Introduction Tourism has become a dominant industry not only in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia but also in other parts of the world. In the past, players in the tourism industry relied on the brick-and-mortar model of operation to manage their businesses. It meant that a customer had to make physical visits to the preferred hotels or use agents to book for various services they need. However, the strategy is changing because of the emerging technologies. E-tourism has redefined the approach that firms take to operate in the market. Customers can now visit websites of various firms offering services they need, compare the quality of the products they provide, prices they charge, and then make a decision about whether it is appropriate to purchase the services they need from a particular company. Service providers have also benefited from these new technologies. As Gorakala [1] observes, emerging technologies in the field of tourism have eliminated the geographic barrier that limited the scope of their operations. Competition in the tourism industry is taking a new approach that is heavily dependent on technology. Firms in this industry are keen on ensuring that they attract online guests to their websites. Various website optimization tools have become popular as they prioritize specific online sites when one uses specific key search words. Ricci [2] explains that the concept of intelligent systems have become critical in the industry. A firm will not only be interested in attracting potential online customers to their websites but will also convince them to purchase various products once they are on the site. As such, it is necessary to understand their needs, financial capacity, and any other details that influence the buyer’s decision-making process. A firm will require advance systems to monitor activities of these potential customers and understand their interests. In this paper, the aim is to provide a comprehensive literature review about the effects of persuasive ubiquitous computing using semantics technologies to promote e-tourism. Recommender System Defining the a Recommendation System A recommendation system, also known as a recommender system, has become popular in the tourism industry. Chedrawy and Abidi define it as “a subclass of information filtering system that seeks to predict the rating or preference a user would give to an item” [3, p. 5]. The website has become the primary repository of information in the modern digital world. Without proper guidance, it may not be easy to have access to the right information when conducting a search. Technology companies such as Google have come up with a rating system that focuses on understanding the exact needs of the user and presenting the most relevant information first. Marketing companies have borrowed the same concept to help attract online customers to a specific website. User history, cookies, and time scheduling are some of the ways in which a firm can determine the needs and preferences of an online customer. Such information can be used to provide them with a list of what they need every time they conduct a search [3]. As the name suggests, the system recommends a list of items that fit an individual’s needs in the best way possible. Web and Mobile Recommendation Systems The concept of web recommender system has become common in the current digital age. According to Chedrawy and Abidi, a web recommender system refers to “adaptive or personalized information retrieval systems, which retrieve or recommend web-based information artifacts such as documents and websites based on the user’s preferences and goals” [3, p.