Future research issues in IT and tourism

The objective of this manifesto (as a result of the JITT workshop in June 2014) is to identify a list of pivotal research topics and issues in e-tourism. E-tourism can be seen as everything that happens electronically in the travel and tourism industry/experience; more formally it is defined as the design, implementation and application of IT and ecommerce solutions in the travel and tourism industry as well as the analysis of the impact of the respective technical and economic processes and market structures on all the involved actors and especially on the traveller’s experience. In tourism as an “information business”, Information Technology has always played an important role since the 1960s with the computerized reservation systems/global distribution systems; these were one of the first world-wide electronic networks. And since the beginning of the Web in the early 1990s, travel and tourism was and is a major application domain for Web-based services. As such, the domain is also a major driver of technological innovation. This manifesto provides guidelines on strategic research issues for the research community, but as such it is also conceived as a basis document for industry and policy makers.