Entrepreneurship in Tourism Studies in the 21st Century: A Bibliometric Study of Wos and Scopus

Abstract

Entrepreneurship and tourism are linked as relevant aspects of study due to their influence on the society’s development. In attempt to identify the main theoretical contributions in the 21st century, a bibliometric study was carried out, based on publications of tourism entrepreneurship in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. As a result, data from 268 documents were obtained and processed in VosViewer. The main findings place Haber, Altinay, and Hallak as the most cited authors; when analyzing co-authorship, co-citation, and bibliographic coupling by authors, the distribution changes in relation to the contribution. England, Australia, and United States are the main countries that originate publications on the subject and have an impact on their dissemination; and Tourism Management is the Journal with the highest number of citations. The topics were grouped into three clusters: (1) Sustainable Rural Tourism, (2) Small business and lifestyle, and (3) Social entrepreneurship, with a predominantly human and social focus over the economic vision. This study can be the basis for further studies about adjacent, related, or emerging topics to entrepreneurship in tourism, as well as to generate practical proposals for new or potential entrepreneurs.