Locate, Where, What, and How It is Published: A Bibliometric Analysis of Tourism Research During COVID-19

Abstract

The impact of COVID-19 on tourism was massive, especially in 2020 and 2021. This incident sparked heated debates about its impact on the tourism industry and resulted in the publication of a large number of research articles instantly. Due to the needs of the hour, tourism scholars and journals have taken a proactive step to communicate scholarly research in a faster phase to mitigate the issue through scientific research. This surge of articles during the pandemic period allows us to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the nexus between the global pandemic and scholarly engagement. Employing a mixed approach using a systematic literature review of journals published on the Web of Science, this article explores a comprehensive approach of methodological applications, the timely transition of themes in different intensities worldwide, and geographical coverage of the research and themes discussed. Our analysis reveals that the pattern of themes discussed varies by time and that themes are mainly discussed around tourist psychology, crisis management, pandemic impact, tourism transformation, and the digital revolution. This study also found a rise in increased interdisciplinary research to address issues related to tourism.