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Research in
Developing a comprehensive hospitality and
life cycle framework for social tourism

media research in hospitality

and tourism 1041

A bibliometric method 2002-2018 Received 12 September 2019

Revised 13 November 2019
16 January 2020
Khaldoon Nusair Accepted 20 January 2020
College of Economics and Political Science, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman

Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to provide a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the current state of social
media literature by examining co-word network analysis and thematic keyword analysis of both scholars and
hospitality and tourism journals in three sub-periods (2002-2006, 2007-2012 and 2013-2018).
Design/methodology/approach – This research used a bibliometric analysis of social media literature
in the field of hospitality and tourism by synthesizing the literature of a large sample of 601 studies over an
extended time period (2002-2018).
Findings – The jump in the number of examined contexts, platforms, methodological approaches and
research implications during 2007-2012 has marked the start of social media as a new phenomenon in
hospitality and tourism research. Interestingly, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management was a leading contributor to social media research between 2017 and 2018. The period 2013-
2018 has witnessed newly emerging trends such as “big data,” “e-tourism,” “green experience” and “smart
tourism.” This study’s analysis indicated that few keywords in social media appeared in the maturity stage.
New platforms such as “Expedia,” “Foursquare,” “Flickr,” “Pinterest,” “Couchsurfing” and “Twitter”
appeared between 2013 and 2018.
Originality/value – The scope of past research on the evolution of social media was limited to either a few
of the most popular cited journals and/or analysis within a narrow time span. In contrast, the present study
aims to uncover the rapid progress in social media research between 2002 and 2018, addressing growth in
breadth and depth of thematic areas. Finally, this paper concluded with the proposal of knowledge-based life
cycle framework that identifies key themes related to social media research. This framework provided
insights into what has been addressed in previous literature (maturity and decline stages) and reported the
topics that have been under-researched (introduction and growth stages).
Keywords Bibliometric analysis, Hospitality and tourism, Social media,
Keyword and co-word analysis, Systematic literature review, Life cycle framework
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
As the adoption of social media platforms continues to develop in the hospitality and
tourism industry, more scholars are increasingly seeking new research trends in this
particular discipline. Despite the fact that a rich literature of past research has examined the
advancement of the general hospitality and tourism field (Choi et al., 2007; Leung and Law, International Journal of
2007; Law et al., 2010; Sigala et al., 2012; Kwok and Yu, 2013; Minazzi, 2015; Zhong et al., Contemporary Hospitality
Management
2015; Sotiriadis, 2017), only a few articles have been published on the evolution of social Vol. 32 No. 3, 2020
pp. 1041-1066
media in hospitality and tourism. Literature reviews in social media not only recognize © Emerald Publishing Limited
0959-6119
contributions of both leading scholars and journals, but also shed light on potential future DOI 10.1108/IJCHM-09-2019-0777
IJCHM research directions in a field that has substantially increased in breadth, depth and thematic
32,3 keywords, including platforms, topics, applications, research methodologies and emerging
trends.
The rise in the number of social media published articles represents a strong motivation for
scholars to review the existing literature on the topic to evaluate patterns and paradigm shifts
over time. In recent years, however, despite the proliferation of the field, there are inadequate
1042 systematic literature reviews that comprehensively synthesized the burgeoning body of
literature in social media. In their articles, Heck and Cooley (1988) and Jogaratnam et al. (2005)
stated that the documentation of literature is essential to measure research progress. Previous
studies in the general hospitality and tourism discipline provided insightful trends on topics
within the hospitality and tourism research (Lotka, 1926; Chandy and Gopalakrishna, 1992;
Kim et al., 2004; Zou, 2005; Choi et al., 2007; Schmidgall et al., 2007; Furrer et al., 2008; Park et al.,
2011; Tsaur et al., 2014; Yoo et al., 2011; MacKay et al., 2017; Kwok et al., 2017). Past systematic
literature reviews were not only restricted to a small number of journals but also were limited to
short time-frames.
The present study applied bibliometric analysis to uncover social media research
thematic progress in the past 17 years. To identify themes in a given area of research,
bibliometric analysis provides a retrospective analysis of the existing literature (Vogel and
Guttel, 2013). Bibliometric analysis comprises multiple methods, including citation analysis,
co-citation analysis, bibliographic citations (De Bellis, 2009) and co-word analysis (He, 1999).
Co-word analysis is often used to explore the intellectual structure of a specific field (Ding
et al., 2001). This method is based on the counting of keywords’ co-occurrence and it
visualizes the relationship between keywords (Su and Lee, 2010). Therefore, this research
used keyword and co-word analysis to investigate the thematic evolution of social media in
hospitality and tourism research. In their study, Lu et al. (2018) examined 105 social media
articles in hospitality and tourism selected from 7 journals in the period 2004-2014. In
comparison with past studies, this research provided a clear roadmap for conducting
bibliometric analysis of social media articles published within a 17-year time span,
specifically between 2002 and 2018. Its aim was to reveal knowledge outcome and research
trends of leading scholars and journals in the social media field. In summary, this study
provided a comprehensive analysis of the current state of social media literature pooling
together co-word network analysis and thematic keyword analysis of both scholars and
hospitality and tourism journals in three sub-periods (2002-2006, 2007-2012 and 2013-2018).
The first social media research article in hospitality and tourism appeared in 2002.
Accordingly, the analyzed time-frame was divided into approximately three equal time
intervals starting from the year 2002. The paper concluded with the proposal of a
knowledge-based life cycle framework that identified key themes related to social media
research at different stages, including: introduction, growth, maturity and decline.
Specifically, this paper attempts to fulfill the following objectives:

To examine co-word network analysis of social media research in the five leading
hospitality and tourism journals divided into three time phases: 2002-2006, 2007-
2012 and 2013-2018.

To examine thematic keyword analysis of social media research in the five leading
hospitality and tourism journals divided into three time phases: 2002-2006, 2007-
2012 and 2013-2018.

To examine co-word network analysis of social media articles published by the 15
leading scholars in hospitality and tourism divided into three time phases: 2002-
2006, 2007-2012 and 2013-2018.

To examine thematic keyword analysis of social media articles published by the 15 Research in
leading scholars in hospitality and tourism divided into three time phases: 2002- hospitality and
2006, 2007-2012 and 2013-2018.
tourism

To propose a life cycle framework that summarizes the thematic trends on social
media and research in hospitality and tourism over the past 17 years.

