国际旅游研究趋势特点与规律:基于1985—2015年Web of Science收录文献的分析

Trends and Patterns in Tourism and Hospitality Research: A 30-year Bibliometric Analysis based on Web of Science

基于综合数据库对旅游研究进展进行文献梳理能够避免单类期刊主题的局限,更加客观全面地反映旅游学科的多学科交叉特征和实际。文章通过主题词筛选,对1985—2015年Web of Science数据库收录的25 591篇旅游研究文献进行了系统的文献计量分析。分析发现:(1)通过多年的发展,旅游已成为国际科学研究的重要领域,一些旅游研究领域的国际学术期刊成为旅游学科知识创新和传播的稳定载体;(2)旅游研究展现了鲜明的多学科交叉特征,研究领域与方法涉及社会科学和自然科学的各个范畴;(3)国际旅游研究呈现出以Wall G、Becken S、Nunkoo R、Rogerson C M和Saarinen J等为中心的作者合作群,以及以香港理工大学、澳大利亚格里菲斯大学、加拿大滑铁卢大学和英国萨里大学为中心的基本格局;(4)可持续旅游、乡村旅游等是过去30年旅游研究的热点主题,气候变化等国际科学热点在旅游研究领域体现充分,中国逐步成为旅游研究的热点区域。

Exploring the features and typical traits of global tourism research can help promote further progress in academic studies in this area. Such exploration can identify key areas of work, as well as under-researched areas, identify patterns and changes in modes of analysis, and contribute to the development of a history of this type of research. By this means, attention can be drawn to the work of key researchers. To date, many academics have classified and analyzed tourism research.Given that tourism activities have various relations with myriad areas—such as society, economy,and environment—multi-dimensional analyses of tourism studies are needed for the sake of better identifying multi-disciplinary perspectives, theories, and methods. Tourism studies therefore may involve not only a review of the typically recognized tourism journals, but also those in areas such as economics, anthropology, and geography. Existing studies of tourism bibliometrics mainly target welldefined tourism-related journals, but neglect tourism-related research results published in non-tourism journals, such as those in environmental science. A literature review based on a comprehensive database on tourism research progress can avoid the limitations tied with the focus of single-category journals, and more objectively and comprehensively reflect the multi-disciplinary characteristics and realities of tourism disciplines.As the source of data, the present study uses the Web of Science Core Collection, which includes databases such as SCI-Expanded, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI, and BKCI. Based on the identified literature,this study selected 'tourism', 'leisure', 'hospitality', and 'recreation' as the search terms for retrieval, connected in the search with'or'. A total of 45,368 articles were retrieved. Documents that apparently were irrelevant to the research topics were deleted. We read the title, abstract, and keywords of the articles in judging the articles’ relevance for the study. Ultimately, 25,591 articles were selected to serve as the basis for this analysis.The present study, thus, reports findings from a bibliometric analysis of these 25,591 tourismrelated studies found in Web of Science for the years 1985–2015. The findings show the following.(1)Over these recent three decades, tourism research has occupied an important position in international scientific research. The number of published tourism studies has substantially increased, with increasing cross-referencing with other areas of academic research.(2) Tourism research demonstrates distinct multidisciplinary characteristics, and research areas and methods cover all areas of the social sciences and natural sciences.(3) There are relatively few prolific authors over the three decades,though quite recently, clusters of collaborative authors have emerged around Wall, Becken, Nunkoo,Rogerson, and Saarinen, in their respective areas of expertise. Specific institutions have emerged as leaders in terms of numbers of publication output;these include Hong Kong Polytechnic University,Griffith University(Australia), University of Waterloo(Canada), and University of Surrey(United Kingdom).(4) Sustainable tourism and rural tourism are topics that have attracted a great deal of attention in tourism research in the examined period. International scientific hot spots, such as climate change, are extensively reflected in the field of tourism research, and China has gradually become a hot spot for tourism research.