Cited by 3,823Diverse Aspects of Tourism ResearchDigital Marketing and Social MediaHospitality and Tourism Education

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 173 of the 203 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 3 of the 85 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

Open access
Buhalis, Dimitrios, Law, Rob·2008·Tourism Management

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This review synthesizes two decades of eTourism research and argues that ICTs have transformed tourism demand, supply, and industry structure. It identifies consumer-centric technologies as the likely future focus and calls for broader, more empirical research.

Key findings

  • The review analyzed more than 149 relevant publications and organized the field around three main axes: consumers and demand, technological innovation, and industry/business functions.
  • Cited bibliometric evidence includes Frew’s estimate of 665 refereed articles from 1980–1999, and Leung and Law’s finding of 4,140 papers in six leading hospitality/tourism journals from 1986–2005, of which 195 focused on ICTs, 66 appeared in Cornell Quarterly and only 5 in Annals of Tourism Research; among the 195, 137 (70.26%) had at least one author affiliated with a North American institution.
  • The Internet changed consumer behavior through direct information search, online booking, price comparison and transparency, dynamic packaging, virtual travel communities/Web 2.0, and electronic complaints/word-of-mouth; barriers include payment security, privacy, lack of personal service, inexperience, and time.
  • Technological and industry themes include interoperability/ontologies, multimedia/3D/telepresence, mobile/wireless/WiMAX/location-based services, website usability/accessibility, and ambient intelligence; the Internet alters competitive forces, distribution, disintermediation, branding, and pricing.

Methods

  • Literature review of eTourism publications over 20 years, searching ScienceDirect, EBSCOHost’s tourism and hospitality index, and Google Scholar between April 2007 and January 2008 using keyword combinations, plus key references from mainstream journals and ENTER proceedings.
  • More than 149 relevant articles were selected and analyzed, then grouped thematically into demand, technology, and industry dimensions, with implications and future research directions.

Limitations

  • Stated: the review predominantly includes publications from tourism publication channels; it uses an unsophisticated method for grouping articles; it lacks empirical data from industry practitioners and academic researchers on the applicability and implications of the reviewed work; future studies should extend the publication period and analyze findings progressively.
  • Evident from the text: the paper is a narrative/thematic synthesis rather than a systematic quantitative meta-analysis or primary empirical study, and the cited bibliometric data note a North American affiliation skew that may limit generalizability.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.tourman.2008.01.005

Cites

173 of 173 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

55 No full text of the sources · 25 Own interpretation · 15 Sources not found · 8 No basis given · 3 Own method · 3 Own result · 2 Supported so far · 2 Not checked yet · 1 Partly supported · accuracy not yet measured

Show all 24 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 68
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 47
90 of 90
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The more than 149 published articles identified by the database search are representative of the critical contributions to eTourism research.

    “At the end of the database search, more than 149 published articles were determined to be relevant to this study as they had made a critical contribution to this area and they are analyzed in this paper.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    People with disabilities and the elderly represent a growing market segment.

    “The hospitality and tourism industries should be aware of the fact that people with disabilities and the elderly represent a growing market segment.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Tourism information needs an extensive representation of photos and graphics in order to provide a tangible image or experience to travel planners.

    “Tourism information needs an extensive representation of photos and graphics in order to provide a tangible image or experience to travel planners.”
3 of 3

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

4 of 4

Citations

Cites

Show all 203 references

Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. Baum, 2001, E-learning in hospitality and tourism. Education, Singapore's Knowledge Industry Journal, December, 32
  2. Odinma, 2007, The trends in broadband wireless network technologies, The Pacific Journal of Science and Technology, 8, 118
  3. Pouloudi, A., Vassilopoulou, K., & Ziouvelou, X. (2002). Considering the societal implications in the adoption of e-business models. In Proceedings of 6th international conference on the transformation of organizations in the information age: Social and ethical implications (ETHICOMP’2002), Lisbon, Portugal, 13–15 November (pp. 237–246).

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 3,601–3,700 of 3,804

Metadata

Authors
Buhalis, D., & Law, R.
Affiliations
  • Bournemouth University (GB)
  • Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK)
Corresponding author
Buhalis, Dimitrios
Venue
Tourism Management
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2008-08
Volume
29
Issue
4
Pages
609-623
ISSN
0261-5177 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2041711461
Cited by
3,823
References
203
Citations by year
2026: 240 · 2025: 238 · 2024: 268 · 2023: 213 · 2022: 257 · 2021: 320 · 2020: 333 · 2019: 268 · 2018: 221 · 2017: 257 · 2016: 245 · 2015: 235 · 2014: 193 · 2013: 185 · 2012: 141
FWCI
235.80
Type
journal article
Language
en
Locations
  • Tourism Management (publishedVersion)
  • Bournemouth University Research Online (Bournemouth University) (submittedVersion)
  • PolyU Institutional Research Archive (Hong Kong Polytechnic University) (submittedVersion)
  • Memoria digital de Canarias (Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management › Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Digital Marketing and Social Media
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management › Hospitality and Tourism Education
Keywords
eTourism, information technology in tourism, tourism industry structure, research trends

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Cited sources are checked with a language model’s help (gpt-6-sol).

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