The evolution of the web and netnography in tourism: A systematic review

Despite recognition of an ever-growing number of Web users, there have been few attempts made to design new empirical material collection methods using various online platforms. Netnography is among the online qualitative methods to have received the least attention from tourism scholars. This systematic review gives an overview of the current gap in netnography studies in tourism that have been published in different disciplines. The findings of this study reveal that the majority of authors conduct their research on Web 2.0. Discussion of the current Web platforms in tourism and possible opportunities for conducting netnography studies are further considered. The contribution of this study is twofold. Firstly, it expands our knowledge of using information technology in tourism to conduct online studies in a general sense. Secondly, it increases our understanding of specific new methods for conducting netnographic studies.