Abstract
We critique Information Technology and Tourism (ITT) research and make recommendations to enhance its theoretical and methodological development. Our recommendations are based on four critiques: (1) ITT is primarily a self-referential research area; (2) ITT is popular with tourism academics, but not in other technology-related disciplines; (3) ITT does not synchronize with its mother discipline of information systems; and (4) ITT is primarily focused on business applications of technology, with limited engagement of theoretical developments in social science. We first suggest ITT researchers should engage with wider disciplinary knowledge through their parent fields of Information Systems and Tourism. Second, we suggest a shift from the user-centric and overcrowded applied business studies’ focus of ITT and encourage theorizing IT and tourism in a larger social context critically and reflexively. Third, we encourage academics to develop ITT-specific guidance to offer rigorous directions and instructions of theoretical and methodological development.
Highlights
From the 1980s, Information Technology (IT) has transformed tourism business operations, distribution, and management (Buhalis and Law 2008; Navío-Marco, Ruiz-Gómez, and Sevilla-Sevilla 2018)
In general, does contain guidance for methodological approaches, we argue that additional guidance with a technological perspective is needed for Information Technology and Tourism (ITT) researchers and could draw on guidance given by Information Systems (IS) research
We have critiqued the current progress in ITT research
Summary
From the 1980s, Information Technology (IT) has transformed tourism business operations, distribution, and management (Buhalis and Law 2008; Navío-Marco, Ruiz-Gómez, and Sevilla-Sevilla 2018). Since introducing key concepts of IS to tourism at the early stage, the knowledge development of ITT research has been limited in the self-evolving ecosystem without checking with its mother discipline IS. Despite tourism being considered as a permeable and interdisciplinary field, IT inquiries in tourism have been largely focused on applied business studies (Tribe 2010; Tribe and Liburd 2016) from either an organizational or individual perspective (Cai, Richter, and McKenna 2019).
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