Dear colleagues and readers,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the first issue of the Journal of Information Technology and Tourism that is now published by Springer. In the last issue, which was published by Cognizant Communications in 2012, editors Astrid Dickinger and Daniel Fesenmaier informed you that after a continuous growth of the journal along the last 13 years the editorial board decided to tackle a challenge and some risks: interrupt the collaboration with Cognizant Communications and start publishing the journal with a larger and renowned publisher such as Springer. The migration from Cognizant Communications to Springer was not easy and surely not short. We were able to re-launch Information Technology and Tourism only in the late spring of 2013. On that date a new flow of submissions started together with a new editorial board and new procedures to efficiently and effectively manage the production of a high quality scientific journal. We can now rely on a better journal management system, a motivated and professional team that is supporting the editorial board and in a range of new ideas and activities aimed at promoting and better positioning the journal and their authors in the scientific arena. We hope that very soon the journal will be listed in ISI and Scopus and the existent body of articles and quotations will push the journal up in these important ranking schemes.

Many things changed, however, the scope and mission of the Journal is not changed. Information Technology and Tourism is still the first and unique scientific interdisciplinary journal focusing on the nature and role of information technology within the context of tourism, travel and hospitality. As we know, information and communication systems embedded in a global net have had a profound influence on these industries, as also these industries with their presence in the electronic market show an impact on the developments of IT. This journal wants to be a premier venue for presenting and discussing advances in the use and development of tools, technologies, and methodologies that have facilitated the efficient netting of information and communication systems in tourism, travel and hospitality.

Information Technology and Tourism aims primarily to contribute to the process of theory building, and hence to the advancement of research and scholarship in this growing field. As an interdisciplinary journal, it supports industry-oriented research as well as academic theory focused research. Information Technology and Tourism will feature both, empirical case studies and technical-theoretical papers looking at tourism–travel–hospitality from an IT point of view and at IT from an applied perspective. The journal contains research papers, state-of-the-art reviews, research notes, and analyses of business practice. It is also intended to include papers relevant to the industry in different national contexts.

I want to thank the steering committee, all the editorial board members, those that contributed to the initial take off of the journal and the new brilliant scholars that have accepted to be part of the new team and I do wish that you, readers, will find the articles that we will select as excellent food for thought.