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Social media
A bibliometric analysis of
social media in hospitality
and tourism research
Khaldoon Nusair 2691
Department of Marketing, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
Received 13 June 2018
Irfan Butt Revised 4 March 2019
Accepted 21 March 2019
Department of Business Administration,
Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Canada, and
S.R. Nikhashemi
Department of Marketing, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman

Abstract
Purpose – While the importance of social media will continue to grow, the purpose of this study is to
provide a retrospective systematic literature review of the social media research published in major
hospitality and tourism journals over a specific time period.
Design/methodology/approach – The study conducted a bibliometric analysis to review the literature of
439 social media articles published in 51 hospitality and tourism journals over a 15-year time span (2002-2016).
Findings – Ulrike Gretzel authored the highest fractional citations. The results indicated that social media-
related research was mostly published in top-tier journals. The International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management was amongst the four leading journals in terms of the percentage of published social media articles.
While inter-country social media research collaborations were relatively modest, interestingly, inter-country
collaborations have been steadily increasing in the past five years. Another finding indicated that social media
research in hospitality and tourism journals has been predominantly quantitative. The results revealed six new
areas within the consumer behaviour research theme, namely, eWOM, service recovery, customer satisfaction,
brand/destination image and service quality. Finally, it is important to note that four new trends in social media
research appeared between 2011 and 2016, namely, big data, netnography, Travel 2.0 and Web 2.0.
Research limitations/implications – While this study made significant contributions to the social
media literature, some limitations do exist. For example, the current research excluded publications from
major conferences, books, book chapters and dissertations. Additionally, it is not within the scope of this
paper to take into account issues related to self-citations.
Practical implications – The results obtained from analysis contribute to a comprehensive understanding of
social media research progress in hospitality and tourism. For example, evaluating the performance of individual
scholars helps educational institutions to compete in the global university ranking system. Additionally, to compete
for funding opportunities on the topic of social media, institutions can use citation counts to demonstrate their
competitiveness. Furthermore, due to the expected future growth in the number of social media platforms,
practitioners need to understand motivating factors and tourists’ needs in different countries, target market
segments, age groups and cultures to create highly engaging communities around their brands.
Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the sample of this study synthesized the largest
selection of social media articles published in hospitality and tourism journals. This is the first study to apply
the fractional score at the author level, the adjusted appearance score at the university level and the average
citation score at the journal and inter-country levels in the analysis. In addition, prevalent research
International Journal of
orientations and research trends in social media made significant contributions to existing literature. Contemporary Hospitality
Management
Keywords Bibliometric analysis, Social media, Hospitality, Tourism, Publications, Vol. 31 No. 7, 2019
pp. 2691-2719
Citation analysis, Academic institutions © Emerald Publishing Limited
0959-6119
Paper type Research paper DOI 10.1108/IJCHM-06-2018-0489
IJCHM Introduction
31,7 The epistemology of social media research in hospitality and tourism provides immense
opportunities for the wider community of scholars (Choi et al., 2007; Kwok and Yu, 2013;
Leung et al., 2013; Minazzi, 2015; Moro and Rita, 2017; Sigala et al., 2012; Sotiriadis, 2017;
Varkaris and Neuhofer, 2017). For many years, hospitality and tourism scholars have
conducted bibliometric analysis to develop insights to advance the literature. This study
2692 adopted an epistemological analysis of the social media evolution using a bibliometric
approach. A bibliometric method offers a quantitative overview of academic literature
within a specified discipline over a period of time (Leung et al., 2017). In view of the
increasingly important role of social media networks in marketing communications, a large
number of journal articles have been published on this topic. In particular, documenting
the contribution of social media scholars, institutions, and regions in a given time frame is
important to understand the evolution of this discipline.
Scholars across different disciplines have examined the impact of journals and
authors (Hoeppner et al., 2012). For example, Lotka (1926) highlighted the importance of
research collaborations in improving university rankings. Previous studies (Au et al.,
2014; Benckendorff and Zehrer, 2013; Cho and Khang, 2006; Denizci Guillet and
Mohammed, 2015; Furrer et al., 2008; Hall, 2010; Jeung et al., 2011; Jin and Wang, 2016;
Jogaratnam et al., 2005; Li, 2008; Line and Runyan, 2012; MacKay et al., 2017; Nederhof,
2006; Oh et al., 2004; Saladin et al., 2015; Schmidgall et al., 2007; Tsang and Hsu, 2011;
Wagstaff and Culyer, 2012) have provided possible avenues for future research in the
general field of hospitality and tourism. While the use of social media networks will
continue to grow, there is a fundamental need to explore the current research literature on
social media in hospitality and tourism.
While the growing body of research examining social media in the hospitality and
tourism discipline has resulted in a large number of articles having been published, few
have focussed on bibliometric analysis. Unlike other literature review articles published
on social media, this paper attempted to take a more holistic approach by exploring the
impact of academic institutions, scholars and journals. Overall, this study departs from
prior studies on two major facets: breadth of scope and depth of analysis. For example,
while the study by Leung et al. (2013) selected 13 journals for the analysis, our study
examined 51 hospitality and tourism journals over a 15-year time span (2002-2016). We
adopted a multi-stage article selection process to identify articles in more than 100
hospitality and tourism journals. At the same time, a list of 47 social media-related
keywords was compiled for the initial article search. Overall, past analysis of social
media was limited to a few of the well-recognized journals over short time spans. To the
best of our knowledge, the sample of this study synthesized the largest selection of social
media articles published in hospitality and tourism journals. Our citation analysis
provided a retrospective analysis of social media research that extended far beyond
simple citation counts. This is the first study in a social media context to apply the
fractional score at the author level, the adjusted appearance score at the university level,
the average citation score at the journal and inter-country levels in the analysis. In
addition, exploring the prevalent research orientations in social media is another
contribution for this study. Finally, this paper sheds light on the current trends in social
media research and evaluates the future direction in which the field is heading. A
comprehensive review of the social media literature in hospitality and tourism gives us
the opportunity to guide scholars in planning their future research efforts. Specifically,
the objectives of this article are to:
  identify the prolific and leading scholars in social media research using fractional Social media
citation analysis;
 rank the influence of different universities in social media research according to (a)
the adjusted appearances analysis and (b) the total appearance analysis;
 rank academic journals in social media research in terms of (a) the number of
published articles and (b) citation analysis;
 examine the inter-country collaborations in terms of (a) number of articles and 2693
(b) citation analysis;
 examine the research orientations in social media research according to (a) journal
and (b) Australian Business Deans List (ABDC) ratings; and
 provide a progress review analysis of social media research in five main categories:
(a) platform; (b) industry; (c) research design; (d) theoretical development; and
emerging topics.

