A comprehensive science mapping of tourism and hospitality research: Tribes, territories and networks

This study aims to provide a comprehensive bibliographic analysis of the field of tourism and hospitality research by mapping the contributions of researchers, research institutions and evolution of research topics and collaboration networks. Metadata from 27 SSCI and 30 ESCI tourism and hospitality journals were collected from Web of Science. Data analysis was conducted utilizing R package of Bibliometrix and Biblioshiny, adhering to the guidelines of bibliometric analysis. The study identified topics of sustainability and IT technology applications in tourism and hospitality as the recent research fronts. An increasing number of Chinese origin researchers emerged in the author collaboration network, followed by Korean origin researchers. Authors and universities in China started to form distinctive clusters in the author and institutional collaboration networks. The results offer a holistic understanding of the field of tourism and hospitality research, and can help researchers develop personal strategies in research career planning and development. • Provides a comprehensive science mapping on 56 tourism and hospitality journals. • Identifies sustainability and IT applications as research fronts. • Identifies Chinese- and Korean-origin researchers as productive authors. • China emerges to be a significant country contributor.