Five Decades of Research on Disease Outbreaks, Pandemics and Tourism: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Purpose – Purpose of the research is to make a comprehensive study to elucidate the existing landscape of scientific production of disease outbreaks, pandemics and tourism research. In doing so, authors analyzed scientific production of pandemics and tourism-related studies such as year-wise publications, productive authors, institutes, funding sponsors, thematic areas of research and citation analysis.

Design/methodology/approach – Authors analyzed the research papers indexed in the online Scopus database over 50 years of time starting from 1971 to 2020 by using bibliometrics, and the data are visualized by using data visualization tools like VOSviewer and the Tableau.

Findings – The understanding of disease outbreaks and pandemics in tourism has increased over the years in terms of number of papers, citation, networks and collaborative themes of research.

Research limitations/implications – Data for the study were generated from Scopus online database and limited to English-written journal articles that were produced with search strategy of specific keywords associated with tourism, virus, pandemics and disease outbreak.

Practical implications – Findings of the research provide insights into academia and practitioners on the understanding of disease outbreaks, pandemics and tourism research, coherent development of the concept and understanding the research gap and focussed area of research.

Originality/value – As per authors' understanding, this paper would be one of the first attempts to provide greater understanding of disease outbreaks, pandemics and tourism as a research topic by examining the growth and evolution in an academic context through bibliometric analysis.

Paper type – Review paper.

Citation

Gavinolla, M.R., Livina, A., Swain, S.K. and Bukovska, G. (2021), "Five Decades of Research on Disease Outbreaks, Pandemics and Tourism: A Bibliometric Analysis", Kulshreshtha, S.K. (Ed.) Virus Outbreaks and Tourism Mobility (Tourism Security-Safety and Post Conflict Destinations), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 43-57. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80071-334-520211005