The following sections present the literature review, methodology, results, conclusion and
discussion, implications, limitations and, finally, suggestions for future research.

Literature review
Literature reviews in hospitality and tourism are primarily reflected in two streams of
research (Park et al., 2011; Schuckert et al., 2015). For example, the first stream examined
research contributions of leading scholars, universities and journals (Benckendorff and
Zehrer, 2013; Bowen and Sparks, 1998; Chandy and Gopalakrishna, 1992; Hall, 2010; Jeung
et al., 2011; Jin and Wang, 2016; Jogaratnam et al., 2005; Leung et al., 2017; McKercher, 2008;
Schmidgall et al., 2007; Tsang and Hsu, 2011; Yoo et al., 2011; Zhao and Ritchie, 2007). The
second stream investigated research methods and trends (Bilgihan et al., 2016; Costa, 1997;
Denizci Guillet and Mohammed, 2015; Dev et al., 2010; Jung et al., 2018; Khang et al., 2012;
Leung et al., 2013; Li, 2008; Line and Runyan, 2012; Oh et al., 2004; Tribe, 2010; Yoo et al.,
2011; Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014). To provide a detailed and a multi-dimensional view into the
future direction of social media research, this study adopted both streams of research. The
relatively high proportion of our analysis examined the scholarly productivity of authors,
journals, institutions and regions (first stream). Additionally, we shed light on the
progression of social media research orientations (second stream).
In the following section, a literature review of relevant prior studies will be discussed.

Prior studies
To identify high impact scholars in tourism studies, McKercher (2008) evaluated 58 papers
over two time periods (1970-2007 and 1998-2007). He argued that the use of Google Scholar
database allows the analysis of an unlimited number of journal articles and books. Also, to
analyse the productivity of individual authors along with their affiliations and research
productivity in various regions, Jogaratnam et al. (2005) investigated 11 major tourism
journals. The main objective of their study was to expand the breadth of analysis to cover
more hospitality and tourism journals and to simply report the quantity of research output
without providing recommendations or making judgments. Similarly, to enrich the existing
literature with extensive information about the 50 most prolific authors, their countries and
their affiliations, Park et al. (2011) analysed research profiles of scholars in six journals
(Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, International Journal of Hospitality
Management, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism
Research and Journal of Travel Research). To examine research contributions in hospitality
IJCHM and tourism, their research combined the fractional and the weighted fractional scoring
31,7 approaches. Park et al.’s (2011) study stimulated researchers to build new themes of
knowledge in the field. Additionally, Zhao and Ritchie (2007) investigated leadership in
tourism research by analyzing eight journals (Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of
Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing,
Journal of Tourism Studies, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Tourism Analysis and Tourism
2694 Recreation Research). Consequently, they identified the most prolific authors, universities
and countries in the era 1985-2004. In their study, they evaluated full-length articles and
excluded book reviews, conference proceedings, research notes and short communications.
To evaluate academic leadership in the field, they examined a large sample of journals over
a long time span adopting the author adjusted appearance scoring method. Finally, Au et al.
(2014) used citation count analysis from the Google Scholar database in six leading journals
to present insights into research performance in different universities and countries. In their
effort, Au et al. (2014) considered full-length academic articles, editorials, and conference
reports but excluded book reviews. It was recommended that research performance should
move beyond article counts and future research would benefit from the use of other metrics
including number of citations.
Line and Runyan, (2012) studied emerging topics in hospitality marketing by examining
four leading hospitality and tourism journals (Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, International
Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research and
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management) between 2008 and 2010.
This study highlighted the latest trends in marketing research and grouped them into three
themes, namely marketing function, marketing environment, and marketing research.
Finally, Denizci Guillet and Mohammed (2015) conducted a systematic literature review to
analyse the trends, methods and emerging issues in the domain of revenue management.
They reviewed academic articles in leading hospitality and tourism journals, following
McKercher’s (2008) study, between 2000 and 2009. The search of articles was conducted in
three databases: EBSCOhost, ScienceDirect and ProQuest. The study concluded that
revenue management studies in hospitality and tourism took a consumer-centric approach
and applied useful research methodologies.
Drawing on the existing citation analysis literature of social media in hospitality and
tourism, we identified two publications between 2002 and 2016. First, Leung et al. (2013)
used content analysis to examine all extant social media studies published between 2007
and 2011. This paper suggested that consumer-centric research concentrated on the
influence of social media on the travel planning process. Second, Zeng and Gerritsen (2014)
used literature review to analyse academic publications focussing on social media in
tourism. They noted that social media in tourism studies is still in the early development
stage. To overcome this limitation, a large range of articles was incorporated into our
literature review (refer to Table II for more details). Despite the noticeable increase in the
number of articles published in this emerging topic, no present publication has investigated
the productivity of scholars, universities and regions, in addition to research orientations
and research trends in social media in hospitality and tourism. The results of this research
are expected to fill this knowledge gap in the extant literature and to shed light on the future
direction of social media research.

