The Rise of eTourism for Development

Abstract

This paper presents the conceptualization of eTourism For Development (eT4D), an emerging and still underexplored field of research. eT4D can be defined as the use of tourism technologies in developing and emerging contexts to foster socioeconomic development. eT4D is a new concept that integrates three distinct disciplines: development studies, tourism studies and information and communication technologies. The paper describes and defines the eT4D field from a theoretical point of view. Additionally the research presents an exploratory case study describing current tourism technology usage in a given developing context that is the one of Rocinha, a slum in Rio de Janeiro. Results confirm the theoretical conceptualization of the domain and the need of investigating the eT4D field also from a practical perspective.