Bibliometric analysis of virtual reality in tourism and hospitality

Abstract

It is experienced that the tourism and hospitality industry has been changing dramatically year by year, not only the crisis of the pandemic outbreak related to the restriction of travelling but also due to novel of technology evolution, including applications of virtual reality. In fact, applying virtual world into business operation to increase customer intention have been paid more attention from practitioners, scholars, and stakeholders. Yet, it is necessary to comprehend this field's trend and its impact on business strategies and the future perspective of applying virtual reality experiences in tourism and the hospitality industry. This study mainly aims to examine the current state of research and trends of virtual reality related-tourism and hospitality studies from the beginning to the outbreak of the pandemic and post-pandemic and discuss them over the period time towards the future perspective of this research. By proposing a bibliometric approach to analyse 1441 studies from Scopus data published over three last decades related to virtual reality experience in tourism and hospitality sector to generalize information associated with research opportunity for future in this area. This study uses a combination of RStudio 2022 and VOSViewer 1.6.18 software to analyse databases that were retrieved from reliable resources and the most signification impact so as to provide a whole picture of virtual reality connecting with the relevant context. With regard to offering information in terms of the volume document of studies, citations, authors, countries, authorship networks, keyword networks and keyword co-occurrences, the relevant research direction in this field as well as the top journals and conferences that have most published in this field by over years. By using bibliometric analysis, this study's result gives an understanding of value information and suggestions by visual overview for future virtual reality studies on the tourism and hospitality context.