Methodology
Our study used a systematic literature survey method “with defined research questions,
search process, data extraction and data presentation” (Kitchenham et al., 2009, p. 9). We
combined citation analysis (an important aspect of bibliometric analysis) with content
analysis. A systematic approach using Weber’s (1990) protocol was adopted for data Social media
collection, coding, and presentation.

Data collection
Unlike previous studies on social media, this study followed a rigorous and extensive multi-
stage process to identify and shortlist relevant articles. In the first stage, more than 200
related literature reviews were scanned to identify keywords for the initial search. In the 2695
second stage, keyword search was performed using keywords from the literature. Duplicate
and non-relevant papers were removed. The prior two literature review articles on social
media in hospitality and tourism (Leung et al., 2013; Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014) were included
in our analysis. To assure quality, journals that did not appear in ABDC (2016 version) were
removed. To remain true to the domain of this research, only hospitality and tourism
journals were retained. In the third stage, another keyword search was performed using 47
most frequently found social media keywords (compiled from articles in our sample) in 103
hospitality and tourism journals that were listed in ABDC. The detail for each stage is given
below.
Stage 1.

(1) An extensive review of literature was undertaken to identify systematic literature

reviews in hospitality, tourism, social media, social media and hospitality and
social media and tourism.
 Hospitality and tourism literature reviews: The search with “hospitality and
tourism” and “review” and subsequent reading of literature review sections of
papers found through the keyword search resulted in the identification of 150
literature reviews, including more than 100 systematic literature reviews.
Based on McKercher (2008) journal ratings, it was found that authors
predominantly selected ten or fewer hospitality and tourism journals.
 Social media literature reviews: The search with “social media” and “review” in
the title resulted in 70 articles. The abstracts of 70 articles were read to identify
eleven systematic literature review papers. The keywords used to identify
social media articles were compiled from the methodology sections of eleven
papers. The top nine keywords, with more than one occurrence in descending
order, were social media, social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, blog,
internet, Myspace, online and online communities.
 Hospitality, tourism and social media literature reviews: There are two prior
studies – Leung et al. (2013) and Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) – that synthesized
hospitality and tourism and social media literature. To identify relevant
articles, Leung et al. (2013) used hotel, hospitality, travel, tourism and social
media, while Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) used hospitality, travel, tourism,
tourist, social media, social networking, Web 2.0 and user-generated content.
Stage 2.

(2) Using nine keywords from social media literature reviews in combination with
hotel, hospitality, travel, tourism and tourist (Leung et al., 2013; Zeng and
Gerritsen, 2014), a search was performed on title, abstract and subject keywords of
“EBSCOhost” and “ScienceDirect” in June 2017. A total of 3,392 articles were
found. After removing duplicates, editorials, conference proceedings and book
reviews, a total of 2,023 articles remained, of which 867 were published in
IJCHM hospitality and tourism journals. Consistent with the context of our study, we
31,7 retained only 867 articles from hospitality and tourism journals.
(3) To ensure that our database included articles used by the two published studies in
this area (Leung et al., 2013; Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014), the listing of 44 articles in
Leung et al. (2013) was prepared from the article’s bibliography. Additionally, Dr
Zeng was requested to provide a list of the 165 journal articles used in their
2696 research paper (Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014). In total, 33 articles from Leung et al.
(2013) were from hospitality and tourism journals and 107 articles from Zeng and
Gerritsen (2014) were published in hospitality and tourism journals. After adding
65 articles from both studies, which were not in our initial listing of articles, the
total number of articles stood at 932.
(4) One post-graduate research associate was trained to enter the social media aspect
of each article in a separate column to ascertain relevance. The research associate
and one of the co-authors scanned the abstract of each article separately to identify
relevant articles. A total of 607 articles were deemed not relevant to social media
leaving 325 as the remaining sample size.
(5) To maintain quality standards, journal ratings from ABDC were entered for each
journal. After removing 14 articles from journals not listed in ABDC, 311 articles
were shortlisted.

Stage 3.

