Cool Japan – Smart Denmark Initiative: Integration of data sciences in the tourism research (Cool Japan)

Abstract:

This network initiative addresses the tourism research discipline in which theinnovative and intelligent integration of data sciences is a key for future progress, but not yet fully implemented among the academic tourism research community. While the quantitative methods employed by tourism academicians have been heavily based on the theory-driven positivistic approach, the recent emergence of the Big Data trend has triggered data scientists to enter data-driven research on tourists’ behaviors and decision making predictions, which enables tourism academicians to conduct the quantitative research integrating the social constructivism perspective into their existing tourism research. What is urgently needed is the seamless integration of these two approaches. The ultimate scope of this initiative is that this integration makes possible a deeper understanding of tourists based on a formalized framework that investigates travel motivations, mental pictures and behavioral intentions that diverse subgroups of tourists have of a given destination. Specifically, an important aspect required in the contemporary society is to understand complex insights into culturally diverse subgroups of tourists and their behaviors across the global market place. As the name “Cool Japan” promotes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT technologies applied to the tourism and hospitality management, the technology-driven tourism research is one of the strengths provided by Japanese researchers. This initiative seeks synergetic effects between two nations integrating these two opposing approaches.