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The huge Muslim population has increased the demand for halal tourism products and destination factors in this niche tourism segment. Despite the growing body of research conducted regarding ChatGPT’s revolutionary impact on the tourism industry, the use of such an artificial intelligence (AI) tool in halal tourism needs more attention. This study aims to provide a comprehensive an overview of using ChatGPT in the tourism industry, specifically in halal tourism, and offer an agenda for further essential research questions exploration.

Through the intensive examination of the tourism literature dealing with AI and halal tourism, this review identifies the implications related to the use of ChatGPT for Muslim travelers and future trends in halal tourism.

This paper identified the possible utilization of ChatGPT in assisting Muslim travelers across various stages of their journey, encompassing pre-trip, staying and post-trip phases. Subsequently, this paper identified the opportunities and challenges associated with implementing ChatGPT in the context of halal tourism. Finally, the paper delves into potential avenues for future research.

The findings serve as crucial implications, contributing to the theory of halal tourism development and the applications of ChatGPT in halal tourism.

This paper provides essential foundational knowledge for upcoming research on halal tourism theory, ChatGPT and the development of halal tourism sector.

This chapter assesses how luxury travel imaginaries were modified in the aftermath of the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Drawing on long-term fieldwork among travel influencers, the chapter presents their response strategies to the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on an analysis of evidence from participant observation in tourist sites, network visualisations, in-depth interviews and platform profiles, I trace the transformations luxury travel imaginaries have undergone since the beginning of 2020. Before this global crisis, travel influencers became new puissant players in the highly globalised tourism industry as they regularly received assignments from tourism boards and hotels. Although brand sponsorship was considered a substantial source of revenue for travel influencers, their collaborations in travel destinations and the monetisation of travel content on YouTube were further assets to secure a livelihood. The coronavirus outbreak, however, turned their life-worlds upside down. This ethnographic investigation identified three main responses of travel influencers to the current long-term crisis of tourism: (1) diversification of content creation and orientation towards other influencer genres, (2) support for local tourism organisations and online promotion of staycations and (3), finally, travel to tourist sites for circulating online content on safe travel standards. Digital platforms became a major arena where the future of tourism has been re-negotiated in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. The in-depth investigation suggests that travel influencers were in a position to create new powerful representations of luxury as safe travel since they acquired the skills to establish stable storyworlds for their travel experiences, which attracted the attention of large platform audiences.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the travel motivations, perceived benefits of travel, and the utility of travel mediums among US millennials.

In order to further examine the homogeneity of millennial travelers, millennials were put into two subgroups based on their age and annual income. Data were collected in multiple phases, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches.

Results revealed that several significant differences exist between the proposed millennial subgroups, labeled “young and free millennials” and “professional millennials.”

Implications from this study include direction for both tourism marketers and destination suppliers based on the differences and perceptions of both groups and suggest millennials are not a homogeneous market.

Millennials are far from being part of a homogenous cohort. Therefore, the current study sought to examine differences in the benefits received from travel and the primary reasons to travel among distinct millennial segments.

Augmented reality (AR) is revolutionizing the tourism and hospitality industry by offering immersive experiences as well as creating more engaging, informative and accessible travel experiences that attract tourists from around the globe. From virtual tours and immersive historical site recreations to navigation assistance and cultural education, AR technology is transforming the way we explore and interact with the destinations. This study aims to identify benefits, risks, tools and techniques of AR in the tourism and hospitality literature.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review to answer six research questions. The authors also identified 33 primary studies, dated from January 2010 to February 2024 and coded them via a thematic analysis. Related studies were obtained through searching in Web of Science and Scopus.

