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The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that make the adoption of interoperability solutions for online tourism distribution (OTD) more likely by small operators and to develop an evaluation framework for this solutions. Research identifying these determinants is missing. The resulting evaluation framework is then applied to evaluate a number of extant technological solutions focused on interoperability solutions for OTD.

In an attempt to address this gap of research, this paper undertakes a series of interviews and focus groups of the European tourism industry.

Findings partly aligned with the suggestion made by previous research about technology adoption by micro, small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs), they also highlighted some issues which are specific to the adoption of interoperability solutions for OTD. These related to the scarcity of information and communication technology (ICT) applications specifically designed for mini and micro enterprises, the very limited capabilities available for using efficiently ICTs in business-to-business (B2B) operations and the difficulty in collaborating with other companies due to the number of different solutions used in the industry, especially when dealing with large aggregators (global distribution systems (GDSs) or large online travel agencies) and lack of standardization for data.

The study has important theoretical implications. It provides a better understanding of issues affecting the adoption of interoperability solutions for OTD by SMTEs, such as the scarcity of ICT applications specifically designed for mini and micro enterprises, the very limited capabilities available for using ICTs efficiently in B2B operations and lack of standardization.

It facilitates making decisions about adopting interoperability solutions for online distribution solutions, both by suppliers and destination managers.

Limited work has focused on understanding issues affecting the adoption of interoperability solutions for OTD solutions among SMTEs.

This paper aims to outline a map of all the research that exists on mobile technology and tourism archived in the two main databases worldwide (Web of Science and Scopus). Accordingly, with the identification of all the scientific articles that deal with both mobile technology and tourism, the authors seek to ascertain the evolution of mobile technology in the tourism sector through the years, countries, universities and authors and determine the various collaborations brought about between authors, universities, institutions and/or companies in various research projects. Finally, it also allows the authors to distinguish the main topics under study within the scope of ‘mobile tourism’.

A mixed methodology has been carried out. The search focused on the principal databases of bibliographic references and citations of periodical publications, such as articles from scientific journals, books and other types of printed material. Once the results were obtained in the respective databases, it was necessary to be able to work with them. In this respect, the authors had to extract the relevant data and dump it in a bibliographic reference manager, for which they chose Mendeley. After this, the tabulation of data was performed in Excel and tables and graphs were created from all the data collected.

The main results obtained and analyzed are the number of articles per year, countries and universities. In the same way, it is interesting to highlight the number of countries and universities that participate in each article under study. On the other hand, an analysis has been carried out regarding the number of articles per author, as well as the topics dealt with in the different articles.

This analysis reveals the role that has been played by mobile phones in tourism since the first scientific article was recorded in 2002. In this regard, in recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of articles, finally resulting in moderate figures in relation to countries (40) and universities (233) that have formed part of the subject matter under study. In contrast to other areas of research in tourism, the relevance of this subject is therefore evident, as is the need for greater background knowledge to establish research models adapted to the new reality of tourism in a world of ever-increasing mobility.