The relationship between technology and place in tourism

Abstract

Tourism digitalization is often understood and implemented in a technocratic sense and implicitly viewed as a solution to perceived shortages in tourism development. Despite this, little attention has been given to the fact that digital technology has spatial and social implications and is strongly intertwined with tourism places and various actors. We address this intending to identify the dominant disciplinary and contemporary research approaches to tourism digitalization through a systematic review of 2 480 publications from the Scopus database. With inspiration from geomedia studies, an explorative thematic analysis found a separation that poses a risk of technology development being detached from its actual context, suggesting that tourism scholars and practitioners would benefit from broadening their readings and critically addressing the interconnection between technology and tourism places.