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The impact of digital technology in the wider travel field has been substantial and significant, changing both the competitive landscape of businesses and the behavior of travelers. However, we are now on the cusp of new digital developments encompassing cloud computing, blockchain, internet of things (IoT) and above all, artificial intelligence (AI), which are predicted to disrupt the business and consumer sides of several industries – travel included. This study aims to frame this upcoming digital transformation in travel within a human-centered approach where the critical understanding of digital humanism principles will enrich social scientists’ research agenda in the coming years.

The viewpoint follows a structure based on (i) setting the scene for the rise of digital transformation, (ii) the historical perspective on digital transformation in travel, (iii) the pandemic’s impact and (iv) future development and research agenda.

It is only by fostering a human-centered digital transformation perspective that social science researchers in travel can realize the “high-tech for high-touch” promise of fostering a human-to-human encounter empowered and possibly hampered, by digital technologies. This work proposes to start from the concepts of digital technology control, participation, education and ethics to design a research agenda with a 2050 horizon.

This work has been designed to shift the attention of researchers toward a human-centered digital transformation approach to reflect on the human-machine relationship for a better society. Due to its inner characteristics the travel field can foster a reflection on this topic by reaffirming the centrality of human beings and their authorship in the travel product creation.

数字技术在更广泛的旅游领域产生了巨大而显著的影响, 改变了企业的竞争图景和游客行为。然而, 我们现在正处于新的数字发展的风口浪尖, 包括云计算、区块链、物联网以及最重要的人工智能, 预计这些技术将颠覆包括旅游业在内的多个行业的企业端和消费端。这项研究建议将即将到来的旅行数字化转型纳入以人为本的方法, 对数字人文主义原则的批判性理解将丰富社会科学家未来几年的研究议程。

该观点遵循基于以下方面的一种结构, (i)为数字化转型的兴起设定场景, （ii）旅行数字化转型的历史视角, (iii)疫情的影响和（iv）未来发展和研究议程。

只有培养以人为中心的数字化转型视角, 旅游领域的社会科学研究人员才能实现“高科技换高品质”的承诺, 培养一种被数字技术赋能但也可能受到阻碍的人与人之间的接触。这项工作建议从数字技术控制、参与、教育和伦理的概念出发, 设计一个2050年的研究议程。

这项工作旨在将研究人员的注意力转移到以人为中心的数字化转型方法上, 以反思更美好社会的人机关系。由于旅游领域的内在特征, 它可以通过重申人在旅游产品创造中的中心地位和作者身份来促进对这一主题的反思。

El impacto de la tecnología digital en el ámbito de los viajes en general ha sido sustancial y significativo, cambiando tanto el panorama competitivo de las empresas como el comportamiento de los viajeros. Sin embargo, en la actualidad estamos en la cúspide de nuevos desarrollos digitales que abarcan la nube informática, blockchain, IoT y, sobre todo, la inteligencia artificial, que se prevé que alteren los aspectos comerciales y de consumo de varias industrias, incluidos los viajes. Esta investigación propone enmarcar esta próxima transformación digital en los viajes dentro de un enfoque centrado en el ser humano, donde la comprensión crítica de los principios del humanismo digital enriquecerá la agenda de investigación de los científicos sociales en los próximos años.

El presente trabajo presenta una estructura basada en (i) el establecimiento del escenario para el auge de la transformación digital, (ii) la perspectiva histórica de la transformación digital en los viajes, (iii) el impacto de la pandemia y (iv) el desarrollo futuro y líneas de investigación.

Únicamente si se fomenta una perspectiva de transformación digital centrada en el ser humano podrán los investigadores de las ciencias sociales en el ámbito de los viajes hacer realidad la promesa de “alta tecnología para un alto contacto”, promoviendo un encuentro entre seres humanos potenciado, y posiblemente obstaculizado, por las tecnologías digitales. Este trabajo propone partir de los conceptos de control de la tecnología digital, participación, educación y ética para diseñar una agenda de investigación con horizonte 2050.

Este trabajo ha sido diseñado para desplazar la atención de los investigadores hacia un enfoque de transformación digital centrado en el ser humano para reflexionar sobre la relación ser humano-máquina para una sociedad mejor. Por sus características internas, el ámbito de los viajes puede propiciar una reflexión sobre este tema reafirmando la centralidad del ser humano y su autoría en la creación del producto turístico.

This paper aims to discuss the evolution of the concept of reputation towards online reputation and real time reputation assessment and management. It starts by outline the role of reputation within the branding literature and explains the advantages of having a good (online) reputation. The final section looks into the future of reputation assessment and analysis introducing the concept of real time reputation assessment and management.

To compile this study, secondary research was conducted; relevant literature was presented in a narrative way to outline core concepts about past and future perspectives on reputation.

State-of-the-art literature indicates the importance of reputation and the shift towards online reputation. Building on this, the aggregation of social media along with the growing computational power is actually giving the possibility of real-time reputation assessment grasping reputation breakdowns in an instantaneous way.

Literature presents a series of review about the topic of reputation from different angles. This contribution aims at bridging the gap between reputation and online reputation opening the floor for possible discussions about the future of real-time reputation management.

