Quality Management Research in Tourism Literature: A Bibliometric Analysis Approach

Abstract

Quality is an important indicator for the service sector. Currently, increasingly competitive conditions, technological development and changes in customer demands and needs bring importance to the concept of quality in the tourism sector, as in many other sectors. The key role of quality management in enabling sustainable competitive advantage has guided many researchers in the field of tourism science to focus on this issue. Nevertheless, there are limited bibliometric and systematic assessments, even though they are becoming increasingly popular in the tourism industry. To contribute to further research collaboration and expand knowledge in this subject area, a bibliometric study was conducted. This research examines quality management in the tourism literature, the growth trajectory and geographical distribution of studies, the distribution of publications according to WOS indexes, the most productive authors and countries, the authors and documents that have had the greatest impact, the intellectual structure of quality management, global academic collaboration, and the main themes of publications. This study aims to identify the key issues and gaps in the literature related to quality management in the context of tourism. For this purpose, the Web of Science (WoS) database was scanned. This paper conducts a bibliometric literature evaluation of 993 articles published between 2004 and 2023. Performance analysis and science mapping techniques were used in this study. Visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software was used to create bibliometric maps. It is concluded that the concepts of service quality and quality of life (QoL) have become prominent in tourism. It is also determined that words related to sustainability and the environment have been used in recent years. According to the results of the study, 2021, 2022 and 2020 are the most productive years. China, the USA, and Spain are the countries that have contributed the most to the development of the literature. The United Kingdom has worked in cooperation with twenty-nine countries, China’s link strength is greater, as it has cooperated with twenty-seven countries. Conversely, the university that has made the greatest collaborative contributions to science is Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Thus, it is anticipated that this research will further scientific contributions to the examination of quality management in the literature related to tourism.