Tourism research progress: comparing tourism literature reviews published in English WOS and Chinese CNKI language journals

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to expand tourism knowledge by analysing literature review articles published in English Web of Science (WOS) and Chinese China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) language journals and reviewing their influence, interconnection and trends. Design/methodology/approach A three-stage method was designed to understand the tourism research progress. Performance analysis identified the publication timeline, high-yielding journals and authors that published tourism literature reviews and frequently cited papers. Science mapping visualisation examined the intrinsic connections between co-authorship and co-institution. Finally, emerging trend analysis explored the topic modelling and evolution through Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and regression. Findings The key statistics and collaborations relationships of tourism literature reviews were traced. LDA identified 45 and 22 topics, which narrowed the barriers in tourism studies. The regression analysis divided these topics into “hot”, “fresh”, “bell-shaped” and “stable” patterns. These modes represent the progress of tourism studies. The topic “new emerging technologies and the internet” is the focus of tourism literature reviews published in both databases. Future research could pay more attention to the topics in the “hot” and “fresh” patterns. The results enrich the progress of tourism literature reviews and provide a direction for future research. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first literature analysis for tourism literature reviews published in WOS versus CNKI journals. The proposed three-stage systematic method is used for the first time for the literature review and can guide future research.