Research in tourism education is essential for various reasons, including deepening our understanding of the industry, identifying emerging trends and challenges, developing effective educational programs, and fostering innovation and competitiveness. This article explores the significance of tourism education through a bibliometric analysis of leading authors, institutions, and countries. The study focuses on productivity, citation patterns, and research trends in tourism education over three years (2020-2022). Using a sample of 908 Scopus documents, the study employs quantitative data analysis techniques and identifies patterns using Bibliometric R and Elsevier's SciVal fingerprint tool. The results indicate that China is the most active country in tourism education research, with two universities in Portugal standing out as the top publishing institutions. Additionally, the analysis highlights the areas of ecotourism and higher education as the most closely related topics to tourism education during the period analyzed. In three years (2020-2022), it is clear that tourism education in higher education is a topic of discussion every year.