Information technology publications in leading tourism journals : a study of 1985 to 2004

Despite the extensive range of applications and the dependence of the tourism industry on Information Technology (IT), up to the present time the existing tourism literature has only a limited number of published articles, if any, that give an overview of the progress of IT publications over the past two decades. This article reports on a study that analyzed the published IT papers in three leading research journals in tourism, and examined the trend of IT research based on the publications. Excluding book reviews, research notes, reports, commentaries, and case studies, these three journals published a total of 2,135 full-length research papers during the period 1985 to 2004. Among these full-length research papers, only 55 full-length IT-related papers were found. Moreover, IT applications were grouped into six categories. This study revealed that networking was the most widely published category and with the highest growth rate in 1995–2004. Empirical findings are also compared with the publications in the journal Information Technology & Tourism (ITT) and mainstream IT journals. This article contributes to review the progress of IT research that tourism researchers have performed and published over the past two decades in leading tourism journals.