Bibliometric studies in tourism

This study evaluates bibliometric studies in tourism, depicts emerging themes, and offers critical discussions for theory development and future research. To achieve this aim, 190 papers with bibliometric analyses from leading hospitality and tourism journals were selected and critically analyzed. The research findings reveal that bibliometric articles published in these journals significantly increased after 2008. However, systematic review studies emerged as the major group, and relatively few studies utilized evaluative bibliometric and relational bibliometric studies. Study results suggest that paucity still exists, particularly in relational bibliometric studies in tourism. This is one of the first studies in this area that offers critical discussions and suggestions related to theory development and future research in this research vein. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.