Bibliometric analysis of trends in COVID-19 and tourism

The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted the tourism industry globally. Travel restrictions, lockdowns, and health concerns drastically reduced tourism activity, leading to significant economic losses and uncertainty about the sector's future. Understanding the research landscape surrounding the pandemic's effects on tourism is crucial for informing recovery strategies, identifying knowledge gaps, and guiding future research. This study aims to comprehensively analyze the scholarly output on COVID-19 and tourism using bibliometric methods. The purpose is to map the existing research, highlight prominent themes, pinpoint areas needing further investigation, and offer insights for shaping future research directions within this critical field. The importance of this research lies in its potential to inform policymakers, tourism professionals, and researchers on effective strategies to rebuild and reshape the tourism industry in a more sustainable and resilient manner. By identifying research gaps and highlighting successful approaches, this analysis contributes towards a more informed and effective response to future crises impacting the tourism sector.

While the paper doesn't explicitly detail a separate literature review section, the introduction implicitly refers to the existing understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on tourism, setting the stage for the bibliometric analysis. The discussion section cites several key works that likely informed the study's framework and interpretation of results.

The study employed a bibliometric approach using the Web of Science (WOS) database as its primary source of data. The search initially yielded 1792 publications based on relevant keywords. A multi-stage filtering process was applied to refine the dataset. First, duplicate publications were removed, resulting in 1784 articles. Second, the authors manually screened titles and abstracts to select publications directly addressing the relationship between tourism and COVID-19, narrowing the dataset to 988 articles. Third, full-text analysis was conducted to further exclude irrelevant articles, ultimately selecting 921 publications for the final analysis. VOSviewer software was used for the bibliometric mapping and analysis. This software facilitated the creation of co-occurrence networks for keywords, authors, and journals, enabling the identification of clusters and trends within the research. The software's clustering algorithm automatically grouped related terms based on co-occurrence frequencies, providing a visual representation of research themes and their interrelationships. The analysis included keyword analysis to identify key research themes, authorship analysis to identify prolific researchers, analysis of author affiliations to understand geographical distribution of research, study area analysis to determine the focus of research (theoretical, global, or case studies), journal analysis to identify leading publications, and citation analysis to determine the most impactful articles.

The analysis of 921 publications revealed several key findings: 1. **Keyword Analysis:** The most frequent keywords included "COVID," "tourism," "pandemic," and "study." Keyword co-occurrence analysis revealed six clusters representing specific research themes: measures and policies related to COVID-19 infection (quarantine, travel restrictions); tourist perception, risk, and travel intentions; sustainability, resilience, and crisis management; case studies and tool implementations; economic aspects of the pandemic's impact on the tourism sector; and the hospitality industry (employees and customer satisfaction). 2. **Authorship Analysis:** The 921 publications were authored by 2633 authors, with an average of 2.85 authors per article. The majority of publications (25.95%) were co-authored by two researchers. VOSviewer mapping identified Michael C. Hall, Rob Law, Jun Wen, and Hugues Seraphin as the most prolific authors. 3. **Geographical Distribution:** Analysis of author affiliations revealed that China had the highest number of articles, followed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Australia. These countries are among the top global tourist destinations. International collaborations accounted for 33.77% of the publications. 4. **Study Area Analysis:** Most publications (55.27%) were theoretical or conceptual, addressing the topic globally. Around 5% included global comparisons, while 39.52% were case studies, primarily focused on China due to the virus's origin. Spain and the United States also showed high numbers of case studies. 5. **Journal Analysis:** The publications were spread across 276 journals. Current Issues in Tourism, Sustainability, and Tourism Geographies were the top three journals with the most publications. 6. **Citation Analysis:** The 921 publications received a total of 7515 citations in WOS, averaging 8.16 citations per article. Two articles published in 2020 (“The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak” and “Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid assessment of COVID-19”) were the most highly cited.

The bibliometric analysis revealed several key trends in COVID-19 and tourism research. The emergence of a new research direction focusing on the pandemic as an opportunity to transition towards a more sustainable tourism model is noteworthy. This reflects growing global concern about the environmental impact of mass tourism and the need for more sustainable practices. The high number of publications on risk perception and travel intentions underscores the critical role of consumer behavior in shaping the tourism sector's recovery. The prominence of China in both publications and case studies reflects the virus's origin and the significant impact of the pandemic on its tourism sector. While the theoretical and conceptual research dominates, the study identifies a need for increased empirical research to test existing frameworks and develop practical solutions. The lack of representation from countries like India, despite the significant impact of COVID-19 on its tourism industry, highlights a potential gap in the research landscape. The study highlights the concentration of publications in high-impact journals but also points out that a large proportion of journals contain only a single article, suggesting potential for future research within more niche publications.

This bibliometric analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the research landscape on COVID-19 and tourism. It identifies key research themes, leading authors and countries, and top-performing journals, while also highlighting research gaps and suggesting future research avenues. The emphasis on sustainable tourism and the need for empirical research to validate theoretical frameworks are particularly significant for shaping the future of the tourism industry. Further research should focus on underrepresented regions and countries, explore the quality of publications in more detail, and promote interdisciplinary collaborations to address the multifaceted challenges faced by the tourism sector in the post-pandemic era. Bridging the gap between research and industry practice is also crucial for effective knowledge transfer and the development of successful recovery strategies.

The study acknowledges limitations inherent to its methodology. The reliance on the Web of Science database means that publications not indexed in this database might be excluded. The focus on English-language publications may overlook valuable research in other languages. Future studies should consider broadening the scope to include a wider range of databases and languages. While the analysis identifies leading journals, the study does not assess the quality of individual papers within these publications. Further research is needed to identify high-quality work and separate this from publications of lesser quality.