The tourism industry is a knowledge-based industry. The recent developments in information processing and knowledge production and transfer have implications for the processes and relations in the tourism industry. The main aspects are the change of the structure of transaction costs, the increasing importance of networks and the impact of the conditions of knowledge transfer on the inter-industrial relations. The concept of cognitive maps is used to explain the processes of information transfer. The overall result of the different aspects of the knowledge orientation of the tourism industry is the importance of trust as the core instrument in this industry. © 2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.