In a turbulent world, culture and tourism provide two of the most fascinating aspects of human life. Creativity, imagination, brilliant colours, music, sounds, artifacts, spectacular places are becoming the required connectors for humanity. In a global perspective, the new capacities of emerging technologies, such as pervasive and ubiquitous computing, semantic knowledge portals, broadband and satellite networks, Web 2.0 and semantic web, open source software, set new tools, define new horizons for human creativity and connectivity.

In the digital world of the knowledge society, the development of infrastructures for the provision of services to citizens for access to cultural content and tourism services requires a multifold analysis of social, business, and technological factors. It seems that unfortunately there is a significant gap in the performance of current approaches and a key absence of scholar publications that will provide a fruitful dialogue.

In the context of the knowledge society, the key inquiry is to go beyond the traditional barriers for the open access to cultural content and the integration with learning and working. On the other hand, critical deficits in economic and social performance of tourism are evident due to the inefficiencies of current technological approaches that treat the tourism connection to information technology as a database problem. Our strategic fit is that culture and tourism require an integrated approach emphasising content, context and multiple, dynamic views of interactions.

The main objectives of IJDCET are summarised as follows:

• To provide the leading edge approaches and applications of ICTs in culture and tourism
• To provide the state-of-the art for government consultation and advice for academics/practitioners/policy makers and managers of the culture and tourism industry
• To contribute to the literacy of digital culture and electronic tourism

IJDCETaims to establish value-adding knowledge transfer and personal development channels in three distinctive areas: academia, industry and government, which summarise the three pillars where a new scientific publication can play a significant role.

IJDCET publishes original research papers providing significant results, and also short communications about innovative ideas and news, announcements and reviews regarding the topics of the journal.