Tourism destination research from 2000 to 2020: A systematic narrative review in conjunction with bibliographic mapping analysis

Abstract

Literature reviews serve as cornerstones for advancing the corpus of existing knowledge. This article offers an overview of the evolution of destination studies from 2000 to 2020. The current study first overviews 20 destination review articles and then applies bibliometric algorithms to determine authorships, popular topics, thematic clusters, and structural variations in 1393 destination studies. The bibliometric analysis identifies the seven largest specialties of destination research as destination loyalty, destination image, destination digitalization, destination marketing, destination experience and recommendation, destination governance, and destination resources. A framework was developed to illustrate the major topics of interest at the macro, meso, and micro levels. The article discusses similarities and contrasts between the findings of the two review methodologies and concludes with a research agenda for destination management scholarship.