Knowledge Creation in Information Technology and Tourism Research

We critique Information Technology and Tourism (ITT) research and make recommendations to enhance its theoretical and methodological development. Our recommendations are based on four critiques: (1) ITT is primarily a self-referential research area; (2) ITT is popular with tourism academics, but not in other technology-related disciplines; (3) ITT does not synchronize with its mother discipline of information systems; and (4) ITT is primarily focused on business applications of technology, with limited engagement of theoretical developments in social science. We first suggest ITT researchers should engage with wider disciplinary knowledge through their parent fields of Information Systems and Tourism. Second, we suggest a shift from the user-centric and overcrowded applied business studies’ focus of ITT and encourage theorizing IT and tourism in a larger social context critically and reflexively. Third, we encourage academics to develop ITT-specific guidance to offer rigorous directions and instructions of theoretical and methodological development.