Innovation Research in Tourism and Hospitality Field: A Bibliometric and Visualization Analysis

Abstract

New studies have constantly been emerging in the field of tourism. However, it is not clear to what extent which study contributes to the literature and tourism application areas. There are a few bibliometric studies that illustrate the intellectual structure of the tourism innovation field. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the performance and intellectual structure of research studies conducted on innovation in the field of tourism. For this purpose, a bibliometric analysis of 387 research studies, which were published over the period 1975–2021 and cited in SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI indexes of WoS, is performed. Co-citation analysis indicates that innovation research studies in tourism can be categorized into three groups: (1) conceptualization and types of innovation in tourism, (2) review research on innovation in tourism, and (3) methodological studies. According to the co-word analysis, sharing economy, open innovation, sustainability, and technology are the most popular topics of recent times. A steady increase is observed in the number of citations to articles in the field of tourism innovation after 2008. The research study has crucial impacts in terms of guiding the researchers who would study in this field and providing the intellectual appearance of the field.