Abstract
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 relaunch 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