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Cruise tourism is a dynamic, growing segment of tourism that has long ceased to represent a mere niche and is slowly but steadily entering the domain of mainstream tourism. Yet, cruise tourism represents a minor fraction of tourism-related literature and research (Papathanassis and Beckmann, 2011). This study aims to examine the main trends and state-of-the-art developments in cruise tourism. The intension is to provide a starting point, a basis for non-specialists in this area, for further interdisciplinary research.

Using the author’s previous research and expertise over the past decade, this paper aims at providing a concise overview of the key perspectives and concepts in cruise tourism, whilst highlighting the current and future challenges faced by the sector and its stakeholders.

In this context, the potential of information and communication technologies for cruise tourism development and research (e-cruising) is underlined.

Finally, this paper offers a comprehensive systemic definition of cruise tourism and the corresponding Cruise Entities, inter-Relationships and Themes (CruisERT) framework, highlighting relevant areas and questions for further research.

This paper aims to explore and discuss the impact of digital innovations from a business eco-systemic perspective. Key smart technology application themes in the cruise industry are extracted and synthesised in a “Smart Cruise Ecosystem” (SCE) framework.

Information communication technologies (ICTs) advancements and smart tools revolutionise interactions and affect all transactions, transforming the cruise experience. Gradually a Smart Cruise Ecosystem emerges by incorporating all technologies available and involving cruise passengers, who as smart actors interact dynamically with stakeholders, creating value before, during and after the cruising experience. The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak stressed the need for touchless and digital interactions as well as real-time information, fast-tracking the deployment of smart technologies. The diffusion of ICTs in the cruise industry is multi-faceted and dynamic, resulting in a number of smart-technology use-cases.

Smart technology constitutes a comprehensive smart ecosystem to manage all actors, controls, devises and systems to optimise ship operations and management, while co-creating value for guests and crew in an effective way. The multiplex SCE proposed is enabled by digital technologies collecting, storing, accessing and processing big data dynamically, including: object detection, Internet of Things, Internet of Everything, satellite communications, Big Data, automation, robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learnin, Cloud Computing, Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality. A range of interoperable and interconnected supporting systems form the basis of the smart ecosystem.

The proposed framework offers a holistic perspective of the smart-cruising domain, highlighting innovations, interfaces, dependencies, along with the corresponding key limitations and challenges. The synthesis and conceptual structure provided serves as a topology for guiding and connecting further research in smart cruising.

本文从商业生态系统的角度探索和讨论了数字创新的影响。在“智能邮轮生态系统”框架中提取和综合邮轮行业的关键智能技术应用主题

信息通信技术 (ICT) 的进步和智能工具彻底改变了交互并影响所有交易, 从而改变了邮轮体验。通过整合所有可用技术并让邮轮乘客参与其中, 智能邮轮生态系统逐渐出现, 他们作为聪明的参与者与利益相关者动态互动, 在巡航体验之前、期间和之后创造价值。 COVID19 大流行的爆发强调了对非接触式和数字化交互以及实时信息的需求, 以快速跟踪智能技术的部署。信息通信技术在邮轮行业的传播是多方面的和动态的, 产生了许多智能技术用例

智能技术构成了一个全面的智能生态系统, 用于管理所有参与者、控制、设计和系统, 以优化船舶运营和管理, 同时以有效的方式与用户和船员共同创造价值。提出的多元智能巡航生态系统（SCE）由数字技术实现, 包括物体检测、物联网、卫星通信、大数据、自动化、机器人、人工智能、云计算、AR、VR, 动态收集、访问和处理大数据。一系列可互操作和互连的支持系统构成了智能生态系统的基础。

本研究提议的理论框架提供了智能巡航领域的整体视角, 突出了创新、接口和依赖关系, 以及相应的关键限制和挑战。所提供的综合和概念结构用于指导和连接智能领域的进一步研究提供划分类型。

The cruise sector has undergone a significant transformation over the past decades, rendering it amongst the fastest growing tourism segments. Nevertheless, cruise holidays represent a relatively small fraction of the entire tourism sector; and so do their economic impacts and externalities. The cruise business has emerged as a result of technological developments in passenger air-transportation and the resulting decline of passenger-shipping. While the increased visibility and over-exposure of its market and product developments may have enabled the re-invention and growth of the cruise sector, they are also amplifiers for its economic and sustainability risks. The purpose of this paper is to relativise both the potential risks and benefits to contribute to more pragmatism in future destination development investments and policies.

