Danilo Brozovic

This exploratory study charts the transformation of the tourism sector caused by the COVID-19 crisis. The article dissects five key domains of industry transformation: accelerated digitalisation, business model flexibility, human resources, travel restrictions, and risk perception and crisis management. It delineates the industry's changes, adaptations, and associated challenges in each domain. A review and content analysis of 240 publicly available online documents was conducted. The results provide managerial implications and avenues for future research in tourism, including the hybridisation of tourism products, transformation of the service encounter style, adaptation to a shifting travel mode, and increased risk awareness and preparedness.

High academic interest and numerous theoretical and practical studies on service systems and service ecosystems, paired with the accelerated evolution of the service (eco) system concept, have resulted in complex research in this field. Multiple perspectives from which service systems were studied added to this complexity and inadvertently produced conceptual confusion regarding service (eco) systems. This literature review addresses this confusion by focusing on the evolution of service systems to service ecosystems to consolidate and clarify the field. Therefore, this article's purpose is to systematise the extant research on service (eco) systems and indicate future research directions based on the analysis. Specifically, the article systematically reviews 770 publications on service (eco) systems from 2020 and earlier and identifies the main research topics (focusing on service [eco] systems’ constituent elements, inherent processes, and outcomes), theoretical perspectives, and bridging elements, and suggests future research based on the review results. The article concludes by providing a foundation for continued research emerging from the analysis, with emphasis on five aspects that may stimulate new avenues of research: service ecospheres, service ecosystem simplicity, failures of service ecosystems, paradox in service ecosystems, and panarchy and service ecosystems.