(6) The initial search was performed using keywords from the published literature
review in social media and hospitality and tourism. As we found only two relevant
studies, it was decided another keyword search would be performed by generating
new keywords from studies in the field of social media in hospitality and tourism.
The social media aspects of all the studies in our sample, previously entered by the
research associate to determine relevance, were compiled to identify most frequently
mentioned social media phrases. The 47 identified keywords are listed below:

Bebo, Blog, Blogs, Booking.com, Ctrip, ewom, Expedia, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Google,
Hotels.com, Igougo.com, Instagram, LinkedIn, Lonely Planet, Myspace, Online Communities,
Online Consumer Review, Online Review, Online Social Network, Online Word of Mouth,
Online Word-of-Mouth, Orbitz, Pinterest, Product Review, Snapchat, Social Media, Social
Networking, TravBuddy, Travel 2.0, Travelblog, Travelocity, Travel Pod, TripAdvisor,
Twitter, UGC, User Generated Content, User-Generated Content, Virtual Communities,
Virtual Community, Virtual Tourist, WAYN, Web 2.0, Yelp, YouTube, e-WOM.
As the keywords were earlier searched on only two databases, EBSCOhost and
ScienceDirect, there was a possibility that some of the hospitality and tourism journals were
not listed on these two databases. Therefore, it was decided to search 47 keywords in all the
hospitality and tourism journals listed in ABDC. Thus, keywords were searched in the Title,
Abstract and Subject Term in all the 103 hospitality and tourism journals. A total of 128
new articles were added to the database resulting in the final sample of 439. To verify that a
rigorous search process was followed, two independent researchers conducted the search
and the final outcomes were merged.
A step-by-step process of article selection after Stage 1 is given in Table I.
The development of the database and extraction of papers started in June 2017 and was
completed in November 2017. A brief comparison of our methodology (Table II) and type of
analysis (Table III) with existing literature reviews is given below.
No. Description Added Removed Retained
Social media
1 Search in Title, Abstract, and Subject term using 3,392 3,392
nine keywords in EBSCO Host and Science Direct
2 Duplicates 1,331 2,061
3 Editorials 38 2,023
4 Non-hospitality journals 1,156 867
5 Articles from Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) and Leung 65 932 2697
et al. (2013)
6 Articles not relevant 607 325
7 Journals not listed in ABDC 14 311 Table I.
8 Individual search using 41 Keywords in 103 128 439 Article selection
hospitality journals listed in ABDC process

Coding
The references for each article were exported from library databases to Refworks and then
to Excel. Each reference was assigned a unique ID. The data retained for analysis included
article title, journal name, publication year and author name. A coding sheet stating all the
categories such as qualitative, quantitative, conceptual, empirical and author’s geographical
affiliation was developed along with a definition of each category. Soft copies of all the
articles were downloaded. A data entry template was developed in Excel and a research
associate was trained to enter data. The research associate was initially given 20 articles at a
time and one of the co-authors cross-checked each entry for reliability until the percentage of
agreement reached above 95 per cent. Frequent meetings were held with the research
associate to discuss discrepancies and to clarify coding problems. There are two types of
coding categories – manifest and latent. Latent categories such as research orientation and
research approach, which require using judgement for coding, were also cross-checked by
the research associate and one of the co-authors to ensure a high degree of accuracy.
In an attempt to provide comprehensive reviews of the influential research on social
media in hospitality and tourism, this paper adopted citation analysis as the main technique.
Specifically, citation analysis examines the following scoring methods: fractional citations,
adjusted/total appearances, and average citations per year. A fractional scoring approach
was used to overcome the limitation of inflating the counts in the case of multiple authorship
articles. For example, one article published by a single researcher was assigned a one point
credit. However, if a single article was co-authored by four scholars from four different
institutions, the authors and universities would each receive 0.25 point. Total appearance is
the total number of articles co-authored by each institution while adjusted appearance is 1
divided by the number of authors in each study. Moreover, the total citation score for each
article is converted into a fractional citation for each author by multiplying citation with
adjusted appearance (Gauffriau and Larsen, 2005). The fractional citation is the extension of
adjusted appearance as it adjusts for the number of authors per study. While recent
published articles would have lower citations than less recent ones, average citations per
year are computed by dividing the total citations to the number of years since the article was
published.

Results
Consistent with previous research, we extracted raw data related to social media in
hospitality and tourism publications from the two most popular databases in the field,
namely “EBSCOhost” and “ScienceDirect”. However, we supplemented the search by
 31,7

studies
adopted
2698
IJCHM

Table II.

methodologies
Comparison of

study and past

between current
Leung et al. (2013) Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) Current paper

