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Tourism and hospitality are industries that have been dramatically transformed by information technology (IT). This study aims to use a keyword analysis to quantitatively review how IT reshaped these industries.

In total, 3,282 keywords were collected from 24 high-impact tourism and hospitality journals and a social network analysis was used for the analysis.

This study contributes to research and practice by providing a visual digital knowledge map for tourism and hospitality, and seven research hotspots were identified from the results of the keyword analysis.

A parsimonious eMarketing model for tourism and hospitality is proposed to direct future studies concerning these themes and guide practitioners in allocating the appropriate resources for IT investment.

This map not only identifies seven themes that explain, which and how IT-related factors influence tourism and hospitality but also demonstrates the patterns and intellectual structure of the related body of knowledge. The trend analysis indicates how IT transforms the tourism and hospitality industries in terms of mode and scope.

Computer‐mediated business transactions have transformed the relationship between buyer and seller, and have revolutionised the procurement process. Through the advent of electronic marketplaces (e‐markets), buyers and sellers are offered an alternative to the traditional business‐to‐business relationship. Regarded as a new efficient way to communicate, advertise, and distribute, e‐marketplaces provide both parties with global access together with reduced transaction costs. This paper reports on the e‐market experiences of an Australian manufacturer of mining equipment, Ludowici Mineral Processing Pty Ltd, in its association with an e‐marketplace, Quadrem, and the benefits reaped from the relationship.

An electronic business to business procurement marketplace is an inter‐organizational information system through which multiple buyers and sellers interact to accomplish market‐making activities for corporate purchases. In this study, the extent to which organizations had plans to utilize electronic marketplaces for purchases was investigated. A survey was conducted in Norway. Survey results indicate that most organizations had plans, only 3 percent had no plans while 34 percent had concrete plans to utilize electronic marketplaces for purchases. Responding organizations planned to purchase significantly more indirect goods than indirect services on electronic marketplaces. The main benefit expected from utilizing electronic marketplaces for purchases was reduced transaction costs. Strategic importance of business to business electronic markets can significantly predict the extent to which responding organizations had plans to utilize electronic marketplaces for purchases.

The purpose of this exploratory consumer research study was to examine demographic and behavioral characteristics and motivations of wine travelers on the recently established Iowa Wine Trail in rural Northeast Iowa. An array of data on visitor lifestyles, interests, attitudes and values can provide more powerful and actionable research information than demographics alone. Equipped with an understanding of visitor motivations, wineries and vineyards can provide their customers the experience they want and expect, and not products and services they are assumed to desire.

Data for this study were collected using a questionnaire-based survey administered at three participating wineries over the period of April-November 2005.

The demographic profile of visitors on the Iowa Wine Trail falls within a common stereotype of a wine tourist: middle aged (36-55 years old), highly educated (college or postgraduate), in the moderate to high income bracket (higher than the median household income in Iowa), living in close proximity to the Iowa Wine Trail (mostly Iowa residents). The main motives for visiting the wineries were (in order by mean scores) “to taste wine”, “to enjoy the scenery”, “to have a good time with friends and family”, “to relax”, “to support local wine producers”, and “to taste locally produced foods”. This finding supports the statement that wine tourists are often drawn by the whole “local experience package”, and not only by the wine product itself.

Findings of this study provide demographic and behavioral characteristics and motivations of wine tourists in rural Northeast Iowa only and should not be generalized to other rural areas.

The Iowa Wine Trail attracts typical wine customers, but also younger visitors and females. Rather high incidence of repeat visitors for a trail that is still in its infancy (52 percent), with the mean number of previous visits being 2.64. Importance of word of mouth and eMarketing: over 40 percent of visitors to the Iowa Wine Trail based their choice on word of mouth (to include prior recommendations, suggestions, or reputation), and almost a third of travelers indicated utilizing web sites for information seeking – a number that is higher when compared to other specialized markets in Iowa. The Iowa Wine Trail appeals both to stereotypical wine tourists and those visitors who are not primarily involved with the wine product but nonetheless still visit wineries. Power of rural ambience and appeal of the Iowa landscape: while wine tasting appeared to be the main motive of visiting the wineries, scenery and landscape of the Upper Mississippi River, along with the opportunity to enjoy time with friends and family and taste local foods, scored similarly high.

While demographic characteristics of wine tourists have been explored, few studies focused on visitor motivations. In addition, most of wine tourism research has focused on established and functioning wine regions/appellations. Not much is known about the emerging wine culture in rural Midwestern states embracing opportunities of wine and tourism development, en route to diversification from traditional agriculture.

This is the third in a continuing series of articles summarizing and commenting on new database products and the first one covering the topics of business and law. Companion articles, one covering science, technology and medicine and another covering social sciences, humanities, general, multidisciplinary and news appeared in the previous two issues of Online & CDROM Review and they complement this article. The articles are based on the newly‐appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases (GDD). This was created by merging Computer‐Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook (CRD) together with the Directory of Online Databases (DOD) and the Directory of Portable Databases (DPD). The first issue of GDD was published in January 1993.

The smart destination can be defined as a destination that deploys information communications technologies (ICTs) and other technological tools for interactive/participative engagement with prospective visitors. The rationale is to enhance the residents' quality of life as well as the tourists' experiences of the destinations they visit. This chapter discusses about digitization strategies and on marketing superstructures affecting destinations. It advances a conceptual framework through the development of an Attracting, Stay, and Return (ASR) Model that is suitable for smart destinations. It relies on descriptive case studies to conceptualize smart tourism destinations. This contribution reiterates the importance of having a well-designed website that presents appropriate content to entice the prospective travelers' curiosity about destinations. It offers valuable insights and advances new knowledge on smart marketing approaches that are intended to increase the destination management organizations' outreach with tourists at each stage of the ASR Model.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the progress of information and communication technology (ICT) based on a review of papers published in tourism and hospitality journals between 2009 and 2013.

Based on three major databases, 107 journal papers were retrieved and reviewed. The papers were grouped into two major categories, consumer and supplier, which generally comprise the key players in the industries.

A content analysis showed that hospitality and tourism industries use ICT in different functional units and for different applications. This, in turn, indicates their wide adoption in the industry. Industrial implications are discussed.

On the basis of the content analysis, industry practitioners can learn about up-to-date practices and decide how to take advantage of recent technological developments.

A major contribution of this paper is the comprehensive review of recently published papers in tourism and hospitality journals from the perspectives of consumer and supplier.

Hotels are dependent on information and communication technologies (ICTs) for both their internal management and their relationships with customers and the other stakeholders. Therefore, research on ICTs in the hotel sector has kept growing lately. The purpose of this paper is to offer a review of the literature dedicated to ICTs in hotel management by analyzing papers published in seven prestigious journals in the field of Hospitality Management.

The 147 papers analyzed – published over a 27-year period – have been studied according to a variety of criteria such as their research methods, perspective, statistics used, topics covered, technologies and authors and countries.

The conclusions suggest a promising future regarding both ICT applications for hotel management and research in this area.

Concerning limitations, the most important one stems from the selection of works subject to examination because our analysis dealt with papers published in only seven journals, other publication sources have not been considered. Nevertheless, the present paper can prove useful both for researchers and hotel managers because new trends are emerging in both contexts with regard to technologies themselves as well as to some of their uses.

One of the most important contributions made with this work is the preparation of a list with the topics covered by the papers under examination. Moreover, no studies have to date specifically tried to identify the technologies used in hotel management by means of a literature review.