Big Data and its Application in Tourism Industry: A Theoretical Review and Analysis

With the further development of the Chinese domestic tourism economy, the needs and demands of tourists has diversified. The arrival of the big data era provides a new way of thinking for the diversification of tourism development. Based on case studies and logical deductive method, this paper first reviews related literature on the current application of big data in tourism industry, and then explores the future trends of big data in six tourism industry sectors respectively including tourist catering sector, accommodation sector, tourist transportation sector, recreation sector, tourist shopping sector and entertainment sector. The findings of the paper show that the big data has broad prospects in the application of tourism industry, which will benefit both visitors and tourism suppliers. Among the six tourism sectors, tourism transportation sector has good combination with big data, while the application of big data in tourist catering sector, shopping sector and entertainment sector is mentioned rarely and should be paid more attention. This paper elaborates the application of big data in different tourism sectors and provides focuses of future studies, which will benefit the research and practice of big data application in tourism industry on the whole.