Digital Transformation of Hospitality and Tourism

Dear Colleagues,

Digital transformation is the process of a company introducing and implementing digital technologies to create novel products, services and operations, or to change existing ones. The objective of its implementation is to increase value via innovation, invention, customer experience, or efficiency. Digital transformation impacts tourism and hospitality businesses and their customers in a variety of ways. It affects accommodation with the rise of contactless environments, and offers personalization. The most important digital technologies employed in hospitality and tourism include blockchain, the Internet of Things, service robots, barcode ordering, virtual and augmented virtuality, the metaverse, home-sharing platforms (Airbnb) and Big Data analytics. Social media and online reviews are a great source of information and are widely utilized, and new data sets and methodologies are enabling novel research opportunities. In this Special Issue, a variety of methodological approaches are welcome, including qualitative and quantitative studies, mixed methods, case studies, Big Data analytics, text mining analysis, systematic literature reviews and bibliometric analyses, and conceptual work.

We invite you to submit articles on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• Impact of digital transformation on performance;
• Challenges of digital transformation for performance;
• Use of digital technologies (robots);
• Sharing economy, impact, regulations;
• Smart tourism;
• Digital footprint of tourists;
• Big data analytics;
• Online reviews of hospitality and tourism businesses;
• Digital transformation and sustainability;
• Adoption of digital technologies.

References

1. Busulwa, R.; Pickering, M.; Mao, I. Digital transformation and hospitality management competencies: Toward an integrative framework. Int. J. Hosp. Manag. 2022, 102, 103132.
2. Cantallops, A.S.; Salvi, F. New consumer behavior: A review of research on eWOM and hotels. Int. J. Hosp. Manag. 2014, 36, 41–51.
3. Cheng, X.; Xue, T.; Yang, B.; Ma, B. A digital transformation approach in hospitality and tourism research. Int. J. Contemp. Hosp. Manag. 2023, ahead-of-print.
4. Fusté-Forné, F.; Jamal, T. Co-creating new directions for service robots in hospitality and tourism. Tour. Hosp. 2021, 2, 43–61.
5. Gretzel, U.; Sigala, M.; Xiang, Z.; Koo, C. Smart tourism: Foundations and developments. Electron. Mark. 2015, 25, 179–188.
6. Lam, C.; Law, R. Readiness of upscale and luxury-branded hotels for digital transformation. Int. J. Hosp. Manag. 2019, 79, 60–69.
7. Orea-Giner, A.; Fuentes-Moraleda, L.; Villacé-Molinero, T.; Muñoz-Mazón, A.; Calero-Sanz, J. Does the implementation of robots in hotels influence the overall TripAdvisor rating? A text mining analysis from the industry 5.0 approach. Tour. Manag. 2022, 93, 104586.
8. Ozdemir, O.; Dogru, T.; Kizildag, M.; Erkmen, E. A critical reflection on digitalization for the hospitality and tourism industry: Value implications for stakeholders. Int. J. Contemp. Hosp. Manag. 2023, ahead-of-print.
9. Pencarelli, T. The digital revolution in the travel and tourism industry. Inf. Technol.Tour. 2020, 22, 455–476.
10. Xiang, Z.; Gretzel, U. Role of social media in online travel information search. Tour.Manag. 2010, 31, 179–188.

Prof. Dr. Martin Falk
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Tourism and Hospitality is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• digital transformation
• smart tourism
• robots
• social media
• online reviews