Databases Searched EBSCOhost, Science EBSCOhost, Web of Phase 1: EBSCOhost, Science direct;
direct, Google scholar Knowledge, Google scholar Phase 2: All hospitality (103) journals listed on ABDC
Keywords Used for Hotel, hospitality, travel, Hospitality, travel, Phase 1: hotel, hospitality, travel, tourism, tourist;
Hospitality tourism tourism, tourist Phase 2: All hospitality (103) journals listed on ABDC
Keywords Used for Social Social media Social media, social Phase 1: Social media, social
Media networking, Web2.0, user- networking, Facebook, Twitter,
generated Blog, Internet, MySpace, Online,
content Online communities
Phase 2: Bebo, Blog, Blogs,
Booking.com, Ctrip, e-WOM,
Expedia, Facebook, Flickr,
Foursquare, Google, Hotels.com,
Igougo.com, Instagram, LinkedIn,
Lonely Planet, Myspace, Online
communities, Online consumer
Review, Online review, Online-
social network, Online word-of-
Mouth, Orbitz, Pinterest, Product
review, Snapchat, Social media,
Social, Networking, TravBuddy,
Travel 2.0, Travelblog, Travelocity,
Travel pod, TripAdvisor, Twitter,
UGC, User-generated content,
User-Generated Content, Virtual
communities, Virtual community,
Virtual tourist, WAYN, Web 2.0,
Yelp, YouTube, e-WOM.
(continued)
 Leung et al. (2013) Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) Current paper

Process to identify social Not given Not given Phase 1: Based on existing
media keywords literature review studies on
hospitality and social media.
Phase 2: In-depth analysis of social media aspects of sample
studies
Restrictions Full-length, Not given Scholarly, Academic, Journal,
Academic, Journal English, Full-Length
Keywords searched in Not given Title, Topic, Subject Title, Abstract, Subject Term
(keywords)
Sample-Journal Articles- 44 165 439
Overall
Sample-Journal Articles- 28 73 439
Hospitality/Tourism
journals (ABDC) only
No. of journals- 13 22 51
Hospitality/Tourism only
Timeframe 2007-2011 2007-2013 2002-2016
Analysis Research streams Keyword analysis Citations, Methodology,
Globalization of research
Social media

2699

Table II.
IJCHM Leung et al. Zeng and Current
31,7 (2013) Gerritsen (2014) paper

Publications by journal x x
Publications by research stream x x
Keywords by frequency x x
Research by region x
2700 Research by country x
Journals: Total number of articles, rank, average citations per
year, total citations x
Authors per study by journal rating x
ABDC journal Ratings: Articles, total citations, average citations,
regional distribution x
Authors: Fractional citations per year, total fractional citations,
rank, total number of articles x
Table III. University: Total appearance, adjusted appearance, rank x
Comparison of Inter-country comparison (single country, multiple country): Total
analysis type number of articles, total citations, and average citations per year x
Research orientation (qualitative, quantitative, mixed): By journal,
between previous
ABDC rating x
studies and the Research trends: platforms, industry, research design
present study theoretical development, emerging topics x

individually searching relevant articles in 103 hospitality and tourism journals listed in
ABDC. Our search results produced the following academic journals: Tourism
Management, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, International Journal of Hospitality
Management, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Journal of
Hospitality Marketing and management, journal of vacation marketing, Information
Technology and Tourism, Journal of Travel Research, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Annals
of Tourism Research, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Current Issues in
Technology, International Journal of Tourism Research, Tourism Management Perspective,
Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality and
Tourism, Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism
Management, Tourist Studies, Tourism Analysis, International Journal of Culture, Tourism
and Hospitality Research, International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration,
Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, Tourism and Hospitality Research,
Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research, International
Journal of Heritage Studies, Leisure Studies, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Tourism
Planning and Development, International Journal of event And Festival Management,
International Journal of Tourism Cities, Journal of Convention and Event Tourism, Journal
of Ecotourism, Journal of Heritage Tourism, Journal of Hospitality and tourism Research,
Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, Journal of Sustainable
Tourism, Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism, Tourism, Tourism Culture and
Communication, Tourism Geographies, Tourism Review, Journal of China Tourism
Research, Journal of Foodservice Business Research, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism
Education, Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality and Tourism, Journal of Leisure
Research, Journal of Sport and Tourism, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, and
Leisure Sciences and Tourism Recreation Research Journals.
Several analyses were used to address our research objectives. With regard to objective
1, Table IV presents information about the most influential scholars between 2002 and 2016.
 Fractional citations Total fractional
No. Author per year (1) Rank (1) citations (2) Rank (2) Total citations (3) Rank (3) Articles