Based on a brief historical analysis of cruising and current trends, a realistic future is painted where the passenger and capacity growth rates of cruise tourism gradually level out.

Moreover, the cruise business becomes increasingly technologically driven to maintain profitability and establish its position in the wider experience portfolio of holiday consumers.

Traditionally, the relevance argument for cruise tourism research is based on the reported sector's growth rates and corresponding impacts, positive and negative, on destinations. Yet, the mere reproduction of growth rates and passenger numbers in isolation may well foster a misconception and even an overstatement of the cruise sector's significance and role within the wider tourism context. Arguably, the historical analysis and the comparative statistics contained in this paper paint a much-needed realistic picture and contribute to a deeper understanding of the sector's current dynamics.

This paper aims to explore and model tourists’ perceptions of corruption-related holiday incidents and their impact on travel preferences and behavior.

This research methodology reflects an exploratory-sequential, mixed-method design, comprising a content analysis of 205 online reviews, followed by a survey of 268 respondents.

According to the data collected and analyzed, exposure to corruption appears to be more than an exception for holidaymakers. Moreover, tourists often associate corruption with a wide spectrum of incident types; those ranging from personal integrity threats to service delivery failures and heritage/attraction mismanagement. The impact of such incidents on travel preferences and behavior of tourists is highly dependent on the perceived competence, effectiveness and professionalism of local (destination) public services and authorities.

Recommendations for destination stakeholders include the need to enable and take ownership of tourists’ complaints and the importance of recognizing the role of heritage attractions as corruption-related symbols and destination image carriers.

This paper attempts to establish the connection between corruption and tourism externalities within the context of the recent “over-tourism” debate. In exploring tourism-corruption, the authors adopt a “micro-behavioral” perspective, which represents a novelty in the related macro/systemic-level approach, characterizing the predominant research in this area. Moreover, in terms of research methodology, both qualitative and quantitative methods are combined. This is an ambitious and challenging research design, demonstrating the synergies between the two paradigms and contributing to the completeness of the paper.

While the importance of social media will continue to grow, the purpose of this study is to provide a retrospective systematic literature review of the social media research published in major hospitality and tourism journals over a specific time period.

The study conducted a bibliometric analysis to review the literature of 439 social media articles published in 51 hospitality and tourism journals over a 15-year time span (2002-2016).

Ulrike Gretzel authored the highest fractional citations. The results indicated that social media-related research was mostly published in top-tier journals. The International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management was amongst the four leading journals in terms of the percentage of published social media articles. While inter-country social media research collaborations were relatively modest, interestingly, inter-country collaborations have been steadily increasing in the past five years. Another finding indicated that social media research in hospitality and tourism journals has been predominantly quantitative. The results revealed six new areas within the consumer behaviour research theme, namely, eWOM, service recovery, customer satisfaction, brand/destination image and service quality. Finally, it is important to note that four new trends in social media research appeared between 2011 and 2016, namely, big data, netnography, Travel 2.0 and Web 2.0.

While this study made significant contributions to the social media literature, some limitations do exist. For example, the current research excluded publications from major conferences, books, book chapters and dissertations. Additionally, it is not within the scope of this paper to take into account issues related to self-citations.

The results obtained from analysis contribute to a comprehensive understanding of social media research progress in hospitality and tourism. For example, evaluating the performance of individual scholars helps educational institutions to compete in the global university ranking system. Additionally, to compete for funding opportunities on the topic of social media, institutions can use citation counts to demonstrate their competitiveness. Furthermore, due to the expected future growth in the number of social media platforms, practitioners need to understand motivating factors and tourists’ needs in different countries, target market segments, age groups and cultures to create highly engaging communities around their brands.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the sample of this study synthesized the largest selection of social media articles published in hospitality and tourism journals. This is the first study to apply the fractional score at the author level, the adjusted appearance score at the university level and the average citation score at the journal and inter-country levels in the analysis. In addition, prevalent research orientations and research trends in social media made significant contributions to existing literature.