Smartness and social networks as shapers of the tourism industry: What is being done in Academia in this intersection?

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to present the state-of-the-art scientific research in the intersection between smart tourism and social networks to better understand the role of the latter (such as Facebook and Twitter) in the development of the smart paradigm in tourism, e.g. how the relationship between smart tourism and social networks has been observed by authors, or the techniques and analytical tools that are most broadly used to take advantage of available data in social networks to feed a smart logic in the management of tourism companies and destinations.

Design/methodology/approach

A systematic search in scientific databases (such as Web of Science and Scopus) was performed, with December 2018 as a closing date. Once duplications were eliminated and the adequacy the outputs obtained verified properly, a total of 61 documents were considered for this study, most of which were journal articles.

Findings

The characterization of research in this area with both a bibliometric and bibliographic analysis.

Practical implications

The presentation of a detailed picture on the content of the research carried out in the abovementioned intersections: evolution over time; most prolific authors, institutions and countries; journals, conferences and publishers that have paid more attention to this topic; type of research performed, objects of study, methodologies used and main contributions.

Originality/value

The proposal of a research agenda in the field under study. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no a similar work carried out in this field.

Citation

Vargas-Sánchez, A. and Saltos, A.E. (2019), "Smartness and social networks as shapers of the tourism industry: What is being done in Academia in this intersection?", Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, Vol. 11 No. 6, pp. 748-759. https://doi.org/10.1108/WHATT-09-2019-0057