1 Goldsmith, Ronald E. 58.26 1 524.33 6 1,573 5 1

2 Schmalleger, Doris 41.89 2 377.00 9 377 24 1
3 Seegers, Daphne 41.13 3 329.00 11 658 12 1
4 Vermeulen, Ivar E. 41.13 3 329.00 11 658 12 1
5 Xiang, Zheng 40.19 5 796.50 3 1,629 3 3
6 Browning, Victoria 36.75 6 220.50 20 441 22 1
7 O'Connor, Peter 33.57 7 235.00 17 235 39 1
8 Litvin, Stephen W. 30.38 8 536.83 5 1,598 4 2
9 Pan, Bing 29.65 9 823.00 2 2,469 1 3
10 Hsu, Yu-Lun 29.40 10 147.00 31 147 55 1
11 Wenger, Anita 23.22 11 209.00 22 209 45 1
12 Salvi, Fabiana 23.17 12 69.50 60 139 60 1
13 Serra Cantallops, Antoni 23.17 12 69.50 60 139 60 1
14 Maclaurin, Tanya 22.57 14 225.67 19 677 11 1
15 Gu, Bin 21.67 15 173.33 27 520 18 1
16 Bronner, Fred 21.25 16 127.50 35 255 33 1
17 De Hoog, Robert 21.25 16 127.50 35 255 33 1
18 Carson, Dean 20.89 18 188.00 24 188 46 1
19 Gerritsen, Rolf 19.50 19 58.50 68 117 69 1
20 Zeng, Benxiang 19.50 20 58.50 68 117 69 1
21 Pantelidis, Ioannis S. 19.43 21 136.00 33 136 65 1
22 Volo, Serena 18.23 22 272.00 14 272 31 2
23 Van Hoof, Hubert 17.88 23 71.50 58 286 30 1
24 Jeong, EunHa 17.58 24 105.50 40 211 44 1
25 Liu, Zhiwei 17.50 25 35.00 89 70 85 1
26 Park, Sangwon 17.50 25 35.00 89 70 85 1
27 Gretzel, Ulrike 17.18 27 949.50 1 1,930 2 8
28 Jacobsen, Jens Kr Steen 16.45 28 184.00 25 368 25 3
29 Hays, S. 16.00 29 80.00 49 240 37 1
30 Page, S. J. 16.00 29 80.00 49 240 37 1
31 Mauri, Aurelio G. 15.63 31 62.50 62 125 66 1
32 Munar, Ana M. 15.43 32 418.50 8 656 14 6
(continued)

in social media
Ranking of authors
Table IV.
Social media

2701

research
 31,7

2702
IJCHM

Table IV.
Fractional citations Total fractional
No. Author per year (1) Rank (1) citations (2) Rank (2) Total citations (3) Rank (3) Articles

33 Guillet, Basak Denizci 15.42 33 92.50 42 185 47 1

34 Nga, Ling Chan 15.42 33 92.50 43 185 47 1
35 Thevenot, Guillaume 15.30 35 153.00 29 153 52 1
36 Luo, Qiuju 15.25 36 30.50 93 61 92 1
37 Zhong, Dixi 15.25 36 30.50 93 61 92 1
38 Månsson, Maria 14.50 38 87.00 45 87 79 1
39 Sparks, Beverley A. 13.35 39 273.17 13 599 16 4
40 Chiappa, G. D. 13.00 40 52.00 76 52 101 1
44 Ye, Qiang 12.50 41 252.58 16 837 9 3
42 Knolle, Friederike 12.50 41 75.00 52 150 53 1
43 Papathanassis, Alexis 12.50 41 75.00 52 150 53 1
41 Glover, Troy D. 12.50 41 62.50 62 125 66 1
45 Beukeboom, Camiel J. 12.33 45 24.67 98 74 82 1
46 Dijkmans, Corné 12.33 45 24.67 98 74 82 1
47 Kerkhof, Peter 12.33 45 24.67 98 74 82 1
48 Germann Molz, Jennie 12.00 48 48.00 77 48 102 1
49 Yu, Quaehee 11.87 49 178.00 26 534 17 1
50 Zhan, Fangzi 11.75 50 47.00 78 94 75 1
51 Fesenmaier, Daniel R. 11.58 51 637.50 4 1,455 6 5
52 Enoch, Yael 11.57 52 81.00 48 81 80 1
53 Wang, Youcheng 11.52 53 444.00 7 1,066 7 3
54 Buckley, Ralf 11.50 54 46.00 81 138 62 1
55 Perkins, Helen E. 11.50 54 46.00 81 138 62 1
56 Thal, Karen 11.13 56 44.50 83 89 76 1
57 Flavián, C. 10.86 57 76.00 51 228 40 1
58 Hvass, Kristian A. 10.70 58 53.50 74 107 73 1
59 Leung, Daniel 10.58 59 91.17 44 345 28 2
60 Li, Yijun 10.57 60 74.00 55 296 29 1
(continued)
 Fractional citations Total fractional
No. Author per year (1) Rank (1) citations (2) Rank (2) Total citations (3) Rank (3) Articles

61 Pudliner, Betsy A. 10.40 61 104.00 41 104 74 1

62 Tussyadiah, Iis P. 10.25 62 233.50 18 467 19 3
63 Choi, Soojin 10.07 63 198.33 23 607 15 2
64 Ladhari, Riadh 10.00 64 20.00 101 40 105 1
65 Michaud, Mélissa 10.00 64 20.00 101 40 105 1
66 Ayeh, Julian K. 9.42 66 149.67 30 449 21 4
70 Masiero, Lorenzo 9.33 67 28.00 97 56 99 1
67 Ert, Eyal 9.33 67 9.33 111 28 109 1
68 Fleischer, Aliza 9.33 67 9.33 111 28 109 1
69 Magen, Nathan 9.33 67 9.33 111 28 109 1
71 Jang, S ooCheong (Shawn) 9.21 71 107.17 39 216 42 2
72 Hudson, Simon 9.19 72 59.00 67 147 55 2
73 Hiemstra, Stephen J. 9.08 73 118.00 37 354 26 1
74 Lee, Chang 9.08 73 118.00 37 354 26 1
75 Baka, Vasiliki 9.00 75 9.00 114 9 114 1
76 Allen, Jonathan P. 8.75 76 35.00 89 70 85 1

