Introduction: Historicising and Theorising Digital Transformation and Sustainable Development in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry

This chapter introduces the ensuing chapters in the book Tourism and Hospitality for Sustainable Development—Volume One: Technological Innovations and Development Realities. As the chapter shows, it might not be entirely incorrect to assert that the contemporary tourism and hospitality industry is transitioning to innovative technological interventions to improve services and products in pursuit of sustainable development. This is demonstrated by the rapid and radical transitions enterprises are making towards digital tools, as detailed in the chapters in this book. The book sits at the intersection of three sets of academic literature: literature on tourism and hospitality, literature on sustainable development, and literature on digitalisation. As a general trend, these three strands of literature do not sufficiently engage with each other, and this book seeks to address this scholarly gap through several empirically based case studies of various tourism and hospitality businesses worldwide. Much of the literature on digitalisation and sustainable development in the tourism and hospitality industry is focused on how enterprises integrated digital tools to survive COVID-19 safety protocols. This has tended to crowd out studies about digitalisation in the pre- and post-COVID-19 period. This book, thus, emphasises the value of integrating digital technologies in the tourism and hospitality industries before and after COVID-19 in offering a more refined analysis of twenty-first-century digital inventions, innovations, and development realities in the tourism and hospitality industry.