1043
Literature review
In the general context of hospitality and tourism, a large number of systematic literature
reviews have been conducted in the past few decades (Leung and Law, 2007; McKercher,
2008; Law et al., 2010; Park et al., 2011; Zheng and Gerritsen, 2014; Ruhanen et al., 2015;
Bowen and Whalen, 2017; Whalen, 2018; Nusair et al., 2019). Ruhanen et al. (2015) for
example, conducted a 25-year bibliometric analysis for the four top-tier journals in tourism.
This study reported that some subjects and themes in sustainable tourism studies have
developed over time; however, have not yet reached maturity stage. Additionally, Bowen
and Whalen (2017) reviewed literature to provide a current view of technology trends that
are shaping the tourism industry. Their results showed that artificial intelligence, robotics,
big data and social media have emerged as new trends in the field.
Drawing on the past literature, our search adopted a systematic literature review
approach and revealed a relatively small number of social media review articles (Leung and
Law, 2007; McKercher, 2008; Leung et al., 2013; Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014; Leung et al., 2017;
Lu et al., 2018). There is an obvious shortage of bibliometric analysis papers on social media
in the hospitality and tourism field. To illustrate, Leung et al. (2013) reviewed hospitality
and tourism studies published in the domain of social media between 2007 and 2011. The
study adopted a content analysis approach and analyzed 44 articles extracted from Web of
Science, EBSCOhost and Google Scholar. Their study attempted to examine consumer and
supplier perspectives and highlighted the strategic significance of social media research.
Furthermore, Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) recognized the influence of social media on the
hospitality and tourism research. Their literature review analyzed the impact of social media
scholarly work in hospitality and tourism between 2007 and 2013. The study included 279
articles composed of journal articles, conference papers, theses, books and reports. The
search of articles was conducted in three databases including Web of Science, EBSCOhost
and Google Scholar. The findings reported “user generated content” (UGC) as the most used
keyword in social media research. Additionally, scholars in the field were recommended to
consider social media in defining their future research interests. It is worth acknowledging
that this study identified a breadth of research topics and provided a comprehensive view of
how tourists and practitioners use social media. However, only recent research has begun to
explore large-scale emerging trends in the social media discipline (Leung et al., 2017; Lu
et al., 2018).
As a result of the growing proliferation of social media publications, a large number of
research themes have evolved in the area of social media. A study by Leung et al. (2017) was
one of the first review articles in social media to apply both co-citation and co-word
analyses. They conducted a systematic bibliometric to examine the impact of social media
research in both hospitality and business journals in the period between 2007 and 2016. The
study reviewed 406 articles and “social media” was identified as the most popular keyword
in hospitality and tourism research. As an indicative of the dynamic evolution in this field,
new trends appeared in the period 2012-2016. The study indicated that it is crucial for future
research to revisit thematic evolutions and that a longer study period was recommended.
IJCHM In parallel, Lu et al. (2018) used a content analysis approach to map the direction of social
32,3 media research between 2004 and 2014. Their study highlighted the progress of social media
research by examining a collection of 105 social media articles published in 7 journals. They
suggested that social media research was still in its early stage and that it lacked sufficient
attention from researchers in different hospitality and tourism sectors. Interdisciplinary
studies were also found to be rarely observed in social media research. Finally, the findings
1044 suggested that a 10-year time-frame was considered short to offer a more comprehensive
view of the thematic developments in the field. Quantitative measures including analysis of
citations have proposed the sub-domain of hospitality and social media as a new avenue for
future research (Park et al., 2011).
Early on, researchers acknowledged the need to conduct additional literature reviews to
assess research progress and emerging topics on social media (Leung et al., 2017; Nusair
et al., 2019). For example, Nusair et al. (2019) provided a holistic approach on the future
direction in social media research. Their retrospective systematic literature review focused
on academic journals, scholars in the field, universities and inter-country research
collaborations. Finally, the study identified big data, netnography, Travel 2.0 and Web 2.0
as new themes of research, emerged specifically between 2011 and 2016. While Nusair et al.
(2019) investigated journals’ ranking and quality and scholars’ contributions in the field, the
present study highlighted the progression of social media research. This recent proliferation
of research called for a more thorough review of literature in the social media discipline.
Building on Nusair et al. (2019) and Leung et al. (2017), this study conducted bibliometric
analysis and used co-word analysis and thematic keyword analysis to review the current
state of the literature and suggested interesting directions for future social media research. It
is one of the first articles to synthesize the literature of a large sample of 601 articles
published in 51 hospitality and tourism journals over an extended time period (2002-2018).
This study proposed a scientific landscape on social media research; in addition it provided
a future agenda for prospective graduates, fellow researchers and practitioners.

Methodology
This research used a bibliometric analysis of social media literature in the field of hospitality
and tourism. As shown in Figure 1, the literature review procedure in this study followed
Weber’s (1990) protocol.

Selection of articles
The study meant to identify the relevant articles related to social media research in
hospitality and tourism. As per the aim of our study, an extensive systematic literature
search was conducted in the field of hospitality and tourism, social media and hospitality,
tourism and social media.
The study adopted a rigorous path to identify relevant articles. Three steps are discussed
below:
Reviews in hospitality and tourism literature. Initially, hospitality and tourism literature
was searched on EBSCOhost by using the following keywords: “hospitality,” “tourism” and
“review.” The search returned 150 publications including around 100 systematic literature
reviews in hospitality and tourism studies. However, it was also found that most of the
studies reported ten or fewer journals for the selection of articles as suggested by the
findings of McKercher (2008).
Reviews in social media literature. Literature search of social media in title was
performed by using two keywords: “social media” and “review.” In total, 70 articles was the
outcome of this search including 11 systematic review papers. In addition, keywords search
 Research in
(1) Selection of articles hospitality and
- Reviews in hospitality and tourism literature
- Reviews in social media literature
tourism
- Reviews in hospitality, tourism and social media

1045

(2) Search for academic articles in hospitality, tourism and social media
- Selection of articles from EBSCOhost & Science Direct
- Quality assessment of articles - listing on Australian Business Council (ABDC)

(3) Coding
- Transfer of all articles to Refworks
- Identification of categories with a clear definition
- Extraction of information from identified articles for each identified category