Notes: Cut-off Point: Authors with Fractional Citations of 7.0

Table IV.
Social media

2703
IJCHM The primary ranking of the authors was based on the number of fractional citations
31,7 acquired by the author per year with the fractional citation cut-off point of 7.0. Additionally,
ranking is also provided in terms of total fractional citations and total citations. Most of the
fractional citations per year were acquired by Ronald E. Goldsmith. His article was
published in Tourism Management and the total number of citations for this paper was
1,573 (until 2016). Goldsmith had 58.26 fractional citations per year, so this author can be
2704 regarded as the most influential author in the field. The second most influential author was
Doris Schmalleger, with around 41.89 fractional citations per year. Finally, two researchers
appeared third on the list, namely, Daphne Seegars and Ivar E. Vermeulen, both with 41.13
fractional citations per year. Additionally, Ulrike Gretzel had published a total of eight co-
authored articles. The total number of citations co-authored by Ulrike Gretzel was 1930.
However, the citation of each paper is divided by the number of authors to calculate
fractional citations. Gretzel’s work received the second highest number of citations, 1,930
with total fractional citations of 949.50.
According to Simion (2013), most social media scholars in hospitality and tourism are
affiliated with university research networks. To address research objective 2(a), Table V
provides information about the top 81 performing academic institutions achieving the
highest number of authors in those papers (total appearances). The ranking was based on
the adjusted appearance. Adjusted appearance is calculated to remove the bias introduced
from multiple authored articles. Hong Kong Polytechnic University is the number one
leading university in social media research with 30.82 adjusted appearance and 87 total
appearances. However, it should be noted that a significant gap exists between Hong Kong
Polytechnic University and Purdue University. Purdue, which achieved the second position
in social media research with 11.48 adjusted appearance and 37 total appearances. In total,
37 universities acquired less than five total appearances, and 27 universities had total
appearances between six and ten. Hong Kong Polytechnic University is clearly a main
contributor to the extant social media literature. Scholars from Hong Kong Polytechnic
University co-authored a total of 47 papers. However, some of their papers were co-authored
with researchers from other universities, so their adjusted appearance is 30.82. The total
number of authors in those articles was 87. This finding is consistent with past research
(Jogaratnam et al., 2005; Tsang and Hsu, 2011). For example, Tsang and Hsu (2011) ranked
Hong Kong Polytechnic University as the most productive institution in hospitality and
tourism research. This might be due to the fact that the School of Hotel and Tourism
Management stimulates an effective research environment, one which supports the popular
social media stream in hospitality and tourism research. Some of the most prolific authors
from Hong Kong Polytechnic University include Rob Law, Markus Schuckert, Norman Au,
Bob McKercher, Julian Ayeh and Steve Pan. Another factor contributing to the research
dominance of Hong Kong Polytechnic University is most likely related to the in-house
editing of four leading scholarly hospitality and tourism journals, particularly focussing on
topics related to the latest technological innovations (e.g. social media networks) in
hospitality and tourism practices. It is important to point out that our study provides
university rankings in terms of the total number of published articles, however, the quality
of publications is not considered in the ranking.
Academic journals make a considerable effort in imparting the latest developments in
hospitality and tourism research (Ballantyne et al., 2004). The assessment of research
objective 3(a) supports the remarkable increase in the total number of journals that give
attention to the emerging topic of social media (Table VI). Four leading journals topped the
list in terms of the percentage of articles published in social media: Tourism Management
(13 per cent), Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing (9 per cent), International Journal of
 Social media
Rank Adjusted Total
No. University (AA) appearance appearance

1 Hong Kong Polytechnic University 1 30.82 87

2 Purdue University 2 11.48 37
3 University of Florida 3 10.67 28
4 University of Central Florida 4 9.70 27
5 University of the Aegean 5 7.50 11 2705
6 University of Nevada 6 7.25 22
7 Bournemouth University 7 6.75 18
8 Griffith University 8 6.33 15
9 James Cook University 9 5.58 13
10 Texas A&M University 10 5.42 12
11 Texas Tech University 11 5.25 13
12 Harbin Institute of Technology 12 5.23 18
13 University of Southern Denmark 13 5.00 9
14 Temple University 14 4.83 12
15 Copenhagen Business School 15 4.50 7
16 University of Houston 16 4.25 9
17 University of Waterloo 17 4.17 8
18 California State University 18 4.08 7
19 College of Charleston 18 4.08 12
20 Sun Yat-sen University 20 3.95 9
21 MODUL University 21 3.92 8
22 Southern Cross University 22 3.83 9
23 University of South Carolina 23 3.67 10
24 Charles Darwin University 24 3.50 5
25 Victoria University 25 3.50 8
26 Deakin University 26 3.15 13
27 Oklahoma State University 27 3.08 9
28 Kyung Hee University 28 3.00 8
29 Arizona State University 28 3.00 7
30 University of Girona 28 3.00 8
31 University of Queensland 28 3.00 5
32 University of Surrey 28 3.00 10
33 Pennsylvania State University 33 2.98 11
34 Peking University 34 2.95 15
35 Virginia Tech 35 2.92 9
36 George Washington University 36 2.75 8
37 Iowa State University 37 2.67 7
38 Zhejiang University 38 2.58 8
39 George Brown College 39 2.50 3
40 National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism 40 2.33 5
41 McGill University 40 2.33 6
42 Taylor’s University 42 2.25 3
43 Syracuse University 43 2.17 7
44 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 44 2.08 6
45 Dongseo University 45 2.00 3
46 Free University of Bozen-Bolzano 45 2.00 2
47 Kainan University 45 2.00 4 Table V.
48 Middlesex University Dubai 45 2.00 2 Ranking of
49 Nanyang Technological University 45 2.00 3 universities in social
(continued) media research
IJCHM
31,7 Rank Adjusted Total
No. University (AA) appearance appearance