The results identified nine themes for benefits, eight themes for risks/disadvantages and four tools and applications-related themes. Through the thematic analysis, the major benefits of AR in the tourism and hospitality were found to be differentiated travel experiences, improved performance of tourism value chain, more effective marketing efforts of tourism businesses, enhanced tourists’ engagement, enhanced performance of tourism destinations, stimulated behavioral intentions, tourist empowerment and providing more value, interactivity and integrity. Furthermore, eight risks were identified: physical, privacy and security, social, service failure, technical, psychological, managerial, information and knowledge gaps. The authors also recognized four tools and applications-related themes, namely, AR-enabled tools, AR applications, AR-enabled apps and AR-based techniques.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this review provides the first systematic exploration of the existing literature on usage of AR in the context of tourism and hospitality value chain.

We explore the role of geographic communities in the construction of an organization's identity as narrated in the pages of Martha Stewart Living magazine, the flagship product of the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia organization. We content analyzed 253 columns published between 1990 and 2004. We found that communities figured prominently in the emergence and institutionalization of the organization's identity, with over 800 mentions of specific places, from Stewart's childhood home of Nutley, New Jersey, to storied Paris, France. We examined how Stewart's use of places compared with descriptions of these same places in the Lonely Planet Travel. Our evidence suggests that the invocation of community enabled the organization to legitimate its product offerings as well as claim and partition complex and sometimes contradictory identity elements that included both highbrow culture and Americana “rural apple-pie goodness.”

This research looks at the significance of friends and relatives as an information source for consumers planning holidays. Recent research has largely ignored friends and relatives as destination information sources and has focused instead on the Internet. Two categories of friends and relatives are identified, friends and relatives who live in a destination and friends and relatives who have visited a destination of interest. An exit survey of 1,203 tourists departing a major international destination in Australia found that while the Internet was an important source of information, friends and relatives were as important, if not more, regardless of country of origin and age. These findings indicate that information from friends and relatives and the Internet are complementary rather than exclusive in the minds of consumers.

The tourism industry is seeing unprecedented growth due to the convergence of the internet and growing travel trends. E-tourism digitises the tourism business, including processes, value chains, infrastructure, services and auxiliary industries, to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. It is in response to the globalisation of the tourism sector, which has spurred the introduction of information and communications technologies (ICTs) during the past four decades. ICT can boost travellers' satisfaction by providing pre-trip information about tourism attractions and allowing them to contact vendors directly, obtain accurate information and get the lowest price.

ICT has made the global tourism sector more competitive by providing pre-trip information about tourism attractions, allowing tourists to contact vendors directly, obtain accurate information and get the lowest price. Search engines, transport capacity and network speeds have increased the number of international travellers who use technology to organise and document their trips. E-tourism reduces seasonality, improves consumer communication and boosts reservations and sales. ICT also affects customer behaviour management and future marketing models and supports tourism industry globalisation by providing practical tools to tourism agents to develop and disseminate their offers globally. Strategic behaviours significantly impact tourism, as eliminating intermediaries shortens the distance between client and provider. ICT is a new way to boost tourism demand, which attracts more tourists and generates more revenue while improving the sector.

The authors of this paper examine the role of the guidebook as a symbol and the implications of symbols in relation to tourist behaviors. The objective of the researchers is to determine if guidebooks act as a symbol for group identity within the backpacker community.

The researchers conducted ten in‐depth interviews in a Halifax youth hostel in Nova Scotia to collect data for analysis. The data obtained in this study is analyzed through a thematic analysis that involved grouping background information with the data that related to each criterion for a symbol.

From the analysis of information obtained from the eight respondents, guidebooks accomplish three functions equivalent to the three criteria of symbols: facilitating communication, providing the basis for attitude development and acceptable modes of behavior, and facilitating collaboration and conformity of the group.

There are several limitations to this study that includes sample size, location, and time restrictions. Consequently, generalization of results beyond the specifics of this sample is limited.

The subculture of backpackers is able to survive because the social interaction within the backpacker community preserves and develops the meaning of symbols. An examination into the symbolic meanings held by backpackers provides implications in predicting backpacker behaviors and destination marketing.