Female perception of destination image: a bibliometric visualisation review (1996–2024)

In the last decade, the gender perspective of the destination image has attracted the attention of researchers, as it has become a determining variable for establishing differentiated offers and generating competitive advantages in tourist destinations. Women exhibit different attitudes, behaviors, and interests than men during tourist visits, and this research uses the Web of Science (WoS) and VOSviewer to highlight the main lines of research in this scientific field. Using mapping techniques, our study shows the relevance of research related to the topics of “modeling the female tourist image,” “satisfaction and loyalty of female tourists,” and, to a lesser extent, “female motivations for traveling,” “female perceptions of cultural visits,” and “risk perceived by the female traveler.” The findings allow us to state that women’s perception of the destination image is an autonomous and expanding field of study, though it is not without new challenges in terms of theory (such as the ambiguity between sex and gender or the limited intersectional perspective) and methodology (the predominance of cross-sectional designs and causal modeling using SEM). Furthermore, the findings provide researchers, policymakers, and destination marketing organizations (DMOs) with a detailed understanding of past and current research topics, which will help them establish differentiated offers at destinations for women compared to men.