Special issue on ENTER2016

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are playing a pivotal role in travel and tourism. Research in this field contributes to the continuous development of strategies and tactics to support the industry competitiveness and the satisfaction of travellers. The papers published in this volume are extended versions of selected research papers among the many contributions presented at ENTER2016, Information and communication technologies in Tourism Conference, which took place in Bilbao, Spain, on February 2–5, 2016. Organized by the International Federation for IT and Travel and Tourism (IFITT), ENTER offers a unique platform where researchers and practitioners can engage in cutting edge topics at the intersection of ICTs and tourism. While far from being inclusive of all research areas in the field, the collection of six articles in this special issue provides an excellent selection of the latest research on applications of ICT in travel and tourism. The contributions span from contextual and sequential recommendation processes, to social media behaviour and return on investment; two contributions explore happiness prediction within travellers’ forums and the issue of travellers’ digital connectedness. The topic of recommendation system is particularly popular in the tourism and ICT literature (e.g. Fesenmaier et al. 2006). Recommendation systems support the decision making process of travellers (Gretzel 2011) towards helping them in making (better) decisions based—for example—on their expressed preferences (Ricci 2002). The first paper featured in this special issue deals with ‘Selective Contextual Information Acquisition in Travel Recommender Systems’ and moves