This issue of Electronic Markets includes a comprehensive special issue section on artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics in travel, hospitality and leisure (THL). THL may be conceived as sub-sectors of the tourism industry, which Cook et al. (2018) compare to an elephant: "diverse and sometimes hard to describe, but, just like the elephant, too big to be ignored" (p. 6). Among the areas they mention are attractions and entertainment, food and beverage, accommodations, destinations, travel agencies and transportation. The information systems literature has recognized the elephant since many decades and Electronic Markets has published the first set of articles already in its second year of appearance, which dates back to 1992. This special issue in volume two was on "electronic markets in the tourism industry" and included six (short) papers, while a second special issue on "electronic markets in tourism" with eight papers followed in 1996 and a third special issue on "smart tourism" with five papers in 2015. As shown in Table 1, the topics of most of these papers revolved around applying information systems for marketing, sales and distribution purposes in the respective sub-fields of tourism. This is not surprising since the tasks related to the tourism areas primarily consist of information. In supporting coordination, the activities of marketing, sales and distribution are largely based on information and as already mentioned by Nicholas Negroponte in his seminal book "Being digital", substituting analog with digital information technologies has fundamental transformation power. Compared to atoms, bits will not wear out, they may be reproduced at zero cost and they move at light speed (Negroponte, 1995). Among the early examples that illustrate the implications on tourism are the computerized reservation systems (CRS) that spread from airlines to destinations, hotels or cars and changed the industry structures with new actors (e.g. CRS spinoffs, online travel agencies) as well as new products and processes (e.g. self-booking, co-creation). At the same time, Negroponte mentions that "bits are not edible. In that sense, they cannot stop hunger" (Negroponte, 1995, p. 228). For tourism, this is obvious in the restaurant sector, where food will not be amenable to virtualization, but it also applies to many other sectors in tourism that comprise a physical component, such as accommodation or physical transportation.
