Half-century qualitative research in tourism and hospitality: a bibliometric analysis

This bibliometric analysis explores the evolution of qualitative research in tourism and hospitality over the past 45 years, utilizing the Scopus database to highlight prominent trends, publications, and thematic developments. The study identifies significant trends in publication volumes, which show a remarkable increase, particularly in the past decade, reflecting a growing interest in qualitative methods to address the complexities of tourism and hospitality. Performance analysis indicates the dominance of key journals and authors, while science mapping reveals evolving research themes such as sustainable tourism, visitor behavior, and destination marketing. Notably, the analysis of cluster networks and thematic evolution demonstrates how research has transitioned from foundational topics like tourism development and anthropology to contemporary concerns such as sustainability, the sharing economy, entrepreneurship, and digital tourism. This shift reflects the field’s response to global changes and challenges, offering key insights to direct future research on resilience, crisis management, and tourism technology.