Editorial

Abstract

Information and communications technology (ICT) makes smart tourism smart. It works in every part of smart tourism: Multimedia helps tourists book hotels, restaurants or tickets; suppliers use ICT to create figures or videos to advertise their products; GPS are extensively applied by tourists to find routes, and by suppliers to track visitors’ movement; In tourist attractions, real-time crowd monitoring and controlling are essential for both tourists and administrators.

Big data provides technical support, data support and intellectual support for the efficient operation, management, analysis, prediction and evaluation of tourist attractions. To take advantages of big data in the management, marketing, operation and reputation building of tourist attractions, Junai Zhang put forward four suggestions and we can find them in this issue. Alicia Yáñez-Moneda and her team introduced the most relevant trends that digitalization has brought to hospitality and tourism, the basic precepts of Industry 4.0, and different processes and levels of digitalization.

We collected articles concentrating on technologies such as block chain, cloud platform and virtual reality in smart tourism. What is more, we cared much about information vulnerable groups in the context of smart tourism.

Editorial board member

Dr. Seyi Saint Akadiri