Artificial intelligence in hospitality and tourism. State of the art and future research avenues

The hospitality and tourism industry has recently undergone a profound transformation driven by information and communication technologies developments thanks to innovations in Artificial Intelligence and its tools. However, although the literature on AI and tourism is growing, scientific research on these themes is still fuzzy and fragmented. This article aims to explore the current state of the art and possible future developments of AI and its tools in tourism. The study develops a bibliometric analysis using the ISI database and applies social network analysis to map its intellectual structure. Then, the study develops a qualitative literature review to investigate the main research themes and propose future research avenues. The findings identify some main research strands such as: Big Data for demand forecasting and customer satisfaction; Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality for co-creation processes; the COVID-19 pandemic, social distances issues and service robots; and the smart tourism trends.