Tourism can be interpreted as a system of different companies, which are often situated in different regional, geographical, political, economic and cultural backgrounds. Because of the tense interaction between customers and employees in tourism firms, understanding of the system plays a significant role to establish a high service quality. Furthermore customers have to offer trust to tourism firms, since the tourism product is characterized by high intangibility before consumption. Additionally trust building is hampered due to the diversity of people in tourism and the different firms in tourism, which have to cooperate. This paper analyzes trust building in tourism and presents strategies to improve trust. © 2000 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.