(4) Data analysis procedure

- Presentation of a figure to show progression of social media over 17 years Figure 1.
- Preparation of a network file to a visualized co-word network in R studio
Flowchart: selection
- Selection of the entire dataset that is composed of 601 social media articles
- Categorization of keywords in multiple sub-themes
of articles, search for
- Summarization of thematic trends in a life cycle framework articles, coding and
data analysis

in the methodology of the 11 systematic review papers resulted in the identification of the
top 8 keywords related to social media literature, namely, social networking sites, blogs,
social media, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, online and internet.
Reviews in hospitality, tourism and social media. After reviewing the existing social
media research in hospitality and tourism (Leung et al., 2013; Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014;
Leung et al., 2017; Lu et al., 2017), 44 keywords were extracted, namely, Facebook, social
media networking sites, social networks, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, Google, LinkedIn,
Instagram, Pinterest, Expedia, QQ, Qzone, Trip advisor, Web 2.0, UGC, electronic word of
mouth, eWOM, blogs, online communities, consumer reviews, online review, big data,
hotels, hospitality, tourism, travel, food service, restaurants, destination marketing
organization, bed and breakfast (B&Bs), theme parks, Spa, Ski industry, Golf, Inns, country
clubs, cruise lines, airlines, online travel agencies, trade associations, meeting and
convention planners, time share and vacation ownership. The complete list of 44 keywords
was used for our search of relevant articles.
IJCHM Search for academic articles in hospitality, tourism and social media
32,3 In April 2019, EBSCOhost and ScienceDirect were searched to identify social media articles
related to hospitality and tourism. The 44 keywords from past social media review studies
were used to identify relevant articles. Initially, 4,482 articles were found which were further
refined by removing duplicates, editorials, conference proceedings and book reviews. A total
of 1,723 articles remained. Out of these, 1,112 were from hospitality and tourism journals.
1046 Next, we ensured that our database was inclusive of articles from the past two relevant
studies, specifically Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) and Leung et al. (2013). The listing of 44
articles used by Leung et al. (2013) was taken from article bibliography and Dr Zeng was
asked to provide the entry of 165 journal articles used in his study (Zeng and Gerritsen,
2014). A total of 33 studies from Leung et al. (2013) and 107 articles from Zeng and Gerritsen
(2014) were from hospitality and tourism journals. In all, 65 were added from these two
studies as they were not initially recorded in our database. As such, the total number of
articles reached 1,177 (1,112 þ 65). Furthermore, the listing of articles was refined for the
relevance with various aspects related to hospitality, tourism and social media. A research
associate was trained for this purpose. The research associate scanned the abstract of each
article for the identification of relevant articles. To check the validity of the work completed
by the research associate, one of the co-authors participated in the scanning process
(independently). A total of 718 articles were found to be relevant to ecommerce, internet and
other online mediums, and accordingly they were removed from the analysis. This left us
with a sample size of 459. Moreover, articles were assessed for quality standards. This
requirement was achieved by only considering articles listed in Australian Business Deans
Council (ABDC, version 2018). The ABDC list is more inclusive of articles than any other
rankings (Mura and Sharif, 2017), in addition it includes large number of A*, A and B-
ranked hospitality and tourism journals. In total, 14 articles were not listed in ABDC, so the
sample size was further reduced to 445. Finally, our keywords were strictly searched in two
databases (EBSCOhost and ScienceDirect) and there is a possibility that some of the articles
were not published in these databases. Therefore, the authors decided to make another
keyword search in title, abstract and subject term of 103 hospitality journals. This
additional exercise provided us with 156 new social media articles within the domain of
hospitality and tourism. A final sample of 601 articles from 51 hospitality and tourism
journals was used for our analysis.

Coding
First, the references of all the searched articles from EBSCOhost and ScienceDirect
databases were transferred to RefWorks and then were exported to a spreadsheet. Second,
for the purpose of coding, all relevant categories (columns) were identified with a clear
definition. Third, soft copies of all relevant articles were downloaded to extract the
information for each identified category. Fourth, a research associate was trained to enter
the corresponding data. Initially, the research associate was asked to input data for 20
articles at a time. To ensure that 95 percentage of reliability was reached, one co-author
checked the quality of data entry by cross-checking each data entry. Meetings with the
research associate were frequently arranged to provide feedback on issues linked to coding.

Data analysis procedure

Data analysis process composed of five steps. First, a figure was presented to show the
progression of social media research. Second, a network file was prepared from the recorded
references in bibtex format to create a visualized co-word network in R studio. Third, a total
of 601 social media articles published in 51 hospitality and tourism journals were identified.
Two sub-samples were selected: 5 leading hospitality and tourism journals and 15 leading Research in
scholars in the field. The selection of both journals (Appendix A) and scholars (Figure 6) was hospitality and
based on the number of published social media articles. However, if we select authors only tourism
from the five leading journals, we might not be able to gain comprehensive insight in social
media as their research contributions also appear in other hospitality and tourism journals.
Therefore, to achieve the aim of this research, we used the entire data set that is composed of
601 social media articles published in 51 hospitality and tourism journals. Fourth, keywords 1047
of sample journals and selective authors were categorized in multiple sub-themes to identify
research trends between 2002 and 2018. Lastly, results of the study were summarized in a
life cycle framework that displays the thematic trends of social media.

Results
Progression of social media research
Figure 2 depicts a strong uptrend in social media research over the past 17 years. The field
has witnessed a mutation between 2002 and 2015, but between 2015 and 2018 its substantial
growth halted. These findings indicate the rise in popularity of social networking platforms
and the role of social media in influencing travel decision-making; however, the stalled
growth (2015 onwards) is likely because the field is becoming too diversified which requires
a more comprehensive investigation of two aspects, specifically the range of publication
outlets (journals) and the scope of keywords.

Social media research trends in the five leading hospitality and tourism journals
Progression of social media research was most evident in the five leading hospitality and
tourism journals, namely: Tourism Management, International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Travel
and Tourism Marketing and Journal of Vacation Marketing. These five journals produced
nearly 42 per cent of the total number of published social media research articles between
2002 and 2018 (Appendix A). Tourism Management journal published around 74 social
media research articles. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
published around 52 social media articles. Both International Journal of Hospitality
Management and Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing published the same number of
articles (47). Finally, Journal of Vacation Marketing published 34 social media
articles. In addition to the aforementioned five journals, social media research appeared
in 46 other hospitality and tourism journals. Similar to the findings of other research

100
90
80
70
Number of Arcles

60
50
40
Figure 2.
30
Progression of social
20
media research in
10 hospitality and
0 tourism
2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018
IJCHM (Nusair et al., 2019), this study reported that leading journals generated a high proportion of
32,3 the total number of articles published in the field.
Figure 3 provides a comparative analysis of the five leading journals between 2002 and
2018. Social media articles were exclusively published in Tourism Management between
2002 and 2007. But shortly after 2007, other hospitality and tourism journals have begun to
turn to social media research. As such, there has been a remarkable growth in the number of
1048 social media research articles since 2007. Tourism Management has been a leading
contributor to research in social media during our study period. Interestingly, International
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management topped the list between 2017 and 2018.

