Smart tourism destination: A bibliometric review

Abstract

This study aims to review the articles published in journals indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database on smart tourism destination (STD) using the bibliometric analysis technique. In line with this main purpose, the annual number of STD articles, WoS categories, and indexes, most productive countries, country collaborations, most productive institutions, co-citation network of journals, most cited articles, and authors, co-citation network of authors, and most used author keywords were analysed. The WoS database was scanned between the 1975- December 2021 period and 70 articles were found. CiteSpace 5.8.R3 bibliometric data analysis software was used in the analysis. The results obtained from the analysis show that the first article on STD in the WoS database journals was published in 2013. However, it has been determined that Spain is the leading country in the world in terms of article productivity, country collaboration, and centrality. Most of the STD articles have been published in the SSCI- indexed journals and hospitality leisure sport tourism category. According to other results, the most productive institution is Universidad de Alicante, the most cited article is published by Boes et al., titled “Smart Tourism Destinations: Ecosystems for Tourism Destination Competitiveness” and the author with the highest co-citation count is Ulrike Gretzel. With this study, the current situation and emerging trends in the STD literature are revealed and a research guide for future studies is formed.