Tourism and Hospitality Trends and Sustainable Development: Emerging Issues in the Digital Era

This chapter introduces the book Tourism and Hospitality for Sustainable Development—Volume Two: Emerging Trends and Global Issues by summarising the key aspects covered by the chapters that make up the volume. This chapter argues that the emergence of new trends in the tourism industry and the pursuit of sustainable development have been accompanied by the advent of digital technology emerging from the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). There have been, however, concerns about the implications of novel technologies for pressing global concerns such as the environment, labour market, energy utilisation, and global poverty. However, studies that comprehensively problematise these aspects either do not exist or are still in their embryonic stages. As a result, our understanding of tourism and hospitality trends and sustainable development in the digitalisation era and the various issues accompanying the digitalisation wave remains limited. In seeking to close this gap, the chapters in this volume explore the trends and emerging issues in the global tourism and hospitality industry in the era of digitalisation. The current introductory chapter revisits some conceptual and practical debates on the usefulness of digitalisation in the industry. This is achieved by referring to various sources from grey and academic literature. This is meant to provide a background discussion of the chapters contained in the book. The chapter also outlines the sections and chapters in the book.