Open innovation in hospitality and tourism services: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to analyzed the development of open innovation research knowledge and its application in the tourism sector during the past 17 years, with the aim of understanding the scientific activity and impact of existing research. In addition, this research identifies trending thematic lines and provides recommendations for future research on this topic. Design/methodology/approach A bibliometric analysis was carried out from the Scopus database, in which 110 studies related to open innovation in tourism were identified. The analysis of the papers was done with the Bibliometrix and Vosviewer tools. Findings The results show that there is a recent and growing interest among academics, especially since 2017. Moreover, four main lines of work were identified: overtourism and sustainability, value cocreation, open innovation and competitive advantage and its impact on organizations belonging to the hotel sector and the relationship between external knowledge and internal sources in innovation management and open innovation performance. Originality/value The relationship with other stakeholders involved in the customer experience value creation in the tourism sector depends to a large extent on the joint offer that hotels, restaurants, tour operators and tourist offices, can provide in a tourist destination. Therefore, having external sources to innovate from will improve their innovative and organizational performance. However, there are no bibliometric analyses on the application of the open innovation paradigm in this sector. Thus, this research contributes to fill this gap, as well as to identify the most recurrent themes that show how open innovation is developing in tourism, providing academics and researchers with guidelines for future research.