Co-word network analysis and thematic keyword analysis of social media research in the five
leading hospitality and tourism journals
To address research objectives (1 and 2), Figures 4-6 show research trends in the five leading
journals across three sub-periods: 2002-2006, 2007-2012 and 2013-2018. The size of the
bubble indicates the frequency of counts and the thickness of the line represents the strength
of the co-word occurrence between the two nodes. To perform keyword and co-word
analysis, the study gathered all keywords from work published in the five leading journals
in the field and the process was conducted in two steps:
(1) graphical representation of the co-word relationships in three sub-periods; and
(2) thematic categorization of keywords in seven themes, namely, online context,
platform, industry, destination, research implications, methodological analysis and
emerging topics.

To answer research objective (1a), Figure 4 displays two clusters in social media research
emerged between 2002 and 2006: “virtual community” and “travel.” The first cluster “virtual
community” was based on studies that linked “communication,” “marketing” and “tourism.”
The second cluster “travel” mainly linked with “loyalty” literature. However, it is important
to note that the visualization of co-word clusters and their relationships seemed simple
during this time period (2002-2006) as the field was still in its early development stage.
The second objective concerns the thematic keyword analysis (2a), Table I presents the
thematic trends between 2002 and 2006. Social media research during this early stage was
limited to four publications in the five leading journals. The same study period reported that

16

14

12
Number of Arcles

10

Figure 3. 4
Progression of social
media research in the 2
five leading journals
0
between 2002 and 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
2018
TM IJHM IJCHM JVM JTTM
 Research in
hospitality and
tourism

1049

Figure 4.
Co-word network of
social media research
in the five leading
hospitality and
tourism journals
(2002-2006)

Theme Keywords (N)

Table I.
Online context —— (0) Thematic analysis of
Platform Virtual community (2) social media in the
Industry Tourism (1) and travel (1)
Destination —— (0)
five leading
Research implications Communication (1), marketing (1) and loyalty (1) hospitality and
tourism journals
Note: N: Keyword occurrence (2002-2006)

social media research focused on a small number of sectors in the hospitality and tourism
industry, namely, “tourism” and “travel,” coupled with limited insightful implications in the
areas of “communication,” “marketing” and “loyalty.”
In the period 2007-2012, additional themes were developed. Figure 5 contains the
results related to research objective (1b). Specifically, three main social media research
clusters were recognized. One was “blogs,” connected with “market research” and
“internet” in the “tourism” sector; another cluster was “social media” connected with
“online reviews,” “eWOM” and “netnography” in the hotel industry. Finally, third cluster
was related to “destination marketing” connected with “destination image,” “content
analysis,” “correspondence analysis” and “data mining” methodologies as newly
emerging trends during this research period.
The thematic analysis for the period (2007-2012) represents research objective (2b) as
shown in Table II. During this time-frame, research has progressed significantly compared
to 2002-2006 as 60 published articles generated around 184 keywords. This growth was
largely because of the increased popularity of the field as more scholars are developing
interest in different topical areas in social media. The jump in the number of examined
contexts, platforms, methodological approaches and research implications during 2007-2012
IJCHM
32,3

1050

Figure 5.
Co-word network
review of social
media research in the
five leading
hospitality and
tourism journals
(2007-2012)

Theme Keywords (N)

Online context Social media (9), online review (8), online photos and photography (4), social
networking sites (7), UGC (4), internet (4), communication (1), consumer reviews
(1), social networks (3) and websites (1)
Platform Web 2.0 (2), blogs (13), TripAdvisor (1), Facebook (2), online travel community
(2) and virtual communities (2)
Industry Tourism (4), hotel (2), travel (6) and destination marketing organization (3)
Methodological analysis Content analysis (2), correspondence analysis (3), data mining (1), Mann
Whitney U test (1), machine learning (1), text mining (2), multivariate analysis
Table II. (1), discourse analysis (1) and grounded theory (1)
Thematic analysis of Destination Macau (1)
social media in the Research implications eWOM (2), destination marketing (9), consumer behavior (3), destination image
(5), WOM (4), netnograhy (3), satisfaction (1), trust (1), loyalty (1), service
five leading recovery (2), motivation (1), viral marketing (1), online branding (1), reputation
hospitality and management (1), market research (5) and marketing (4)
tourism journals
(2007-2012) Note: N: Keyword occurrence

has marked the start of social media as a new phenomenon in hospitality and tourism
research.
Figure 6 depicts the period between 2013 and 2018 (research objective 1c). As can be seen
from Figure 6, social media research resulted in six main areas of focus. The first cluster
“customer satisfaction” was related to “service failure,” “WOM” and “trust” theories in the
“hospitality” industry. This finding is consistent with past research as Dennis et al. (2016)
 Research in
hospitality and
tourism

1051

Figure 6.
Co-word network of
social media research
in the five leading
hospitality and
tourism journals
(2013-2018)

found that “WOM” is closely associated with “satisfaction.” The second group “destination
image” was connected with “consumer behavior” theories, “blogs” and “Web 2.0” in the
“tourism” industry. The third group was related to “online reviews” and its relationship
with “reputation management,” “big data,” “performance” and “WOM.” The fourth cluster
“social media” research focused on “Facebook” in the “hotel” industry and “destination
marketing organizations.” The fifth node emphasized “brand commitment” and its
connection with “brand trust.” The sixth group “tourist experience” highlighted the start of
a new research trend in this discipline.
Table III presents the thematic analysis of social media research between 2013 and 2018
(research objective 2c). This study analyzed 642 keywords generated from 192-targeted
articles published in the 5 leading journals. First, a number of new research methodologies
were adopted as an indication of the diversified backgrounds of social media researchers.
Second, the research implications of social media research witnessed a huge growth in
topical development. Third, newly emerging trends appeared in social media research
including “big data,” “e-tourism,” “green experience” and “green hotels.”

