Knowledge Development in Tourism Distribution Channels: From Single Channel to Omnichannel

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the periodic changes within the content of tourism distribution channels and identify key themes in this field. The study will be able to identify changes and trends by examining through scientific/academic research.A bibliometric method was employed. About 6245 publications in the Web of Science database were analyzed using VOS viewer, as the study tool.The results show an increasing trend in scientific publications on distribution channels in field of tourism by the last decade. The year 2019 held highest rank in terms of the total number of scientific papers published per year with 813 articles, and the highest citation rate belongs to 2017 with 10037 citations. Also, the majority of the publications in this field were original research articles (57.90%), and Law R., Buhalis D., Pan B., and Xiang Z. were identified as the most productive and most-cited researchers. Besides, co-authorship network visualization of journals in the field of tourism distribution channels was implemented. Co-word analysis was then used to track the evolution of research themes over time. The key themes are Single-channel, Dual-channel, Multi-channel, Cross-channel, and Omni-channel. Finally, this study calls for future research in the field of tourism distribution channels.