Recent advancements in big data, algorithms, and computing power have triggered significant enhancements in artificial intelligence (AI). Almost every aspect of travel and tourism is currently impacted by AI, which can be evidenced in a variety of applications including robots, conversational systems, smart travel agents, prediction and forecasting systems, voice recognition, and natural language processing. In this article, we examine how AI has altered and continues to alter the key operations and processes in the tourism industry, with special emphasis on sustainability. After applying the PRISMA framework to guide our search process, the study identified 69 relevant articles published between January 1, 2018, and November 1, 2022. The mapping results revealed that the field is expanding quickly, despite the noted obstacles and challenges. We identified several factors and challenges that should be considered in order to advance the level of research and development in this area. Among these factors, we emphasize the importance and the need for standardized and multimodal datasets, transformer-based and more advanced representation techniques, and standardized performance evaluation metrics for AI models. Also, based on these challenges, some recommendations are provided, and future research directions are identified.