Social media research trends developed by the 15 leading scholars

Figure 7 illustrates the information about prolific researchers in social media research. Co-
words and keywords of the top 15 authors who had published more than 6 social media
articles between 2002 and 2018 were reviewed. Overall, the summary presented in Figure 6
IJCHM Themes Keywords (N)
32,3
Online context Social Media (56), online reviews(23), UGC (15), photos and photography(17), consumer
reviews(11), social network (11), social networking sites (6), internet (3) and information
technology (2)
Platform Web 2.0 (5), blogs (7), TripAdvisor (10), Facebook (12), Booking.com(2), Flickr (2),
Couchsurfing (2), Linkedin (1), Twitter (1), Pinterest (9), Google (1) and Weibo (1)
1052 Industry Hotel (7), tourism (11), travel (26), hospitality (5) and destination marketing
organization (3)
Methodological Content analysis (4), data mining (4), sentiment analysis (2), Bayesian order logit (1),
analysis literature review (1), narrative analysis (1), thematic analysis (1), text mining (2),
regression (1), bibliometrics (1), co-citation analysis (1), conjoint analysis (2) and
contrast analysis (1)
Destination China (3), Australia (1), Europe (1), Italy (1), London (1), Malaysia (1), Switzerland (1),
Greece (1), Spain (1) and Thailand (1)
Research eWOM (16), destination image (5), reputation management (6), destination marketing
implications (7), consumer/travel/tourist behavior (7), customer satisfaction (6), crisis communication
Table III. (4), brand loyalty (2), brand trust (3), service recovery (3), risk perception (2), consumer
Thematic analysis of decision (2), perception (2), trust (2), brand image (1), crisis management (1), loyalty (1),
social media in the pleasure (1), recreation (1), adventure tourism (1), marketing strategy (1), brand
commitment (5), performance (3), motivation (6), expectations (1), advertising (1),
five leading service failure (4) and netnography (2)
hospitality and Emerging topics Big data (9), e-tourism (1), green experience (1) and green hotels(1)
tourism journals
(2013-2018) Note: N: Keyword occurrence

8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018
Figure 7. Law, R. Leung, X. Li,G. Schuckert, M. Wang, Y.
Leading authors of Wu, M. Buhalis, D. Gretzel, U Pearce, P. Pennington, G.
social media research Sigala, M. Li, X. Vu, H. Morrison,A. Fesenmaier, R
in hospitality and
tourism (2002-2018)
Note: Cuttoff - 6 Publications

shows that more and more scholars have developed social media research interests over the
past 17 years.

Co-word network analysis and keyword analysis of social media research published by the 15
leading scholars
To visualize co-word network and keyword analysis in multiple sub-periods (research
objectives 3 and 4), a sub-sample of the 15 leading scholars in the field that comprises
around 20 per cent of total research productivity was selected to examine the growth pattern Research in
in social media research. Additionally, the keyword review of social media research in hospitality and
hospitality and tourism resulted in six themes, namely, online context, platform, industry,
destination, research implications and emerging topics. Study was classified into three sub-
tourism
periods: 2002-2006, 2007-2012 and 2013-2018.
In the period 2002-2006 (research objective 3a), social media research was centered on
three main areas, namely “virtual community,” “destination marketing” and “online travel
community” (Figure 8). The first cluster “virtual community” was associated with
1053
“marketing” and “communication” theories in the “tourism” industry. The second cluster
“destination marketing” was based on methodologies such as “correspondence analysis,”
“text mining” and “content analysis.” The third cluster “online travel community” was
linked with “tourism marketing” and “motivation” theories.
The thematic categorization of the top 15 scholars in social media research between 2002
and 2006 (research objective 4a) is displayed in Table IV. A total of 4 published papers
during 2002-2006 and 14 keywords were identified. The study defined two distinct
keywords, namely, “communication” and “websites” in the “tourism” field. It is necessary to
know that this period witnessed wider scope for implications including “consumer decision
making,” “consumption vision,” “destination image,” “destination marketing,” “marketing,”
“tourism marketing,” “advertising” and “motivation.” As social media research between
2002 and 2006 was in early stage of development, only few key areas developed.
In the period 2007-2012 (research objective 3b), five co-word clusters in social media
research were identified, namely, “destination image,” “social networks,” “tourism,”
“destination marketing organizations” and “social networking sites” as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 8.
Co-word network
analysis of social
media research
published by the 15
leading scholars in
hospitality and
tourism (2002-2006)
IJCHM The first cluster “destination image” was based on “content analysis,” “blogs” and “social
32,3 media” in the “hotel” industry. The second cluster “social network” linked with “information
sharing” and “netnography” in the “hospitality” domain. The third cluster “tourism” was
mainly about studies linked with “eWOM.” The fourth cluster “destination marketing
organization” was associated with “destination management,” “decision making” and the
new emerging trend, Web 2.0. While the fifth cluster “social networking sites” was linked
1054
Theme Keywords (N)

Online context Communication (2) and websites (1)

Platform Virtual community (3) and online travel community (3)
Industry Tourism (1)
Table IV. Destination Macau (1)
Thematic analysis of Methodological analysis Content analysis (2), and correspondence analysis (2)
Research implications Consumer decision-making (1), consumption vision (1), destination image (1),
social media by the destination marketing (2), marketing (2), tourism marketing (3), advertising (1)
15 leading scholars in and motivation (2)
hospitality and
tourism (2002-2006) Note: N: Keyword occurrence

Figure 9.
Co-word network
analysis of social
media research
published by the 15
leading scholars in
hospitality and
tourism (2007-2012)
with “travel photography,” “photo sharing media” and “online photo album.” This cluster Research in
featured “experiential tourism” as a fast-emerging trend in the tourism industry. hospitality and
Table V reveals the thematic analysis of social media authors between 2007 and 2012
(research objective 4b). Fifteen social media authors published 27 articles from which a list
tourism
of 59 keywords was extracted. Social media research observed a major growth in the
number of themes. For example, more than 18 noticeable areas related to implications
developed during this period. It is important to note that “tourism marketing” and
“destination marketing” received significant attention from scholars between 2007 and 2012.
1055
New platforms such as “Web 2.0” and “blogs” also appeared in this period.
In the period 2013-2018 (research objective 3c), as displayed in Figure 10, six main groups
were reported, namely, “destination marketing,” “reputation management,” “travel behavior,”
“social media,” “smart tourism/digital tourism” and “netnography.” For example, the second
cluster “reputation management” emerged from “online reviews” on “trip advisor” platform
and “customer satisfaction.” The co-word analysis detected interesting shifts in the social
media research as new trends e.g. “smart tourism,” “digital tourism,” “twitter,” “Facebook” and
“TripAdvisor” have expanded the domain of the field and touched both academia and practice.
Table VI shows the thematic evaluation of social media between 2013 and 2018 (research
objective 4c). Fifteen leading scholars published a total of 87 social media articles and the
outcome was 332 keywords. First, social media research expanded to a wider range of topics as
compared to the former two periods (2002-2006 and 2007-2012). Second, new platforms in social
media research emerged during this time interval including “Flickr,” “Expedia” and
“Foursquare.” Interestingly “virtual community” and “blogs” are no longer the focus of
research like in the former period (2007-2012). Third, new methodologies such as “thematic
analysis,” “pattern mining” and “text mining” provided new insights in social media research.
Finally, this study period has observed newly emerging trends such as “big data,” “digital
marketing,” “digital tourism” and “smart tourism.” These findings demonstrated the rapid
growth and the broadening scope of the themes discussed in past research (Nusair et al., 2019).

