The Role of Management in Sustainable Tourism: A Bibliometric Analysis Approach

Abstract

This study presents a bibliometric analysis of sustainable tourism management using the VOSviewer tool. It aims to fill the bibliometric gap in the growing body of research on sustainable tourism management and, consequently, contribute to recent scholarly interest in this subject. Therefore, its main objective is to present a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the research published on sustainable tourism management from 1996 to April 2023, which enables its scientific production. To this end, we used a total of 317 publications with 7475 cited references from Web of Science. In addition, we performed three bibliometric analyses (co-authorship, co-citation and co-occurrence of keywords). The results show the current trends in sustainable tourism management and also provide a theoretical basis regarding this subject, which is of growing importance in the tourism sector. Our study’s conclusions suggest that the priorities of sustainable tourism management are shifting from competitiveness to sustainability, in accordance with new consumer demands and the 2030 Agenda. In conclusion, a broader framework of sustainable tourism management is required.