Call for Paper for a Virtual Special Issue of Tourism Management.
Fostering Responsible Generative Artificial Intelligence in Tourism
Guest Editors: McCabe S, Li X, Cheah JH, Hollebeek LD, Ameen N & Law R
Deadline: 30 October 2024
Generative AI (GAI) is an artificial intelligence sub-type that is able to generate original content, including images, text, audio, and code, by learning from (large) data (Peres et al., 2023; Kim et al., 2023). It, therefore, stands as a ground-breaking technology capable of identifying data patterns and using those patterns to generate new content in response to specific content inputs (e.g., users’ questions). Remarkably, its output mirrors the quality that is typically associated with human experts, yet it is accomplished in a fraction of the time and at a significantly reduced cost, coupled with augmented creativity (Xie-Carson et al., 2023; Berente et al., 2021), thus potentially revolutionizing the creation, consumption, and delivery of tourism services (Li et al., 2023; Yin et al., 2023; Ameen et al., 2023). Specifically, GAI may be leveraged to personalize tourism offerings or their (e.g., marketing) content, among others, in turn boosting their competitiveness, effectiveness, or performance (Law et al., 2023; Yang et al., 2022; Qiang & McCabe, 2021). For example, while Expedia is using GAI to generate personalized travel itineraries for its customers (FastCompany, 2023), KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is using GAI to personalize its marketing campaigns (Diginomica, 2023).
However, despite its promise, GAI also raises potential ethical issues, including in terms of its accountability (e.g., by creating misleading/deceptive content), privacy, fairness, discrimination, or other biases that may impact tourism stakeholders (Xiang et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2021). For example, GAI may generate content that inadvertently reinforces prevailing stereotypes, discriminates against specific (e.g., race, gender, or ethnic) demographics based on the data and/or algorithm it has been trained on (Dwivedi et al., 2023; Pazzanese, 2020), in turn exacerbating societal disparities or raising other ethical issues (Kim et al., 2023; Dogru et al., 2023a/b). Moreover, lacking transparency around the informational sources leveraged by GAI may raise concerns regarding the validity of its output (e.g., by questioning the reasoning behind GAI recommendations). For example, GAI may manipulate online hotel/restaurant reviews or mass-create false identity accounts. Consequently, its capacity to create misleading, obsolete, or misconstrued information may trigger the development of negative attitudes to GAI or GAI misconceptions that may adversely influence tourism stakeholders’ GAI-related decision-making, engagement, and/or wellbeing (Hollebeek & Belk, 2021; He et al., 2018).
However, scholarly attention to the dynamics characterizing these potential ethical GAI challenges, and responsible GAI adoption, in tourism lags behind, exposing an important literature-based gap. In other words, scholars require an in-depth understanding of the ethical implications of tourism-based GAI design, adoption, and usage, along with relevant guidelines and best practices for responsible GAI implementation, as, therefore, addressed in this VSI. This VSI thus provides a platform to explore the interface of tourism, GAI, and ethics to boost tourism provider performance.
We invite submissions that explore key hallmarks, drivers, consequences, and/or contingency factors characterizing tourism-based GAI design, adoption, and usage, thus moving the field of tourism management forward by contributing to its theoretical/methodological and practical advancement. We welcome qualitative, quantitative, or pluralistic contributions that make a substantive theoretical contribution and that address issues, including, but not limited to, the following:
• What key ethical challenges characterize tourism-based GAI design, adoption, usage, and engagement and how can these be minimized or resolved?
• What (e.g., security/privacy) measures may be implemented to protect users’ data (e.g., travel preferences or booking details) from unauthorized GAI access and/or misuse?
• What tourism stakeholder roles, skills, and responsibilities are required to secure responsible GAI adoption and usage?
• How can responsible tourism-based GAI design be leveraged to boost specific tourism stakeholders’ (e.g., customers’ or employees’) engagement, trust, co-creation, satisfaction, or wellbeing?
• How can GAI be used to responsibly strengthen tourism stakeholder (e.g., customer) relationships?
• To what extent and how can tourism-based GAI be used to identify and combat tourism- related mis- or disinformation (e.g., fake reviews)?
• How may GAI be leveraged to raise inclusion, diversity, and equity of specific stakeholders’ (e.g., customers’) tourism experiences (e.g., by making relevant tourism- related recommendations?
• How should tourism-based GAI be governed (e.g., to minimize the emergence of monopolistic practices, to allow smaller, resource-constrained providers to still flourish)?
• How can GAI be used to support organizational, environmental, social, and governance (E.S.G.), or other responsible (e.g., sustainable) firm objectives?
• What key implications does tourism-based GAI implementation have for tourism policymaking,
• What are the key legal and policymaking implications of tourism-based GAI implementation?
• How will GAI adoption affect tourism scholarship and practice?
Submission Procedure
Interested authors are encouraged to submit a 500-word abstract of their work to Dr Jacky Cheah and Dr Nisreen Ameen by April 15, 2024, which members of the Guest Editor team will provide feedback on. The final deadline for VSI submissions is October 30, 2024, via the Tourism Management online submission portal. Though full manuscripts are to be submitted to the journal on a rolling basis up until the deadline, earlier submissions are encouraged and will be handled as they are received.
When submitting your manuscript, please select the VSI: “Responsible GAI in Tourism” from the drop-down menu. Submissions should be prepared in accordance with the editorial policy and author guidelines of Tourism Management. The guest editors will screen submissions to ensure their appropriate scope, fit with the journal, (e.g., theoretical) contribution, and relevance to the VSI’s aims and objectives. Manuscripts that do not pass this initial screening will be returned to the authors, while the remaining manuscripts will be reviewed in accordance with Tourism Management’s guidelines and procedures.
Guest Editors:
o Professor Scott McCabe, University of Birmingham, UK
o Professor Xiang (Robert) Li, Temple University, USA
o Dr. Jun Hwa Cheah, University of East Anglia, UK
o Professor Linda D. Hollebeek, Sunway University, Malaysia
o Dr. Nisreen Ameen, Royal Holloway University of London, UK
o Professor Rob Law, University of Macau, China
Full CFP:
