A bibliometric and visual analysis of revisit intention research in hospitality and tourism

Abstract

Purpose

One of the issues currently being discussed around the globe, and especially in the tourism industry, is revisit intention. This study uses a bibliometric analysis strategy based on the Web of Science (WOS) database to examine the literature on revisit intention.

Design/methodology/approach

In this study, a sample of 482 articles was analyzed. The R programming language was used to process the data and graph the results.

Findings

The results found the occurrence of publications by year, publication source information and authors, journals, countries, institutions, thematic maps, current trends of topics in hospitality and tourism toward revisiting intention, and the most cited papers in revisit intention. This study highlights the importance of revisiting intention in the hospitality and tourism industry. The bibliometric analysis helps to set the research agenda on revisit intention.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to present an empirical evaluation of revisit intention using inclusive mapping.

Citation

Zulfiqar, U., Abbas, A.F., Aman-Ullah, A. and Mehmood, W. (2024), "A bibliometric and visual analysis of revisit intention research in hospitality and tourism", Journal of Tourism Futures, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JTF-01-2024-0013

Introduction

Countries are trying to improve and diversify their tourism offerings to attract tourists from abroad. As a result, tourism becomes indispensable for these countries, and more and more research focuses on the development of the industry (Gössling et al., 2008; Saufi et al., 2014). It is believed that an important aspect of a destination’s success is the likelihood of tourists’ revisit intention (Mai et al., 2019). A number of these elements, particularly destination attractiveness and accommodation service, have been linked to the antecedents of the overall destination image construct in previous studies (Chiu et al., 2016; Cong, 2016; Mai et al., 2019; Viet et al., 2020).

Oliver (2014) characterizes behavioral intention as an individual’s expressed likelihood of engaging in a particular behavior (p. 28). Revisit intention, defined as a behavioral intention component, pertains to a customer’s inclination to revisit the same tourist destination or product (Rather, 2021a, b; Rasoolimanesh et al., 2022). Revisit intention is a prominent focus within tourism research, as indicated by several scholars (Li et al., 2018). Scholars generally acknowledge that repeat visitors tend to extend their stays, engage more actively in consumption activities, express higher satisfaction levels and contribute positively to word-of-mouth, all while requiring lower marketing expenditures compared to first-time visitors (Zhang et al., 2014, 2018). The intention to revisit a tourism destination can be considered a form of post-consumption behavior (Cole and Scott, 2004) and is defined as a visitor repeating an activity or returning to a destination (Meleddu et al., 2015; Baker and Crompton, 2000). Additionally, it involves the visitor’s assessment of the likelihood or plans to revisit the same destination (Khasawneh and Alfandi, 2019; Jin et al., 2020; Dang and Weiss, 2021) or the willingness to recommend the destination to others (Chen et al., 2020; Soliman, 2021).

Undoubtedly, the issue of tourists’ revisit intention has received much scholarly attention in the travel and tourism literature, especially in the last decade (An et al., 2019; Loi et al., 2017; Sohn et al., 2016). In the tourism industry, revisit intention is critical to business survival and growth. Revisit intention is crucial for businesses to expand and prosper (Ngoc and Trinh, 2015). The most important factor is that frequent visits from visitors reduce marketing and advertising costs (Abbasi et al., 2020; Kim et al., 2013; Loi et al., 2017). It is also considered vital to effective destination marketing (Beerli-Palacio and Martín-Santana, 2018; Loi et al., 2017) and contributes to the profitability and substantiality of the tourism industry (Alves et al., 2019; Stylos et al., 2017).

Tourists’ revisit intention, which refers to their perceived likelihood of coming back to the same destination, is a specific element of favorable post-consumption behaviour and is a key component of tourism loyalty (Cole and Scott, 2004; Loi et al., 2017; Seetanah and Nunkoo, 2020). On the other hand, the definition of destination satisfaction is the aggregate feelings that one derives as a result of visiting a tourist attraction (Cole and Scott, 2004, p. 81). Revisit intention is a substantial topic in hospitality research (Chen et al., 2016; Pareigis et al., 2012; Rajput and Gahfoor, 2020).

Given the importance of repeat tourism, previous studies have made great efforts to understand the antecedents of tourists’ revisit intention. Consistent with findings from consumer behavior research, satisfaction with the destination was found to be an important factor. The importance of tourists’ experiences on their revisit intention has been highlighted by (Zhang et al., 2017). Similarly, several previous empirical studies have shown that tourists’ experiences of and their satisfaction with a destination play an important role in revisit the destination (Choo and Petrick, 2014; Petrick et al., 2001; Ranjbarian and Pool, 2015; Um et al., 2006).

Travel decisions are a complex process influenced by several variables, including psychological (attitudes), social (subjective norms) elements and perceived behavioral control (Bianchi et al., 2017; García-Fernandez et al., 2017; Han and Kim, 2010). According to tourism literature, factors that have a significant influence on tourists’ behavior include destination image, service quality, customer satisfaction and perceived value (Allameh et al., 2015; Chen and Tsai, 2007; Ranjbarian and Pool, 2015; Seetanah and Nunkoo, 2020; Wang et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2017). In particular, the mediating effect of satisfaction is important in the tourism sector and in studies that focus on tourists’ revisit behavior. The intention to return is often directly and significantly influenced by trip satisfaction (Abbasi et al., 2020; Cho et al., 2020).

Numerous research has recently focused on tourist crises, especially during and after the COVID-19 crisis. Few of them focused on hazards related to diseases or pandemics (Bhati et al., 2020; Hall, 2010). Numerous health-related crises, particularly pandemic hazards such as SARS and Ebola (e.g. Zeng and Carter, 2005), have caused enormous damage to the local and global tourism industry over the past three decades (e.g. Novelli et al., 2018). Several psychological and mental health concerns and issues, such as tourists’ perceptions of risk or fear, have been cited in previous research as significant influences on travel behaviour and future travel intentions (Bhati et al., 2020; Rather, 2021a, b; Wen et al., 2020; Wong and Yeh, 2009). Tourist revisit intentions are important because they contribute to the economic benefits of tourist destinations by promoting positive emotions and place attachment (Jang and Feng, 2007; Zhang et al., 2021). Despite the substantial scholarly attention on revisit intention, there remains a need for a more focused synthesis within the tourism literature. This study is crucial within the dynamic context of tourism and hospitality, where countries are fiercely competing to diversify and enhance their tourism offerings to attract international visitors. The understanding of tourists’ revisit intentions is imperative if the industry is to achieve sustainable growth and maintain competitiveness. Through the clarification of the existing research gaps, this study seeks to contribute to this critical area by synthesizing existing knowledge. As such, this work will shed light on the complex interplay of dynamics within the tourism industry, specifically focusing on revisit intention to develop a comprehensive theoretical and practical understanding. In addition, the study is important because it informs management of destinations from an evidence-based perspective, thereby enhancing marketing efforts and developing policies that promote positive post-consumption behavior among tourists. By examining the determinants and the triggers of revisit intention, this study will provide evidence-based recommendations for various stakeholders in the tourism industry to enhance visitor experiences and develop long term relationships with their customers.

A bibliometric study on tourist revisit intentions would be of great importance for understanding the economic and socioemotional impacts of tourism on destinations. Firstly, revisiting implies repeat visitation, which means that such intentions may directly shape economic benefits brought to the destinations through expenditures according to the multiplier effect. Secondly, studying revisit intentions implies emotional ties such as good experiences, satisfaction and place attachment between tourists and destinations, affecting the flow’s sustainability. Therefore, an in-depth review of the existing body of research would also allow pinpointing the most relevant factors aligning with the characteristics of visitors to develop management approaches to create the optimal, pleasant visiting experience. Ultimately, this research can guide policy-making and marketing efforts to sustainably promote tourism and maximize the benefits for destination communities. This study’s significant contribution involves identifying the key journals and authors that have played a pivotal role in the advancement of revisit intention. Additionally, it elucidates the emerging themes within revisit intention and pinpoints the most referenced journals in this field. Furthermore, the paper thoroughly examines the citation networks among the most referenced studies and the prevailing schools of thought within these networks. The following research questions (RQs) are addressed in this study:

RQ1.

What is the current state of the publication in the revisit intention?

RQ2.

What are the primary publication sources, significant contributing authors, and the institutional and geographic distribution of scientific production?

RQ3.

Which themes involving the revisit intention are the most popular among scholars?

RQ4.

Which studies are the most cited in terms of revisit intention?

RQ5.

What areas involving the revisit intention need additional studies?

The paper is structured into several sections. It begins with a literature review followed by a description of the research methodology. Subsequently, the results and discussions derived from the bibliometric analysis of articles published in WOS between 1993 and 2022 are presented. The final part of the paper comprises conclusions and implications from both theoretical and practical perspectives, as well as an exploration of limitations and suggestions for future research directions.

Theoretical background

Critical Theory

“Critical Theory” (capitalized) refers to the theories and research pioneered by the Frankfurt School, a group of intellectuals and social scientists based at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 1923 to 1953. Led by Max Horkheimer, this renowned institute included prominent thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm, Jürgen Habermas, Leo Löwenthal, Herbert Marcuse, Franz Neumann and Friedrich Pollock. Initially rooted in Marxism, the Frankfurt School’s focus shifted from economic determinism to cultural critique, highlighting industrial capitalism’s role in shaping mass consumption patterns and cultural development. This evolution challenged traditional Marxist perspectives, emphasizing the cultural dimensions of capitalist societies. Critical approaches to tourism, both in academic knowledge production and in understanding tourism’s impacts beyond academia, have a longstanding history, but recent years have seen increased attention and debate around the meanings and implications of “the critical” within tourism studies, particularly propelled by a critique of positivist research methods and a critical turn (Mura and Wijesinghe, 2023), a strong connection between criticality and sustainability, dominance of Western universities in advancing critical scholarship and a need for clearer explanations on achieving participatory and emancipatory outcomes. The review suggests that critical tourism research should continue to challenge and redefine “critical,” explore alternative sustainability theories like regenerative tourism, incorporate postcolonial and decolonial perspectives and provide more explicit strategies for achieving emancipation and participation.

Notwithstanding, participants of critical theories have pushed the Frankfurt School’s theoretical bounds by promoting feminist, postcolonial and indigenous worldviews. Denzin et al. (2008), for example, have advocated for a critical indigenous pedagogy (CIP) capable of initiating and sustaining a dialogue among indigenous peoples and critical academics. Additionally, CIP affirms the political, value-laden and moral character of inquiry, aims for social justice, seeks acknowledgement, empowerment and liberation of non-Western perspectives and knowledge, and holds indigenous people responsible (Denzin et al., 2008). In many cases, the critical views of the Frankfurt School spawned forms of political engagement. Angela Davis (1994), a black feminist scholar and Herbert Marcuse pupil, undoubtedly exemplifies political involvement inside and outside The Frankfurt School, known for its critical research methods, has faced criticism for overlooking issues like racism, anti-imperialist resistance and oppositional practices, as noted by Said (1993). This critique highlights the school’s Eurocentric biases and its failure to challenge dominant paradigms that reinforce male norms and marginalize alternative knowledge. Despite these shortcomings, critical theorists have expanded the school’s scope by integrating feminist, postcolonial and indigenous perspectives. Denzin et al. (2008) advocate for Critical Indigenous Pedagogy (CIP) to foster dialogue and empower non-Western perspectives. Political engagement stemming from critical perspectives is exemplified by figures like Angela Davis (1994), a black feminist scholar and pupil of Herbert Marcuse associated with the Frankfurt School.

The critical in tourism

Social scientists since the 1980s have applied Critical Theory to examine hospitality and tourism within modern capitalist societies. Britton (1991) draws from the Frankfurt School’s concept of the ‘cultural industry' (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1947/2002) to highlight the capitalistic nature of tourism. He argues that tourism, amid massification and commoditization of leisure, perpetuates existing power structures and ideologies by manufacturing tourist experiences that depict dominant realities and shape consumer behavior. Higgins-Desbiolles and Powys Whyte (2014) emphasize that critical perspectives on tourism’s development and impacts, initially emerging from non-academic circles like NGOs since the 1970s, have often been overlooked by mainstream tourism scholarship.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Critical Theory was applied to examine hospitality and tourism within capitalist systems, although these discussions often did not engage deeply with the epistemological and ontological assumptions of tourism theory (Aitchison, 2001; Botterill, 2003; Franklin and Crang, 2001; Hollinshead, 1999; Phillimore and Goodson, 2004). By the early 2000s, especially following the Critical Tourism Studies Conference, a significant shift occurred towards scrutinizing the generation, understanding and portrayal of tourism as both a socioeconomic phenomenon and a subject of research. Ateljevic et al. (2007) characterized critical tourism as a method of inquiry that embodies pro-social justice, equality and anti-oppression, representing an academy of hope. This critical perspective, influenced by the Frankfurt School’s ideas, has evolved to embrace broader critical viewpoints, fostering a values-led humanitarian approach termed Hopeful Tourism in the 2010s (Pritchard et al., 2011)

Pritchard et al. (2011) emphasize the importance of investigative methods that recognize power structures, value diverse viewpoints and encourage reflective, participant-driven techniques in the context of hopeful tourism. However, critiques of the critical turn and hopeful tourism highlight issues such as Eurocentric biases among critical tourism scholars (Bianchi, 2009; Chambers and Buzinde, 2015; Higgins-Desbiolles and Powys Whyte, 2014) and insufficient reflexivity regarding researchers' dominant status in academia (Bianchi, 2009). There are concerns that the emphasis on discursive and cultural aspects in tourism studies overlooks the interconnected cultural and economic dimensions shaped by globalization and neoliberal capitalism (Bianchi, 2009). Additionally, challenges remain in operationalizing hope, promoting value-led inquiry, teaching hopeful tourism and addressing researchers' role in transforming adverse conditions faced by communities affected by tourism (Higgins-Desbiolles and Powys Whyte, 2014). Morgan et al. (2018) and Causevic et al. (2018) call for post-disciplinary approaches, greater engagement with business perspectives and a more unified critical tourism studies community. Despite these obstacles, the role of critical tourism studies remains crucial in challenging prevailing ideologies and power structures within academia (Morgan et al., 2018; Causevic et al., 2018).

The modern studies on revisit intention shed light on vital aspects of customer engagement, customer experience and destination revisit intentions in the tourism industry. Rather et al. (2022) delve deeper into the interrelatedness among customer engagement, customer experience and destination revisit intent in the tourism context. Especially, the research provides evidence on the differential impact of first-time and repeat customers on the effect of customer engagement and customer experiences on value co-creation and revisit intent purposes. The results of the study indicate various logical and age-related dimensions of customer engagement even as they relate to customer experience and how they impact revisit intentions. This research is critical to understanding the generational decision-making processes that allow tourists to revisit destinations. Expanding on the discussion along these lines, Rather and Hollebeek (2021) further the research on influence from customer engagement to customer experience and behavior intention in the tourism context, incorporating a nuanced look at how age acts as a moderate. Their study shows the evolution in age in terms of how different dimensions of customer engage customer experience in the same respect, reasoning for further understanding in the tourism research.

Rasoolimanesh et al. (2022) further contribute to the gap by investigating how memorable tourism experiences that are particularly obtained in heritage tourism could impact behavioral intentions of satisfaction, revisit and word-of-mouth intentions amongst others in tourists. Their finding indicates that dimensions, including local culture, involvement and tourist knowledge, significantly impact satisfaction, revisit and word-of-mouth intentions for memorable experiences. This demonstrates how memorable tourism experiences involve several dimensions and influence tourists’ behaviors, thus needing a complete analysis approach. Rather (2021a, b) examines the effect of perceived risk, fear of COVID-19, and social media on tourist attitude, engagement and revisit that are induced by the pandemic while visiting a destination. This study reveals that fear and perceived risk have a negative impact on travel attitude and brand engagement, whereas social media have a positive effect. The study also indicates the importance of positive tourist attitude for brand code creation and destination revisits during pandemics for recovery purposes. Ghali et al. (2024) further set new knowledge by exploring metaverses-based destination marketing and develop a theoretical model of its key predictors of revisit intentions among metaverse Generation Z users. The study reveals how time spent, social presence, attachment and engagement in metaverse could impact real visits to a destination, thus providing a basis for destination marketers to plan effective metaverse uses. Rather et al. investigate the linkage between brand co-creation, customer brand engagement and destination revisit while a pandemic such COVID-19 is prevailing. The study reveals that less-involved consumers show a better brand co-creation, engagement and revisit; hence, there is a differentiated pathway of customer involvement during a destination visit. Lastly, Cifci et al. (2023) also empirically explore the relationship between destination attachment and revisiting intentions via ideal and actual self-congruity based on gender and other preferred segmentations among the Çanakkale dark destination in Turkey’s tourists. The study indicates that there are gender-based differences on destination attachment and self-congruity dimensions influence on revisit intentions, implying that different genders have different interests as such destination marketers should use gender-specific marketing strategies.

Key pair interactions revolve around the underlying dynamics of customer engagement and its role in determining customer experiences and, ultimately, immediate or repeat visitation intentions, with varying implications across people of different ages. Memorable tourism experiences, especially those rich in local culture and knowledge, have a substantial impact on tourist satisfaction and behavioral intention. In addition, a focus on notable external factors such as perceived risk, fear of the COVID-19 pandemic and the significant role played by social media helps inform the study of tourist attitudes and brand engagement in times of crisis. The evidence on destination attachment and self-congruity, such as gender-sensitive analyses, indicates the necessity of developing customized destination-marketing methods. These are some of the performance factors in prioritizing both the tourist experience and the initiatives to ensure that the destination experience is achieved through tourism.

Methods and materials

Data analysis

Web of Science (WoS) has primarily been shown in studies to be the optimal central database for bibliometric analyses, although data sources such as ProQuest, Google Scholar and Scopus can also be used as search pools (Abbas et al., 2022a; Alsharif et al., 2021; Rodríguez-lópez et al., 2020; Sahi et al., 2022, 2021). WoS can reliably search the entire citation network within a research field because it has been thoroughly covered for more than 100 years and contains more than one billion citation links (Abbas et al., 2022b; Kim et al., 2022; Murgado-Armenteros et al., 2015). According to Lacka et al. (2020), this database is widely used in the fields of marketing, hospitality and tourism (Fu et al., 2019; Rodríguez-lópez et al., 2020). WoS was therefore considered a reliable source of information for this research.

The search term revisit* intention* was used to find studies on revisit intention. By September 2022, the database had initially yielded 842 articles, conference papers, book reviews and book chapters (retrieved September 10, 2022). On the advice of Kim et al. (2022), we eventually reduced the number of articles to 482 using the WoS categories Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism. According to Hall (2011), academic articles published in journals are an important component of knowledge in the hospitality and tourism fields. Journals are also important venues for producing, sharing and evaluating different types of knowledge.

The following analyses are performed based on the objective of this study. In this study, many variables can be analyzed, including annual scientific output, information on publication sources, most contributing authors, distribution of research institutions, scientific regional production and most cited publications. Based on the results of these analyses, we can determine the current development status and trends based on journals, articles, institutions, countries and keywords related to hospitality, leisure, sports and tourism in revisit intention.

The primary tool for studying scientific documents is software; it can also be used to develop research questions, examine visual data and disseminate information (Pan et al., 2018). Several programs, such as VOSviewer, can be used to analyze data for bibliometric analysis (Mehmood et al., 2022a), CiteSpace (Torres-pruñonosa et al., 2021), SciMAT (Cobo et al., 2012), CitNetExplorer (Van Eck and Waltman, 2014), BibExcel (Persson et al., 2009), Sci2Tool (Light et al., 2014) and R program (Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017). In this study, we used R scientific mapping software to display the map to find the scientific map. To find the bibliometric analysis by references, we used the package “Bibliometric” (http://www.bibliometrix.org accessed on September 14, 2022). The bibliometric analysis in this study is performed with the well-known R tool and includes the characteristics of the publications (Firdaus et al., 2019; Linnenluecke et al., 2019). In addition, multidimensional scaling analysis and correspondence analysis are used to evaluate the study results (Pahrudin et al., 2022; Preghenella and Battistella, 2021). Figure 1 illustrates the detailed data analysis process, providing a comprehensive explanation of the methodology used in this study.

Result and discussion

Trend publication and main information

The descriptive data explain the sample of scientific data of the study. Table 1 presents the critical information of the publications on the intention to revisit in the field of Hospitality, Leisure, Sports and Tourism after searching the main topic of the study. A total of 482 scientific documents, including articles, conference papers and article reviews, were used for this research. From Table 1, we can see that the topics of this study cover the years 1993–2022. Moreover, the number of publications in this scientific field has increased dramatically from the beginning of 1993 to 2022. From Figure 2, we can infer that the year 2022 will have the most articles on tourism sustainability with 99 publications.

Furthermore, in this study, a total of 1,030 authors have published on revisit intention, including articles, article reviews, conference papers and editorial materials. In the next section, the results in this study explain the mapping of the research topic characteristics to cover the preliminary information in this area of the study.

Publication sources information and most-contributing authors

The application of Bradford’s law is in Figure 3. The distribution of publications in this area across journals is explained by Bradford’s law, and the vast majority of articles in this area are channeled based on core journals (Barrios et al., 2008). The results suggest that many journals are published with minimal documents (Tunger and Eulerich, 2018). Bradford’s Law, shown in Figure 3, explains that the most important journals for revisit intentions are the core journals published, such as the International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Travel Tourism Marketing and Journal of Destination Marketing Management. In addition, Figure 4 presents an analysis based on the focus of the study. Specifically, it illustrates Lotka’s Law, which examines the frequency with which authors contribute to journals (López-Fernández et al., 2015). From Figure 4, we can draw conclusions about the results of the study. It shows that many authors were involved in the study, namely 830 authors, representing 80.6% of the total number of authors.

Figure 5 shows the contributions of the 10 authors to the articles based on the research topic of revisit intention. The findings present that Han, H. is the most popular production between 2007 and 2021. Hwang, J. is the second most popular products in the research topic of the study between 2013 and 2019. The third most popular author is AHN, J from 2018 to 2022. The fourth most popular is Lee, S. and the fifth most popular is Hyun, SS.

The results of the graph, based on publications from several countries (MCP), show some nations that have produced the most scientific documents related to revisiting intention, including China, the United States of America (USA) and Korea. Figure 6 also shows the country of origin of the corresponding author. China, the USA and Korea were the only countries of production (SCP) in this study. These countries had the most significant impact on the study’s intention to revisit.

The institutional and geographic scientific production

The distribution of scientific publications by organizations or affiliations can be seen in Figure 7. The results show that the top 10 universities in the field of study for publications. The first placed is a South Korean university, which has the leading institution in publishing scientific documents on Hospitality Leisure Sport Tourism, namely Sejong University, with 49 document articles. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University from Hong Kong is the second most represented affiliation in publishing scientific documents, with 39 articles. In addition, universities such as Taylor’s University in Malaysia published 36 articles. Kyung Hee University in South Korea published 29. Moreover, Sun Yat-sen University in China with 26 publications and Florida State University in the US had 23 publications. The last four universities Universiti Sains Malaysia, Purdue University in the US, Universiti Teknologi MARA in Malaysia with 22, 21, 20, respectively; the last university in Turkey named Akdeniz University with 17 publications.

In addition, Figure 8 shows the global distribution of revisit intention in tourism-related literature. The global distribution of research on revisit intention in the tourism industry is widespread. According to the number of published papers, the color trends have shown the countries. Figure 8 shows that the ten nations that have contributed the most scientific documents are represented in the documents. The United States is the most producing nation with 312 documents. South Korea is second with 207 documents, while China follows with 305 documents. Malaysia is fourth with 125 documents. Turkey is second with 75 documents, followed by India with 71, the United Kingdom with 68 and Australia with 64. In addition, Iran published 30 scientific documents and Spain 38 documents.

Thematic issues and trend topics

This section defines the keywords the authors chose to study travelers’ revisit intention. For the analysis of the keywords, the authors provide a statistical analysis (Du et al., 2013). Also, this section offers some views of the authors on the clusters based on the treemap. The treemap that the authors used for this research can be seen in Figure 9. This shows that the authors used keywords to indicate the number of words in the abstracts of the paper. The words with greater significance in size indicates how frequently the authors used certain words in the abstract. According to Figure 9, satisfaction is the term used most frequently in this study (215 times or 10% of all terms). This means that the authors used this term most frequently for revisit intention in tourism.

In addition, the word loyalty was used 120 times (5%) or more in the journals. The word model, which appears third in the treemap, has a 97 (4%) frequency. Figure 9 shows the overall results of the word cloud and describes the words that authors used in their papers based on the treemap.

This section presents some of the trend topics related to revisiting intention in tourism. The trend topics from 2009 to 2021 regarding revisit intentions are explained in Figure 10. Each year, the themes are different. Between 2017 and 2021, the authors used the trending topics the most (215 times), including words such as satisfaction. The second trending topic, loyalty, was mentioned by authors 120 times between 2017 and 2020. In addition, the term model was used 97 times to describe the research topic of revisiting intention in tourism. However, some of the trending topics discussed by the authors for 2021 are authenticity, food, self, risk and identity. In 2022, the term Chinese is the new term that shows the most recent papers on revisit intention in tourism are in the context of China.

The results of the co-occurrence of keywords are shown in Figure 11. The node and word sizes serve as indicators of the importance of the keywords. The results show that the terms occur in four clusters with at least 50 occurrences. The most prominent node in cluster one, also known as the purple cluster, is the word satisfaction, found in nearly half of the publications in our database. The second most prominent term in the purple cluster is distention image.

In addition, the purple cluster contains expressions such as revisit intention, motivation, word-of-mouth and place attachment. Green is seen in the second cluster. The word loyalty is the most substantial term in this cluster. The terms in the green cluster are also represented by words such as quality, behavioral intention, image and customer satisfaction. Blue is seen in the third cluster. The word model is the most vital word in this cluster. The typical words in the blue cluster also include antecedents, consequences, consumption and emotions. The red cluster is the last cluster in this section. Consequences is the most crucial word in this cluster. Other words such as tourist, perceptions, experience, behaviour and performance are also found in this cluster.

The thematic evolution of the subjects of the contributions from 1993 to 2022 is shown in Figure 12. From the figure, we can deduce three distinct periods in the thematic evolution of articles. The thematic development is covered in the first period from 1993 to 2018 by impact, satisfaction, model, behavioral intentions, perspective, word-of-mouth and experiences. From 2019 to 2020, the second thematic evolution phase, the thematic evolution will be covered by topics such as satisfaction, loyalty, model, moderating role, authenticity, perception, physical-environment and emotions. Thematic evolution was last seen in 2021 and is described in the following terms satisfaction, impact, revisit intention, experiences and destination image.

In addition, the authors of this paper use multidimensional scaling analysis. According to the source (Xie et al., 2020), multidimensional scaling analysis is an exploratory method for condensing search variables from the multidimensional space into the two-dimensional space for object search, analysis and classification. The diagram shows the distribution of terms as a series of points. The placement of each term shows how similar the keywords are to each other. The similarity of the keywords affects how the objects are grouped. The more central the term is and the closer the keywords are to the cluster’s center, the more urgent it is (Mori et al., 2016).

Figure 13 shows the multidimensional scaling analysis with the multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) applied in this study to analyze the conceptual structure map. Therefore, in this study, the authors discovered two clusters in their investigation. The red cluster highlights the focus of the study by showing that the word tourism is the main word of the cluster. The study also highlights additional elements, such as image, COVID-19 and loyalty. The red cluster result emphasizes the importance of the image in building the tourism sector toward revisit intention.

The blue cluster is also the second cluster. The word “behavior” in the revisit intention is the key word in the blue cluster. The tourism industry needs to understand visitor behaviour to develop revisit intent, including the nature reserves and protected sites described in this cluster. Consequently, the blue cluster also emphasizes that the festival is the reason for tourists in this cluster to come back.

Most-cited studies

This section examined the citation patterns of the sample literature. A common method for evaluating the significance of a literary work is citation analysis. Based on the number of citations a particular publication has received from other published research, citation analysis determines the popularity of a specific publication within the existing literature. Of the 482 documents, 134 studies had more than 10 citations, and 39 research had more than 50 citations, as shown in the initial citation analysis. Table 2 shows that the most cited studies in the sample literature had more than 150 international citations, including those by Lee et al. (2010), Huang and Hsu (2009), which were cited by most researchers in this field. The general thematic trend in this research area is evident from the citation analysis.

From the analysis of these articles, we conclude that the thematic evaluation that has emerged in the field of revisit intention research is limited and focused on cognitive image, affective image, the emotional image of experience, perceived attractiveness and trust as antecedents of revisit intention in tourism sector (Um et al., 2006; Yin et al., 2014). The lack of research on factors influencing revisit intention is identified as a significant gap in this context.

Discussion and future research

The study attempts to analyze the revisit intention in hospitality and tourism using bibliometric analysis. It attempts to address the research questions posed in this study. It identifies a network analysis of keywords, a map of collaboration between authors and documents around the world, the most prolific authors and institutions, the most specialized journals in the field of tourism and hospitality, the trend of the topic from previous publications, and much more. Given these results, it is crucial to identify research gaps and trends to set a future research agenda.

The data provided offer a comprehensive overview of the scientific literature analyzed in this study. The dataset draws from 482 distinct scientific documents, spanning articles, conference papers and article reviews. Notably, the study encompasses literature published from 1993 to 2022, revealing a substantial growth in scholarly output over this period. Bradford’s Law emphasizes the concentration of publications in core journals like the International Journal of Hospitality Management. Moreover, Lotka’s law analysis reveals active engagement from 830 authors, including prominent contributors like Han, H. and Hwang, J. Countries such as China, the United States and South Korea lead in scientific output on this topic. Institutions like Sejong University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University prominently contribute in the field. These results underscore the interdisciplinary and global nature of research on revisit intentions in tourism, highlighting pivotal journals, influential authors and key contributors worldwide.

In this part, which corresponds to the second research topic, critical thematic analyses from the past to the present are cited. Figure 12 shows the three different periods from 1993 to 2022 of the critical theme development of revisit intention in truism. The authors examined several keywords related to thematic development in the first period from 1993 to 2018, such as impact, satisfaction, model, behavioral intentions, perspective, word-of-mouth and experiences. In the second period from 2019 to 2020, several thematic evolutions appeared, such as in the themes of satisfaction, loyalty, model, moderating role, authenticity, perception, physical-environment and emotions. The last thematic evolution in 2022 is covered by thematic developments such as satisfaction, impact, revisit intention, experiences and destination image.

According to themes, most of the papers focused on two main aspects, the first is satisfaction, which refers to the general feelings (Cole and Scott, 2004) and level of overall pleasure (Quintal and Polczynski, 2012) that a person experiences after visiting a tourist site. Tourist satisfaction can be determined by the emotional response that results from cognitive reactions to a service experience (Cong, 2016), or by comparing pre-and post-trip experiences (Chen and Chen, 2010). In other words, visitors are satisfied when comparing their prior expectations and post-trip experiences results in good feelings, while they are dissatisfied when the outcome results in unpleasant feelings (Chen and Chen, 2010; Cong, 2016; Viet et al., 2020). Several previous empirical studies have shown that tourists’ experiences with a destination and their satisfaction with it play an essential role in deciding whether they want to come back (Choo and Petrick, 2014; Ranjbarian and Pool, 2015; Seetanah and Nunkoo, 2020; Um et al., 2006). Moreover, the results of previous studies show that destination attractiveness impacts tourists’ satisfaction (Cong, 2016; Kanwel et al., 2019; Viet et al., 2020), and tourist revisits (Akgün et al., 2021; Viet et al., 2020).

Numerous factors contributing to destination satisfaction have been the subject of previous research, including shuttle services (Loi et al., 2017), perceived attractiveness (Um et al., 2006), perceived equity (Kim et al., 2017), perceived risk (Chen et al., 2016), memorable experiences (Zhang et al., 2017), public transportation (Thompson and Schofield, 2007), airport services (Seetanah and Nunkoo, 2020), distention image during covid-19 (Ramli et al., 2020), destination innovation affects tourist revisit (Hollebeek and Rather, 2019; Lyu et al., 2023; Martínez-Román et al., 2015).

Intention Studies that focused on customer satisfaction with transportation options at a destination are particularly relevant to this study. They did not produce conclusive results. Moreover, it cannot be denied that choosing a destination is a difficult, dangerous and ambiguous process (Soliman, 2021). Therefore, travellers must find practical means to reduce the perceived risks associated with their travel decisions (Hsieh et al., 2016; Lepp and Gibson, 2003). Numerous studies have shown that higher satisfaction levels lead to stronger intentions to return to a place in the future (Abbasi et al., 2020). Thus, perceived risk can play a crucial; role in determining to revisit intention during and after COVID-19. To detect predefined service attributes and their sentiments from online restaurant reviews, Zhao and Liu (2023) utilized a supervised framework to model customer satisfaction and revisit intention simultaneously, revealing that food significantly influences both customer satisfaction and revisit intention, while identifying the most impactful attribute within each service theme, thus providing insights into customer perceptions and behavioral intentions in service consumption from real-world data. Also, emotional and social values have an effect on satisfaction and revisit intentions for domestic versus international tourists, highlighting the significance of functional and emotional values for international tourists and the importance of social value for enhancing satisfaction and revisit intentions among domestic tourists (Rasoolimanesh et al., 2022). Other variables like event image, satisfaction and city image impact tourists' revisit intentions (Li et al., 2021). Flow experience, positive emotion and event satisfaction directly impact revisit intention (Tsai, 2020). Additionally, explore associations between service scenarios, visitor satisfaction and revisit intention, offering insights for marketers and destination managers to enhance visitor satisfaction and encourage return visits through tailored product/service offerings (Vassiliadis et al., 2021).

The second aspect is loyalty, in order to build customer loyalty, it is generally accepted that customer satisfaction is important to retain customers. Um et al. (2006) assert that the desire to return is considered an extension of satisfaction. When visitors experience a destination positively, they are more likely to be satisfied with it and desire to return. Other elements such as destination characteristics, perceived service quality and perceived value positively and directly affect tourist loyalty (Mai et al., 2019).

Some of the literature reviewed, including the studies by Rather et al. (2022), Rather and Hollebeek (2021), Rasoolimanesh et al. (2022), Rather (2021a, b), Rather et al. (2023) and Cifci et al. (2023) offer useful insights into customer engagement, experience and destination revisit intentions, offering clear manifestations of service marketing theory. The studies highlight the role customer engagement and positive experience have on the formulation of repeat destination visits, which is in line with service marketing theory, which asserts that consumer interactions are critical in building loyalty. They also explore age differences in engagement, the influence of experience and memories on behavioral intentions, as well as the effect of external factors such as risk perceptions and crisis on tourist traits, which indicates service marketing theories such as consumer demographics, service quality and crisis management plans. Additionally, examining the impact of brand engagement and co-creation even in the face of exceptional circumstances such as COVID-19 pandemic and other challenging times reaffirms the service marketing notion that flexibility is a critical aspect in maintaining customer relationships and revisit intention. For example, the technological advancements in services and products influence the behavioral intentions of tourists and their satisfaction, affecting their revisit propensities (Al-Sulaiti, 2022). Moreover, Lyu et al. (2023) develop an integrated model linking destination innovation type, innovativeness and revisit intention, drawing from Schumpeter’s theory of innovation and the stereotype content model, the finding input innovation and product innovation positively influence revisit intention through the mediation of destination innovativeness and perceived competence, with implications for guiding destinations in delivering effective consumer-centric innovations to enhance competitiveness. Destination innovativeness enhances visitors' perceptions of a destination’s warmth and competence, with warmth reflecting affective and social traits and competence reflecting functional and intellectual traits, influencing visitors' decisions on revisit intention through destination image (Shen et al., 2019).

Figure 10 explains the trend themes from 2008 to 2021 regarding revisiting intent as a truism for a future study plan concerning the third research question. Based on the keyword analysis results, the authors selected different themes each year. The phrase satisfaction was used most frequently by the authors between 2017 and 2021, among other trending topics they referenced. From 2017 to 2020, the authors discussed loyalty, the second most popular trending topic. In addition, some of the trending topics for 2021 mentioned by the authors include authenticity, food, self, risk and identity. In 2022, the term Chinese is the new term that shows the most recent papers on revisiting intention in tourism are in the context of China. These trend topics in the future of research in revisit intention may still appear.

In addition, the study considered only two crucial aspects of destination image critical to understanding repeat tourists’ travel habits. Future studies should consider overall and/or destination image, which is rarely examined when considering travel behaviour. This assertion is consistent with the claims of scholars (Beerli and Martin, 2004; Fuchs and Reichel, 2011; Yin et al., 2014) who assert that repeat tourists are more likely to form an overall image of a destination based on previous travel experiences and familiarity. Future work is needed to consider all three of affective components: pleasure, arousal and dominance (Gon et al., 2009). According to studies by Gössling et al. (2020), Yu et al. (2020), the tourism industry is one of the most vulnerable industries to crises, disasters and pandemics. The COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak stunned humanity and caused unprecedented socioeconomic impacts and health security issues everywhere (Bae and Chang, 2020). Moreover, nutritional knowledge, perceived medical quality and trust in physiologists impact the revisit intention of medical tourists and these factors significantly influence the likelihood of returning for medical care (Fengmin et al., 2022). Future studies could address other factors that influence visitors’ intention to return during and after COVID -19, such as satisfaction, perceived value, service recovery, brand image and emotions (Abou-shouk and Soliman, 2021; Rather, 2017, 2021a, b; Rather and Hollebeek, 2019; Shams et al., 2020).

Theoretical implications

From an academic perspective, conducting a bibliometric analysis contributes valuable insights into key inquiries that researchers exploring revisit intention should consider. This research offers researchers the advantage of recognizing and comprehending emerging trends within this field, including the thematic analysis used and prominent publications that focus on these topics. It enhances understanding of the subject’s importance and can inform the development of future tourism offerings. Notably, this study represents the first attempt to address this knowledge gap using bibliometric methods, which highlight essential tools, journals and conceptual themes like satisfaction, loyalty, model, moderating role, authenticity, perception, physical-environment and emotions, experiences and destination image that will likely shape future research in this area. Consequently, both tourism researchers and industry professionals should view these findings as a foundational resource for advancing studies in wellness tourism.

The theoretical implications derived from the study on revisit intentions in hospitality and tourism are substantial and multifaceted. By integrating established service marketing principles, the research emphasizes the pivotal role of customer engagement, positive experiences and satisfaction in driving revisit intentions, contributing to a deeper theoretical understanding within the field. The contribution of theoretical understanding of customer behavior and satisfaction in service consumption and tourism highlight the role of event image, city image and visitor experience in shaping revisit intentions, offering valuable theoretical insights into the holistic nature of customer satisfaction in tourism contexts. Among the key takeaways is the systematic analysis of thematic evolution, which emphasizes the overall development of the current research and reflects critical directions of rapid change, including satisfaction and loyalty, perceptions and experiences. The implications of crisis management, especially concerning external attacks reflected in the COVID-19 situation, provide valuable theoretical recommendations regarding the way crises change tourist behavior and decision-making. Finally, the interdisciplinary and global nature of the reviewed literature and the collaborativeness between authors and institutions across the world suggest that a unified theory with different perspectives and considerations of the context is genuinely holistic.

Practical contributions

There are many practical implications of this study to the various stakeholders in the hospitality and tourism industry. First, the analysis is robust and the information produced can be of use to fellow researchers regarding the trends, the research gaps and the emerging thematic areas in the context of the revisit intention discipline in the field of tourism. Scholars can use this information to guide a research agenda for the future to conduct more investigations into some areas hence contribution to knowledge. Secondly, practitioners in the field of industry, such as tourism operators and destination marketers, would also benefit from this study. It causes them to gain an in-depth understanding of the factors that influence the revisit intentions of their tourists. As a result, stakeholders will be able to adjust their strategies to ensure that the visitor receives proper care and can encourage the recurrence of such visits. Furthermore, consumers’ future intentions and behaviors are also important in the understanding of such aspects as the revisit intention and the WOM. The findings can support Destination Management Organizations and the businesses to be agile while responding to this need of improving the memorability of sales from the visitors’ recurrences (Ebrahimi et al., 2020; Rather, 2021a, b). Finally, the findings reveal that the local culture image has an impact on the revisit intentions. Additionally, it indicates the effect of the external influences such as the perceived risk and the COVID-19 pandemic on the intentions of the tourists to revisit. Therefore, the marketers and the managers in the tourism industry need to apply diversified forms of marketing strategies, which address the impact of COVID-19 fears on attitude and behavior since the pandemic (Bae and Chang, 2020). For instance, the managers should advocate for service innovations to promote potential tourists’ interest in tourism during such challenging periods. The findings present a critical lesson for industry professionals to learn to make strategic decisions in response to unanticipated events. Overall, the study is critical to future understanding metaverse-driven consumer behavior.

Conclusions and limitations

Through a bibliometric and content analysis of the relevant works published in revisit intention in hospitality and tourism, this study aims to analyze the existing body of research by presenting scientific information based on publication trends, gaps and research opportunities. According to the results of the bibliometric analysis, this study has discovered the importance of various factors in revisiting intention, including destination management and marketing (destination image, word of mouth, satisfaction and behaviour).

Our results shed light on research streams on revisit intention and reveal interrelated patterns of academic semantic similarity that enable scholars to gain a theoretical and a practical understanding of this topic. The results clarify the conceptual framework of the 23-year literature on revisit intention. Specifically, the three time periods of 1998–2018, 2019–2020 and 2021–2022 show how research on revisit intention has changed from emphasizing the theoretical framework and conceptualization to creating antecedents for revisit intention (e.g. satisfaction, perceived risk and loyalty). More importantly, our results show the emergence of new fields of inquiry regarding revisit intention that could be further examined to extend revisit intention research. It should be emphasized that there are some COVID -19 antecedents in this work (Gössling et al., 2020; Rather, 2021a, b). Although a revived tourism business may take a different shape or form after COVID-19, it is still essential to address this issue in the revisit intention in the future.

In this study, the conceptual evolution of revisit intention is divided into different periods. In the first period, from 1993 to 2018, based on keyword analysis, the study covered several topics focused on research, including satisfaction, impact, behavioral intention, word–of-mouth, model and experience. Topics such as satisfaction, loyalty, authenticity, perception, the physical environment and emotions were explored in the second thematic period from 2019 to 2020. Topics such as satisfaction, model, revisit intention, tourism, impact, behaviour, destination image and experiences were included in the final thematic period in 2022.

In addition, the trend topics are divided into time periods and the authors cover them from 2009 to 2021. The authors used the word satisfaction and other trending topics most frequently in the tourism and hospitality industry between 2017 and 2021. Loyalty is the second most common trending topic from 2017 to 2020, and the research topic of revisiting intention in tourism was also labeled as a model. In addition, the authors discuss authenticity, food, self, risk and identity as some of the trending topics for 2021.

This study has several limitations. Despite the contributions of the study, there are several limitations. First, only publications from the WOS database were selected for this study. Using different database sources always increases the coverage of the primary data of the study, and in our opinion, the Scopus database has a large collection of documents that can serve as an accurate representation when the study is revisited. Therefore, other databases such as the Scopus database could be used in future studies to increase the coverage of the study. Second, future research will need to consider other languages to expand the study’s conclusions, as the data in this study are limited to peer-reviewed English articles on the WOS. The title keyword revisit intention is used in the context of data collection to focus on hospitality and tourism research. Third, the authors recommend that other researchers use different research approaches (such as content analysis) to better understand the context of revisit intention in tourism. Last but not the least, future research could include systematic evaluations to examine how relevant work was planned and conducted, as it is important to provide an evolutionary overview of the methodological procedures and analytic methods used in revisit intention studies.

Figures

Figure 1

Data analysis process

Figure 2

Annual scientific publication

Figure 3

Bradford’s law

Figure 4

Frequency distribution by Lotka’s law

Figure 5

The authors’ productions over time (2008–2022)

Figure 6

The corresponding author’s country

Figure 7

The most relevant affiliations

Figure 8

Scientific production by country

Figure 9

Treemap analysis

Figure 10

Trend topics

Figure 11

Co-word network analysis

Figure 12

Thematic evolution

Figure 13

Multidimensional scaling analysis

Table 1

Main information of the data

Description	Results
Main information about data
Timespan	1993:2022
Sources (journals, books, etc.)	66
Documents	482
Average years from publication	3.82
Average citations per documents	29.9
Average citations per year per doc	5.536
References	21,601
Document types
Article	399
Article; book chapter	3
Article; early access	46
Correction; early access	1
Letter	1
Proceedings paper	22
Review	9
Review; early access	1
Document contents
Keywords plus (ID)	997
Author’s keywords (DE)	1,567
Authors
Authors	1,030
Author appearances	1,395
Authors of single-authored documents	30
Authors of multi-authored documents	1,000
Authors collaboration
Single-authored documents	33
Documents per Author	0.468
Authors per document	2.14
Co-authors per documents	2.89
Collaboration index	2.23

Source(s): Authors’ computations

Table 2

The most impactful articles based on the number of citations

Author/s name	Cited by	TC per year	Normalized TC	Summary of findings	Source title
Lee et al. (2010)	453	34.8462	2.1368	The results show that cognitive image elements, including value and quality can positively influence a green hotel’s effectiveness and overall image. The overall image of a green hotel is also positively influenced by the affective image. The overall perception of a green hotel may in turn, influence more positive behavioral intentions. Quality attributes were found to be stronger than value attributes	Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Huang and Hsu (2009)	376	26.8571	1.5947	The results show that one of the underlying factors for travel motivation, shopping, had a good influence on Beijing tourists’ desire to return to Hong Kong. Previous experience, as expressed by the number of prior visits and satisfaction, also had a positive influence on revisit intention. The only constraint that had a significant negative effect on revisit intention was disinterest. The overall effect of satisfaction on revisit intention was also significantly mediated by attitude	Journal of Travel Research
Um et al. (2006)	361	21.2353	1	Research findings reveal that perceived attractiveness, rather than overall satisfaction, is the most essential indicator of revisit intention	Annals of Tourism Research
Terry et al. (2009)	337	24.0714	1.4293	Distributive justice’s effect on service recovery satisfaction was more substantial than procedural and interactional justice. Through satisfaction with recovery, which is an important mediating factor, these types significantly impact trust, WOM, and revisit intention. In addition, trust significantly mediates between recovery satisfaction and WOM/revisit intention	Tourism Management
Yin et al. (2014)	337	37.4444	5.6675	The results showed that perceived sociopsychological and financial risks influenced both cognitive and affective destination images. Although it directly affected the intention to return, the perceived physical risk did not significantly affect the revisit intention. In addition, perceived sociopsychological and financial risks and intention to revisit were significantly influenced by destination image	Tourism Management
Shawn and Feng (2007)	306	19.125	1.2697	Results showed that novelty seeking was a significant precondition for medium-term revisit intention related to long-term revisit intention. In contrast, satisfaction was a direct antecedent of short-term revisit intention but not mid-term or long-term revisit intention	Tourism Management
Gon and Ji (2009)	306	21.8571	1.2978	The results emphasize that theme restaurant managers should seek an understanding of customers’ perception process concerning emotion and cognition	International Journal of Hospitality Management
Assaker et al. (2011)	269	22.4167	2.0327	The results show that novelty seeking and low satisfaction dampens travelers’ immediate desire to return. On the other hand, a positive image of the destination increases visitors’ current and future intentions to return	Tourism Management
Gon et al. (2009)	227	16.2143	0.9628	The findings showed that all Institutional DINESERV (i.e. food quality, atmosphere, service quality, convenience, and price and value) dimensions significantly positively affected overall customer satisfaction and revisit intention	International Journal of Hospitality Management
Alcañiz et al. (2009)	219	15.6429	0.9288	The results show that the psychological and functional elements significantly influence the overall image of the place. The overall image was found to have a consistent effect on future behavioral intentions, but the functional component was significant for revisit intentions and the psychological component was significant for recommendation intentions	Tourism Management

Source(s): Authors’ computations