The purpose of this study to shed light on the importance of social media hosted content related to socially-motivated discussions. Moving from the field of communication for development, the research leverages social media as a powerful tool for collecting and analyse peer-to-peer communication towards the conceptualization of eVoices of Unheard. The deep understanding of these conversation can generate recommendations for organizations and governments designing and providing interventions fostering local socio-economic development.

The study presents a large-scale analysis of social media interactions on the topic “#favela” to generate insights into a social network structure, narrative contents and meaning generated.

Structurally, the analysed networks are comparable with those presented in current academic literature; automatic text analysis confirmed the promise of the inner value of communication for development opening the floor to conceptualization of the “eVoices of unheard”, which is the collective and conscious use of social media to mediate community discussions about tangible and intangible issues related to socio-economic development.

Framed within the rise of interactive communication for development this research show that social media an support the notion of voice proposed by Couldry (2010) moving from process (i.e. the recording of the voice) towards value (i.e. the possibility of giving an account of one’s life and its conditions to have an impact on human life and resources) thereby understanding intangible issues related with socio-economic development.

The concept of “regenerative business” is thriving in current business literature. The present study seeks to contribute to the current academic debate by investigating the nature and scope of regenerative hospitality, here seen as a steppingstone of regenerative tourism.

Exploratory in nature and with the goal of understating the nature and scope of regenerative hospitality, nineteen semi-structured interviews with academics, consultants and self-proclaimed regenerative hoteliers were conducted.

Results provide a regenerative hospitality framework to move from the current sustainability paradigm towards local and systemic regenerative approaches in hospitality by applying place and people intelligence.

This research contributes to the current academic debate about the future of travel, particularly focussing on the future of hospitality in relation to the multidisciplinary field of regenerative economy. Particularly, the paper has been designed to contribute to the current discussion in the Journal of Tourism Futures about the transformation and regenerative future of tourism.

This paper aims to focus on the reason why hoteliers choose to be present in online travel agent (OTA) and social media web sites for sales purposes. It also investigates the technological and human factors related to these two practices.

The research is based on a survey sent to a wide range of hotels in a Swiss touristic region. The empirical analysis involves the specification of two ordered logit models exploring the importance (in terms of online sales) of both social media and the online travel agent, Booking.com.

Findings highlight the constant tension between visibility and online sales in the web arena, as well as a clear distinction in social media and OTA web site adoption between hospitality structures using online management tools and employing personnel with specific skills.

The research highlights the need for the hospitality industry to maintain an effective presence on social media and OTAs in order to move towards the creation of a new form of social booking technologies to increase their visibility and sales.

This research contributes to understanding the major role played by OTAs and social media in the hospitality industry while underlining the possibility of a major interplay between the two.

Grounded in service-dominant (S-D) logic, the purpose of this paper is to explore the core components of smartness to present a framework for the development of the smart tourism destination.

The paper explores the core components of smartness through case study analysis of well-established smart cities.

The paper conceptualises smartness and argues ICT, leadership, innovation and social capital supported by human capital are core components of smartness. Although ICT is a critical enabler for smart tourism destinations, it is insufficient on its own to introduce smartness. The combination of hard and soft smartness components within a S-D logic ecosystem structure holds the potential for sustained competitive advantage and enhancement of quality of life of both residents and tourists in smart tourism destinations.

The paper extends the application of S-D logic to the context of smart tourism destinations, specifically to examine the smartness concept as a means for competitiveness in tourism destinations.

This paper aims to demonstrate how customer knowledge management (CKM) can assist destination management organizations (DMOs) in the smart management of the tourist experience to contribute to the creation of smart solutions and the promotion of smart tourism destinations (STDs). To accomplish it, a CKM conceptual framework aligned with smart tourism and composed of eight processes is developed to guide managers in this management.

This research adopts the design science research methodology and applies its steps. It was supported by a systematic integrative literature review on CKM models and frameworks and their main elements, as well as by semi-structured interviews with tourism specialists in the context of Santa Catarina, Brazil.

From the literature it appears that tourist experiences are customer knowledge essential to the improvement and innovation of tourism products and services, and that CKM, still little explored in this scenario, tends to contribute to the management of this crucial knowledge for smart tourism. The analyses and improvements to the structure developed by specialists show its applicability and contributions to the management of STD experiences.

This paper offers an original contribution to the integration of the theoretical constructs of CKM, tourist experience and STDs by showing how the CKM, from tourism experiences, technologies and social networks, can assist DMOs in the management of experiences and promotion of STDs.

This paper investigates the degree to which self-selection explains the apparent higher purchase value of research shoppers.

An online survey was administered to 594 retail shoppers. The purchase value of research shoppers and single-channel shoppers was compared before and after propensity score matching to account for self-selection effects.

Prior to matching, research shoppers spend significantly more than single-channel shoppers. This difference persists after accounting for self-selection but is reduced by 25%. The impact of self-selection differs across product categories and channels, with the online channel most likely to lead to higher purchase value.

The findings build on existing literature on the value of omni-channel retail strategies and provide insights for retailers to determine the likely impact of encouraging research shopping among their customers.

The research provides important insights into the role that self-selection plays in the value of multi-channel shoppers, and the likely value to retailers of omni-channel strategies.