Bibliometric analysis of rural tourism research: Web of Science example

Rural tourism is an important alternative tourism type with increasing demand in recent years. In order to better understand rural tourism and consider it as a healthy rural development model, existing knowledge and practices need to be presented. In addition, in order to see the scientific progress on the subject, it is important to analyze research gaps and trends to update scientific data and increase knowledge in this research area. Therefore, this bibliometric review examined the research progress, trends and updates in the field of rural tourism. The Web of Science database was used to select the publications used in the study, and VOSviewer and Bibliometrix software were used for bibliometric review. The results obtained in this bibliometric study determined that the first study on rural tourism was written in 1990. It was determined that it was conducted in 2022 with 352 studies and 2023 was the year with the highest number of citations with 6539 citations. The studies with the highest citations were Sims (2009) with 758 citations, Bessiere (1998) with 598 citations, Park (2009) with 435 citations, Briedenhann (2004) with 409 citations and Correia Loureiro (2014) with 384 citations. The journals in which the studies were published were Tourism Management, Sustainability, Annals of Tourism Research and Journal of Sustainable Tourism. The countries that contributed the most to rural tourism studies were China, Spain, Romania, Serbia and the United States. As a result of the keyword analysis, it was revealed that the keyword "rural tourism" was used the most. It was concluded that the data on rural tourism complied with the Bradford law. However, it was determined that 80.4% of the researchers made only one publication. When this result was evaluated according to Lotka's law, it was concluded that the relevant literature was insufficient and needed to be developed. In addition, results that did not match the findings emerged as a result of the application of Zipf's law. The results of the study may contribute to future research and the healthier development of rural tourism. It is also emphasized that knowledge gaps in this area should be filled and more interdisciplinary studies should be conducted.