Life cycle framework of social media thematic trends in hospitality and tourism
To achieve objective #5, we prepared a life cycle framework that summarizes the thematic
keyword trends on social media research. Figure 11 represents a summary of keyword

Theme Keyword (N)

Online context Social media (4), online reviews (4), online photo albums (4), photo sharing media
(4), social networking sites (4), travel photography (4) and social networks (2)
Platform Blogs (6), Web 2.0 (6), virtual community (2) and virtual forums (2)
Industry Destination marketing organization (9), tourism (5), hospitality (2) and travel (5)
Destination Macau (1), China (2), Hong Kong (5) and Greece (1)
Methodological analysis Content analysis (7), correspondence analysis (1) and social network analysis (1)
Research implications Tourism marketing (9), destination image (9), destination marketing (8),
destination management (7), decision-making (7), policymaking (7), internet
marketing (4), consumer behavior (3), customer involvement (3), eWOM (3), Table V.
customer satisfaction (3), entertainment(3), customer participation (3), data Thematic analysis of
mining (3), technology adoption (3), information sharing (3), knowledge
management (2), knowledge creation (2), reputation management (1) and
social media by the
netnography (2) 15 leading scholars in
hospitality and
Note: N: Keywords occurrence tourism (2007-2012)
IJCHM
32,3

1056

Figure 10.
Co-word network
analysis of social
media research
published by the 15
leading scholars in
hospitality and
tourism (2013-2018)

counts in both hospitality and tourism journals (Top-5) and authors (Top-15) across three
different periods (2002-2006, 2007-2012 and 2013-2018) (Table AII). This analytics process
includes four distinct stages: introduction (refers to the introduction of a keyword for the
first time in the period of 2013-2018), growth (refers to a progressive increase [ 30 per cent]
in keyword counts across the three successive periods: 2002-2006, 2007-2012 and 2013-2018),
maturity (refers to when keyword counts is no longer in the growth stage classification [# 30
per cent increase], but not yet in the decline stage classification [# 30 per cent decline]
between the last two successive periods: 2007-2012 and 2013-2018) and decline (refers to a
progressive decline [ 30 per cent] in keyword counts between the last two successive
periods: 2007-2012 and 2013-2018). Four main themes classify the social media research life
cycle, namely, online context, platform, industry and research implications (Figure 10). Our
analysis indicated that there are few keywords in social media that appeared in the maturity
stage including “Web 2.0,” “netnography,” “WOM” and “internet marketing.” While these
keywords in social media research have matured, interestingly the popularity of social
media research has led to progress the knowledge base in the field. For example, internet
marketing has evolved to digital marketing (introduction stage) and the spread of social
media platforms has resulted in an advanced form of word of mouth (WOM) called eWOM
(growth stage).
Theme Keywords (N)
Research in
hospitality and
Online context Social media (33), online reviews (5), consumer reviews (2), travel photography tourism
(5), social network sites (3), social networks (2) and UGC (2)
Platform TripAdvisor (5), Twitter (4), Facebook (5), Blogs (5), Web 2.0 (2), Flickr (2),
Expedia (1) and FourSquare (1)
Industry Tourism (5), hospitality (6), hotel (2), destination marketing organization (5) and
travel (10) 1057
Destination China (3), Australia (3), New York (2), Hong Kong (2) and Greece (1)
Methodological analysis Content analysis (4), data mining (3), literature review (2), bibliometrics (1),
pattern mining (1), text analysis(1) and thematic analysis (1)
Research implications Reputation management (7), customer satisfaction (6), consumer behavior (6),
destination marketing (5), hotel performance (5), trust (4), management
response (4), brand knowledge/attachment/relationship (4), eWOM (4),
enjoyment (4) WOM (3), crisis communication (3), motivation (3), netnography
(3) international tourism (2), loyalty (2), risk perception (2), technology Table VI.
acceptance model (2), decision-making (1), destination image (1), customer
Thematic analysis of
relationship management (1), homophily theory (1), human resource
management (1), motivation-opportunity-ability theory (1), social comparison social media by the
theory (1), social exchange theory (1), social identity theory (1), social influence 15 leading scholars in
model (1), tourism marketing (1) and uses and gratification theory (1) hospitality and
Emerging topics Digital tourism (2), smart tourism (2), digital marketing (1) and Big data (1) tourism (2013-2018)

Figure 11.
Life cycle framework
of social media
thematic trends in
hospitality and
tourism
IJCHM Overall, there was an obvious increase in the number of social media platforms in
32,3 hospitality and tourism research over the past 17 years. New platforms such as “Google,”
“Expedia,” “Foursquare,” “Booking.com,” “Flickr,” “Pinterest,” “Couchsurfing,” “LinkedIn”
and “Twitter” appeared in the period 2013-2018 (Table AII). Finally, this article identified
new thematic social media research implications. Specifically, 20 new research trends in the
introduction stage were observed in the period 2013-2018, such as “big data,” “smart
1058 tourism,” “green experience,” “brand knowledge,” “crisis communication” and “risk
reputation” just to name a few. In addition, seven trends were noted in the growth stage that
made rapid progress over the three successive periods, including “service recovery,” “trust,”
“motivation,” “customer satisfaction,” “reputation management,” “consumer behaviour” and
“eWOM”.

