independent variables in a study, perform manipulation checks, report effect sizes, and increase the examination of psychological mechanisms using mediation analysis.

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Faculty of Business Administration, Department of Integrated Resort and Tourism Management, University of Macau, Macau, S.A.R., China

Lawrence Hoc Nang Fong, Erin Yirun Wang & Rob Law

Asia-Pacific Academy of Economics and Management, University of Macau, Macau, S.A.R., China

Department of Business Administration, Ocean University of China, Shandong, China

Shousheng Chai

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The Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

Zheng Xiang

Department of Economics, Geography, Law and Tourism, The European Tourism Research Institute, Mid-Sweden University, Östersund, Jämtland, Sweden

Matthias Fuchs

Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Ulrike Gretzel

Institute for Digital Transformation, Ravensburg-Weingarten University of Applied Sciences, Weingarten, Germany

Wolfram Höpken

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Fong, L.H.N., Wang, E.Y., Law, R., Chai, S. (2022). Experimental Research in E-Tourism: A Critical Review. In: Xiang, Z., Fuchs, M., Gretzel, U., Höpken, W. (eds) Handbook of e-Tourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48652-5_123

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