Special issue on smart tourism: convergence of information technologies, experiences, and theories
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PREFACE
Special issue on smart tourism: convergence of information technologies, experiences, and theories Ulrike Gretzel 1 & Chulmo Koo 2 & Marianna Sigala 3 & Zheng Xiang 4
# Institute of Information Management, University of St. Gallen 2015
The notion of smart tourism has been gaining currency recently, particularly as a strategic tool for tourism development. For instance, under the general framework of smart city initiatives, the European Commission (2015) has identified travel information and communication as one of the strategic objectives for improving human mobility and transportation. In emerging economies like China smart tourism is becoming an integral part of the national policy for economic development and overall improvement of service quality with the aide of information technology (CNTA 2015). Generally speaking, smart tourism aims to develop information and communication infrastructure and capabilities in order to improve management/ governance, facilitate service/product innovation, enhance the tourist experience, and, ultimately, improve the competitiveness of tourism firms and destinations (Gretzel et al. 2015; Hunter et al. 2015; Koo et al. 2015). Considering tourism is * Chulmo Koo [email protected] Ulrike Gretzel [email protected] Marianna Sigala [email protected] Zheng Xiang [email protected] 1
UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Sir Fred Schonell Dr., St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
2
College of Hotel and Tourism Management, Kyung Hee University, Kyung Hee Dearo 26, Dongdeamun-Gu, Seoul 130-701, South Korea
3
School of Management, Business School, University of South Australia, 55-57 North Terrace, 5000 Adelaide, SA, Australia
4
Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech, 295 West Campus Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
an important, and in many cases even primary, sector in national economies, smart tourism seems to offer a promising direction for sustainable tourism development and has the potential to impact tourist destinations and their representations in electronic markets at different levels. The notion of smart tourism was born against the backdrop of the recent development and diffusion of information technology that offers new modalities of communication, new ways for data collection, analysis and exchanges, and thus, new opportunities for value creation and management (Lazer et al. 2009). In the past decade or so, we have seen incredible growth of search technologies, online travel distribution channels, virtual tourism communities, and numerous forms of social media that allow travelers to make more convenient and smarter decisions (Sigala et al. 2012; Xiang et al. 2014). These technologies and systems are directly or indirectly connected to, or have impact on, various computerized reservation systems, which have long been integrated by the travel and tourism industry (Alt and Klein 2011; Kärcher 1995; Mitev 1999). The widespread adoption of mobile technology, especially the smartphone, seems to have
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