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This paper is an overview of a selection of previously published literature and focuses on the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the hospitality and tourism sector, with particular reference to small and medium-sized hospitality enterprises (SMHEs). It specifically evaluates the critical internal and external factors that influence the diffusion of ICTs in this sector from a baseline of Gamble's 1984 model of diffusion. It builds towards populating a new model that takes into account the emerging internal and external factors that emerge not only from these works, but also from other sources that impact on this sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how information and communication technologies (ICT), particularly the Web, can enhance the role that Meeting, Incentives, Conference/Convention. and Exhibition (MICE) properties play in local economic development (LED) processes. The complex links between ICT, MICE, and LED, are explored through an extensive literature review, a website audit, and in-depth interviews with key players in the New Zealand (NZ) MICE industry. Our findings reveal that the Web has considerable, but largely untapped, potential to facilitate links between MICE properties and local economies. We argue that for this potential to be met effective strategies must be adopted, based on careful planning, and the fundamental realisation that the Web is much more than simply a marketing tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the emerging age of Ambient Intelligence wherein the customer will become ever more demanding, businesses must be innovative and apply advanced technologies to meet and exceed customers' expectations. The relationship between information and communication technology embedded in a global net and tourism offers an excellent basis for innovation. It served as a departure point for the development and testing of the Rent-A-Mobile Guide (RAMG), which leverages distributed capacity through the application of a personal digital assistant (PDA), enabling users to co-create the content of their personalized travel experience derived, in part, from lifestyle research and their spatial interaction with tourist destination Stakeholders. The identification of the customers' lifestyle allows the RAMG and its network stakeholders to sense and respond to individual customers' expectations and take measures that provide exclusive access to any source of information, at any place and lime, resulting in increased purchase volumes and user loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fast development of information communication technologies (ICT) and the expansion of Internet have affected all industries in many countries. Such technologies have been adopted in tourism industry in Europe and America for more than 30 years, and the trend is likely to continue into the future. China, as a fast-growing developing country in Asia, is gaining increasing importance in the international tourism market for its historical and cultural attractiveness as a destination and, more importantly, as a booming tourism source country with its huge population. This study examines how the ICT and Internet have changed the tourism development in China, how important such changes are, and to where such changes will lead China's tourism industry. This exploratory research is conducted based on information collected from airlines, hotels, tour operators, visitor attractions and the tourism authorities within China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]