Cybercrime in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry: A Socio-Technical Review

Cybercrime is a significant threat to today’s increasingly technology-driven world with the burgeoning possibility of creating widespread havoc. The study consolidates cybersecurity literature related to tourism and hospitality that has remained largely scattered and fragmented. Using research databases, we initially identified 319 articles of which, only 84 were used for our analysis. To identify the thematic gaps in the existing literature, we used Leximancer (version 5) in one of our methodological phases, which applies latent semantic analysis (LSA) or latent semantic indexing (LSI) to create evidence-based insights. The research highlights: 1) different types of cyber threats in tourism and hospitality industries, 2) different types of cyber threats in tourism and hospitality industries’ ecosystem components, 3) impacts of cybercrime in the hospitality and tourism sector, 4) prominent technological innovations in cybersecurity in the hospitality and tourism industry, and 5) cybersecurity measures for small-scale tourism and hospitality companies. The study uses a socio-technical lens to analyze cybersecurity as a multidimensional challenge shaped by interconnected human, technological, and organizational vulnerabilities. By integrating interspersed literature, it offers a foundational reference and conceptual guidance to support informed decision-making and resilience across the tourist and hospitality sectors. While practical frameworks are proposed to mitigate cyber risks, the study acknowledges the evolving nature of cyber threats that are beyond the scope of the current analysis.