Discussion and conclusion

Our findings suggested that social media research has been gaining attention from the
interested scholars in the discipline. Leung et al. (2017) identified a total of 406 articles
published in 16 business and hospitality journals to analyze the evolution of social media
research themes in the period 2007-2016. To improve generalizability, they recommended
that future social media bibliometric research should cover more journals over a longer
period of time. Thus, this article attempted to provide insights about the evolution of social
media research in the past 17 years (2002-2018). To meet the objectives of our study, we
conducted a systematic literature review through a database search and identified 601 social
media articles published in 51 peer-reviewed hospitality and tourism journals. A systematic
step-by-step method was followed to identify the relevant articles. The research adopted a
number of measures to assess literature, such as total appearances of articles (frequency of
occurrence), co-word network analysis and thematic analysis of keywords.
One main objective of this study was to embrace the pivotal role that the top five journals
have played in progressing the social media field. Co-word network analysis and thematic
keyword analysis are commonly used to identify the conceptual structure of research. While
only a few co-word clusters were identified in the period 2002-2006, interestingly six social
media research co-word clusters emerged in the period 2013-2018. The broadness of social
media related topics was obvious in the period 2013-2018. Previous studies indicated that
social media research lacks diversity (Lu et al., 2018). Unlike past research, the findings of
the present study revealed a large increase in the number of topical trends in social media.
Consistent with the findings of Leung et al. (2017), the most noticeable finding in this period
was the high quality content generated in the form of “online reviews” in line with the rapid
evolution of social media platforms such as “TripAdvisor,” specifically in the hotel industry.
In addition to “online reviews,” several other relationships with “satisfaction” were revealed
including “service failure,” “trust” and “eWOM,” mainly in the hospitality industry. This
finding indicated that “satisfaction” is still a widely examined topic in social media research.
“Online reviews” on popular social media applications have made it possible for dissatisfied
customers to communicate their negative “eWOM” with thousands of travellers around the
globe. A new research stream in the hospitality field attempted to investigate customer
satisfaction using online reviews (Guo et al., 2017). As such, the broad adoption of social
media in hospitality and tourism has brought journals’ attention to examine specific
relationships related to “satisfaction.” A final trend in the period 2013-2018 was related to
the branding literature. An obvious relationship between “brand commitment” and “brand
trust” has become more popular in hospitality and tourism articles (Li and Chang, 2016; Sol
et al., 2013). While trust has been examined as an important topic in social media research,
its trustworthiness compared to other information sources is still unclear as contradictory
findings existed among previous studies (Leung et al., 2013). More tourists have adopted Research in
social media for their travel planning process; however, “brand commitment” and “brand hospitality and
trust” have not been examined sufficiently and have more potential for future research.
Another major contribution of this article was the impact of the leading scholars on social
tourism
media research. In addition to the noticeable increase in international collaborations in the
field (Mehraliyev et al., 2019), this study found that top 15 scholars are from multi-
disciplinary backgrounds including hospitality and tourism, information technology, social
media, marketing and management. Their multi-disciplinary perspectives have provided
1059
rich insights into the evolution of research. The thematic analysis of social media research in
the period 2013-2018 highlighted four new themes in social media research, namely, “big
data,” “digital tourism,” “smart tourism” and “digital marketing” and their applications in
the hospitality and tourism industry. In the period 2013-2018, the number of social media
applications grew immensely as more than 14 unique platforms were examined in
hospitality and tourism research. The high adoption of social media platforms has marked
the beginning of the transition to “digital marketing,” “smart tourism/digital tourism”
and “big data” eras. For example, “Pinterest” provides travelers with a smart personalized
catalogue of ideas, Twitter promotes travel products with a simple hash tag (#), and
TripAdvisor uses “online reviews” to develop smart marketing strategies from “big data”
analysis.
Finally, we proposed a life cycle framework that summarizes the thematic trends on
social media research that are currently shaping the hospitality and tourism field. In their
study, Lu et al. (2018) showed that the changing trends in the number of published articles
follow four stages, namely, introduction (2004-2009), growth (2010-2012), maturity (2013) and
decline (2014). The added value of this study to the existing literature is that it developed a
comprehensive life cycle framework, which provided insights into what has been addressed
in previous literature (maturity and decline stages) and reported the topics that have been
under-researched (introduction and growth stages). Our framework proposed four categories
of thematic trends in social media research gathered from jointly modeling the thematic
analysis of keywords and co-words of the top five journals and the top 15 scholars in the
field. These four categories include: introduction, growth, maturity and decline. The trends
that appeared in the life cycle model were indicative of the widely dispersed literature on
this topic. Recent trends, which appeared in the introduction stage include “big data,”
“digital marketing,” “smart tourism/e-tourism,” “green experience,” “green hotels,”
“customer relationship management,” “brand commitment” and “digital tourism.” An
example of such insight is the value creation from new applications that can be used to
explore new social media topics. “Big data” on social media platforms generates a wealth of
information for hospitality and tourism businesses. The use of “big data” in travel offers
huge benefits to the tourism industry to gain competitive advantage, specifically toward
achieving higher customer satisfaction. This data-driven technology allows social media
analytics to develop prior behavioral decisions to build long-term relationships with
customers. In addition, “customer relationship management” applications integrate
customers’ information from various social media sites to create memorable experiences for
travellers. Emergence of new topics such as “green experience” and “green lodging” also
show a new direction that is likely to be of main interest to practitioners and researchers in
hospitality and tourism. An area such as “green experience” in recent years reflects the rise
in environmental awareness among travellers to save natural resources in tourist
destinations. Hence, research areas that appeared in the introduction stage of life cycle are
still underdeveloped and require more attention from social media researchers.
IJCHM In the growth stage, the social media research examined almost all sectors within the
32,3 hospitality and tourism industry including hotels, hospitality, tourism and travel.
Additionally, during this particular stage, many thematic trends were shown to have
received sufficient attention from researchers such as “service recovery,” “trust,”
“motivation,” “customer satisfaction,” “reputation management,” “consumer behaviour” and
“eWOM.” Finally, the findings in the decline stage of the social media life cycle showed that
1060 some social networking sites are becoming very popular (such as “Expedia” in the
introduction stage and “TripAdvisor” in the growth stage) while some are in decline stage
such as “virtual community.” In addition, some thematic trends received little attention from
scholars in the decline stage such as “viral marketing,” “information sharing” and “customer
involvement.” It is important to note that while the use of these thematic keywords in social
media research has declined, interestingly the popularity of social media practices has
advanced the depth and breadth of knowledge. For example, a BuzzSumo report by Rayson
(2017) revealed a sharp decline in social media engagement. This was attributed to users’
perception of engagement as a push strategy. As a result of transitioning from push to pull
marketing strategies, more recent trends relevant to pull strategies are evolving in social
media research including “brand commitment,” “brand knowledge” and “brand trust”.
In view of the rapid growth of social media research, this article builds on existing
literature with a more systematic and extensive approach to analyzing the scholarly
contributions of journal and authors. The extensive data source combined with co-word
network and thematic analysis has revealed important elements in the evolution of social
media research. The broadness of this topic illustrates the diversity in topical trends, within
which key insights and multidisciplinary linkages are evident. Social media platforms have
increasingly become an influential instrument in digital communications. The adoption of
new technologies receives increasing attention of hospitality and tourism sectors as well as
scholars toward further research. In view of the large number of thematic areas from the co-
word network and thematic analysis, our life cycle framework has categorized what is now a
diverse and complex area of research. Our recommended integrated framework helps in
learning more about transitions happening in the tourism industry as well as in eliminating
duplication in future research. Thus, this study offers several guidelines for scholars to
shape future social media research.

