Robotics in the Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality Sector: A Bibliometric Analysis of Publications from 2014 to 2023

Abstract

This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of research publications (Virkus et al. 2023) on the application of robotics in the hospitality and tourism industry (Sharma 2024). Robotics is transforming various industries, including tourism, where technologies such as service robots, social robots, intelligent robots, and mobile robots are increasingly adopted (Ladeira 2023). Publications from 2014 to 2023 were collected from the Scopus database and analyzed (Carè and Cumming 2024) based on several criteria, including document type, language, publication year, country of origin, authorship, affiliations, sources, citations, keywords, and research areas. VOSviewer was used to visualize research trends related to the application of robots in hospitality and tourism. An analysis of 110 documents revealed a consistent increase in publications over the past decade, with China leading in publication output, followed by the United Kingdom and the United States. The International Journal of Hospitality Management emerged as the most prolific journal in this field, and the University of Surrey, Guildford, was identified as the leading institution in terms of publication volume. Keyword analysis underscored the primary research areas associated with service robots in tourism. This bibliometric study highlights the expanding literature on robotics applications within the tourism sector and serves as a valuable resource for researchers and industry stakeholders seeking to understand the current state and trends in the field (Valeri and Albattat 2024).