Business tourism: a bibliometric visualization review (1994–2023)

Abstract

Purpose The advent of the postpandemic era has brought renewed attention to the development of business tourism. However, the existing research on business tourism is fragmented, and there are gaps in the current understanding of the subject. This study aims to identify the intellectual structures, current hotspots and research directions in the business tourism field from 1994 to 2023. Design/methodology/approach A bibliometric visual analysis using VOSviewer was conducted to assimilate the available knowledge from 136 business tourism-related articles collected in the WoS Core Collection database between 1994 and 2023. Findings The results indicate that the number of business tourism-related research fluctuates, but the overall trend is gradually increasing. It synthesizes four main research themes, which are tourist behavior, destination marketing, information technology and work-family interferences of business travelers. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to systematically review business tourism publications over the past 29 years. It assists scholars in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of business tourism research and informs future research directions.