Abstract With the information technology extensive used in the tourism industry, new technologies and applications have a profound impact on the development of tourism and promote the paradigm shift of tourism research. The establishment of the Computer Reservation Systems(CRSs) in the 1970s and Global Distribution Systems(GDSs) in the late 1980s, followed by the development of the Internet in the late 1990s, has transformed the best operational and strategic practices in the industry dramatically. A few years later, the Journal of Information Technology & Tourism(JITT) followed in 1998 establishing a multidisciplinary interest group of researchers that published regularly on tourism and technology. Most participants of this group constituted the core membership of the International Federation of Information Technology for Travel and Tourism(IFITT). In this context, a number of researchers involved in academic research to information technology and tourism ranks. In recent years, social media and tourism are becoming increasingly close, the discussion of social media in tourism gradually increasing. Based on the reality of the close connection of social media and tourism research, this paper reviews the study of social media in others countries, summarizes the concept of social media, the form of the social media, its implication and application in the tourism. And found that foreign research on social media in a rapid development stage, its impact on the tourism industry has also been gradually recognized by scholars, but the breadth and depth of research to be strengthened. Finally, we combined with domestic research status, provided the inspiration and future research directions. We can constructed the theoretical framework of crossover research of tourism and information technology, and integrated investigate social media in tourism applied research from information science, psychology, sociology, management, marketing, and other multi-disciplinary perspective.
2013, Vol. 28 