Limitations and future studies

This study systematically reviewed social media articles between 2002 and 2018. While it
attempted to provide significant contributions, it was not free from limitations. First, the
study confined its examination to two databases (EBSCOhost and ScienceDirect). Future
research may be extended to other data sources (e.g. Google Scholar) which may capture any
relevant social media articles published outside those two databases. Second, it is worth to
mention that the study only focused on journal articles that were ranked in ABDC; however,
it excluded books, conference papers, e-articles and book chapters. Thus, future research
may offer more in-depth analysis and enlarge the frontiers of knowledge in the field by
incorporating the aforementioned overlooked resources.
Third, the study only considered the articles published in hospitality and tourism
journals. Future reviews may include other articles published in business journals. Fourth,
for the purpose of analysis, the present study only considered (Top-5) journals, future
researchers may include a comprehensive list that covers all hospitality and tourism
journals. Fifth, this research concentrated on trends derived from authors and journals.
Future studies may include other aspects such as the contribution of countries, regions and
institutions. Sixth, it was reported that many publications on social media relied primarily
on “consumer behaviour” theories. Future review of literature may identify a list of specific Research in
“consumer behaviour” theories that have been used by social media publications. Finally, hospitality and
the thematic trends appeared in the introduction stage of our proposed lifecycle framework
tourism
of social media were relatively new suggesting new research trends. Future research may
further explore new trends in the field such as green experience, management response,
crisis communication, customer relationship management and digital tourism, just to name
a few. 1061
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Further reading
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IJCHM Appendix 1
32,3
S. no Sources Articles S. no Sources Articles

1 Tourism Management 74 27 Journal of Heritage Tourism 5

2 International Journal of 52 28 Journal of Hospitality and Leisure 5
Contemporary Hospitality Marketing
1064 Management
3 International Journal of Hospitality 47 29 Journal of Sustainable Tourism 5
Management
4 Journal of Travel and Tourism 47 30 International Journal of Heritage 4
Marketing Studies
5 Journal of Vacation Marketing 34 31 Journal of China Tourism Research 4
6 Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 31 32 Leisure Studies 4
Technology
7 Journal of Hospitality Marketing 25 33 Tourism and Hospitality Research 4
and Management
8 Journal of Travel Research 25 34 Journal of Hospitality Leisure Sport 3
and Tourism Education
9 Information Technology and 22 35 Journal of Sport and Tourism 3
Tourism
10 Annals of Tourism Research 21 36 Place Branding and Public 3
Diplomacy
11 Cornell Hospitality Quarterly 21 37 Tourism Culture and 3
Communication
12 Current Issues in Tourism 18 38 Tourism Planning and 3
Development
13 Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism 17 39 International Journal of Event and 2
Research Festival Management
14 Tourism Management Perspectives 12 40 Journal of Convention and Event 2
Tourism
15 International Journal of Tourism 11 41 Journal of Ecotourism 2
Research
16 Journal of Quality Assurance in 11 42 Journal of Human Resources in 2
Hospitality and Tourism Hospitality and Tourism
17 Tourism Analysis 9 43 Journal of Teaching in Travel and 2
Tourism
18 Anatolia 7 44 Tourism Geographies 2
19 International Journal of Culture 7 45 Tourism Recreation Research 2
Tourism and Hospitality Research
20 Tourist Studies 7 46 Tourism Review 2
21 Worldwide Hospitality and 7 47 Journal of Foodservice Business 1
Tourism Themes Research
22 International Journal of Tourism 6 48 Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 1
Cities Education
23 Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 6 49 Journal of Leisure Research 1
Management
24 Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 6 50 Journal of Tourism and Cultural 1
Research Change
25 Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality 6 51 Leisure Sciences 1
Table AI. and Tourism
Social media article 26 International Journal of Hospitality 5 Total 601
counts and Tourism Administration
Appendix 2 Research in
hospitality and
Theme Keyword 2002-2006 2007-2012 2013-2018 Classification tourism
Online context Social networks 0 7 13 Growth
Photography 0 8 22 Growth
UGC 0 4 17 Growth
Online reviews 0 20 41 Growth 1065
Social media 0 13 89 Growth
Communication 3 1 0 Decline
Social networking sites 0 12 9 Decline
Platform Expedia 0 0 1 Introduction
Foursquare 0 0 1 Introduction
Google 0 0 1 Introduction
LinkedIn 0 0 1 Introduction
Booking.com 0 0 2 Introduction
Couchsurfing 0 0 2 Introduction
Flickr 0 0 4 Introduction
Twitter 0 0 6 Introduction
Pinterest 0 0 9 Introduction
TripAdvisor 0 1 17 Growth
Facebook 0 2 17 Growth
Web 2.0 0 8 10 Maturity
Online travel community 2 2 0 Decline
Virtual community 4 2 0 Decline
Blogs 0 19 12 Decline
Industry Hotel 0 2 9 Growth
Hospitality 0 2 14 Growth
Tourism 2 9 16 Growth
Travel 1 11 36 Growth
Research implications Brand commitment 0 0 1 Introduction
Crisis management 0 0 1 Introduction
Digital marketing 0 0 1 Introduction
Human resource management 0 0 1 Introduction
Marketing strategy 0 0 1 Introduction
Customer relationship management 0 0 2 Introduction
Digital tourism 0 0 2 Introduction
Green experience 0 0 2 Introduction
Green hotels 0 0 2 Introduction
International tourism 0 0 2 Introduction
Performance/expectations 0 0 2 Introduction
Recreation/pleasure/adventure 0 0 3 Introduction
Smart tourism/e-tourism 0 0 3 Introduction
Brand knowledge 0 0 4 Introduction
Risk perception 0 0 4 Introduction
Brand trust/image 0 0 5 Introduction
Management response 0 0 5 Introduction
Performance 0 0 6 Introduction
Crisis communication 0 0 7 Introduction
Big data 0 0 11 Introduction
Service recovery 0 2 5 Growth Table AII.
Trust 0 1 6 Growth Thematic
Motivation 2 2 7 Growth characterization of
Customer satisfaction 0 1 13 Growth keyword for life cycle
(continued) framework
IJCHM
Theme Keyword 2002-2006 2007-2012 2013-2018 Classification
32,3
Reputation management 0 2 13 Growth
Consumer behavior 0 6 13 Growth
eWOM 0 7 20 Growth
Internet marketing 2 4 3 Decline
Netnography 0 5 5 Maturity
1066 Viral marketing 0 1 0 Decline
Customer involvement/participation 0 2 0 Decline
Information sharing 0 2 0 Decline
Entertainment 0 3 0 Decline
Knowledge management/creation 0 3 0 Decline
Destination image 1 14 6 Decline
Tourism marketing 0 9 1 Decline
Destination marketing/management 2 17 12 Decline
Table AII. Decision-making 0 3 1 Decline

Corresponding author
Khaldoon Nusair can be contacted at: knusair@squ.edu.om

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