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The hygiene factor is always imperative when customers consider a certain restaurant, and the information contained in customer reviews can be an efficient approach to gauge a restaurant's hygiene during gaps in the official inspection. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether information obtained from online reviews could predict the upcoming hygiene rating, specifically, evaluating the impact of both qualitative and quantitative content of reviews on the restaurant hygiene rating.

The quantitative research method with big data analytic techniques was applied in this study. In total, 127,656 pieces of data collected from 1,710 restaurants in four major cities in the USA were used in the analysis. Both quantitative factors (i.e. reviewer's numerical rating, days to review, readability, useful/funny/cool) and qualitative factors (i.e. eight emotional dimensions of textual reviews) were analyzed from the online customer reviews and considered in predicting the restaurant's hygiene rating.

Six out of eight emotional dimensions including anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise and trust were identified as having significant influences on the restaurant hygiene ratings. While three quantitative variables including days to review, readability and usefulness were identified with significant impacts on the dependent variable of restaurant hygiene rating.

This study opens an avenue for innovative research that establishes a connection between customers' reviews and restaurants' inspection systems. The results allow restaurants to predict an impending hygiene inspection rating upon dynamic assessment of review content and aid in adjusting hygiene measures accordingly.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a key player in the food services and restaurants sector; thus, the aim of this work consists in studying the previous research on ICTs in food services and restaurants in the context of tourism and hospitality through a systematic literature review.

The systematic literature review is performed on full papers published in journals included in the Journal Citation Report of the WoS in the category of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism. A total of 165 articles from 28 journals are analyzed, following different criteria, such as the research methods, perspectives, statistical techniques, geographical focus, topics, technologies, authors and universities.

The restaurant sector is more and more based on the creation of experiences and ICTs, through their multiple possibilities, can undoubtedly contribute to adding value to the simple meal and create and recreate experiences to attract and retain customers who are increasingly sophisticated and hooked on ICTs. ICTs are basic for managers taking decision at the highest level in food services and restaurants, so ICTs should not be seen as a technical tool but as an essential element for top management.

This paper examined articles from very well-known tourism and hospitality journals, leaving aside others as well as different publication formats such as books or papers presented at conferences.

A significant contribution made with this paper is the availability of a list of topics in the context of ICTs in food services and restaurants. These topics are classified into three areas (Consumers, Suppliers and Environment and Tendencies) that can serve as a future research framework. The paper also provides useful information to restaurant managers about ICTs, to researchers for their future projects and to academics for their courses.