50 Rovira i Virgili University 45 2.00 3

51 Ryerson University 45 2.00 5
52 University of Lleida 45 2.00 3
2706 53 University of Otago 45 2.00 3
54 University of Western Australia 45 2.00 3
55 University of Wolverhampton 45 2.00 3
56 GD Goenka World Institute 45 2.00 6
57 University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 45 2.00 6
58 Florida State University 58 1.92 6
59 University of Denver 59 1.90 6
Table V. 60 Bocconi University 60 1.75 5

Hospitality Management (8 per cent) and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality

Management (8 per cent). In addition, it provides a ranking based on the total number of
articles published in those journals. Our results highlighted a key conclusion that social
media-related research was primarily published in top-tier journals as around 66 per cent of
publications were in the top ten journals.
The number of citations for an academic journal is indicative of both the quality and the
impact of the journal (Xiao and Smith, 2006). To address research objective 3(b), Table VII
lists the rankings of 49 most frequently cited journals from 2002 to 2016. A total of 23,165
citations were reported from different journals over the study period. The topmost
influential journal was Tourism Management with 8,671 citations, followed by Journal of
Travel Research with 1,867 citations and International Journal of Hospitality Management
with 2,386 citations (Table VII). The rank of journals (second column in Table VII) was
based on the average citations per year (third column in Table VII). Together, the first 15
journals comprised 89 per cent of total citations. Between the years 2002 and 2016, articles
on social media were published in 51 different hospitality and tourism journals. When
reading the findings in Table VII, it is necessary to highlight that the current study ignored
the self-citation bias as suggested by Nisonger’s (2000) work, in which he suggested that it is
not essential to adjust for journal self-citations in citation analysis.
University influence in hospitality and tourism-related research differs across countries.
Inter-country research collaboration is an indispensable tool that enhances the quality of the
work being published. Research collaboration in hospitality and tourism has been an
ongoing practice among scholars in different countries around the world (Leung et al., 2017).
To address research objective 4(a and b), Table VIII provides a list of leading collaborations,
total citations and average citations per year. The USA tops the list with more
collaborations than any other country. For example, authors from USA and China produced
15 research articles in total with an average citation of 4.55 per year. In contrast, researchers
from China-Hong Kong produced ten articles in total with an average citation of
10.30 per year. Additionally, authors from three or more countries (China-Canada-
Australia, Australia-Germany-Sweden, UK-Portugal-Switzerland, UK-Switzerland-Spain,
UK-Australia-Austria, USA-Australia-Finland, USA-Australia-Turkey, USA-UK-Hong
Kong, USA-UK-France-Switzerland, USA-Malaysia-Indonesia, USA-Denmark-Switzerland,
USA-China-South Korea and USA-China-Hong Kong) collaborated on various research
projects. Finally, according to the data in Table VIII, there has been a remarkable
Journal Rank Articles % of total
Social media
Tourism Management 1 56 13
Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 2 38 9
International Journal of Hospitality Management 3 37 8
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 4 29 7
Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management 5 28 6
Journal of Vacation Marketing 6 27 6 2707
Information Technology and Tourism 7 23 5
Journal of Travel Research 8 18 4
Cornell Hospitality Quarterly 9 17 4
Annals of Tourism Research 10 16 4
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology 11 13 3
Current Issues in Tourism 12 12 3
International Journal of Tourism Research 13 10 2
Tourism Management Perspectives 13 10 2
Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research 15 8 2
Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism 16 7 2
Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes 16 7 2
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 18 6 1
Tourist Studies 18 6 1
Tourism Analysis 20 5 1
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 21 4 1
International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration 21 4 1
Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 21 4 1
Tourism and Hospitality Research 21 4 1
Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research 25 3 1
International Journal of Heritage Studies 25 3 1
Leisure Studies 25 3 1
Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 25 3 1
Tourism Planning and Development 25 3 1
International Journal of Event and Festival Management 30 2 0
International Journal of Tourism Cities 30 2 0
Journal of Convention and Event Tourism 30 2 0
Journal of Ecotourism 30 2 0
Journal of Heritage Tourism 30 2 0
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research 30 2 0
Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education 30 2 0
Journal of Sustainable Tourism 30 2 0
Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism 30 2 0
Tourism Culture and Communication 30 2 0
Tourism Geographies 30 2 0
Tourism Review 30 2 0
Journal of China Tourism Research 43 1 0
Journal of Foodservice Business Research 43 1 0
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education 43 1 0
Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality and Tourism 43 1 0
Table VI.
Journal of Leisure Research 43 1 0
Journal of Sport and Tourism 43 1 0 Ranking of journals
Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 43 1 0 publishing social
Leisure Sciences 43 1 0 media research by
Tourism Recreation Research 43 1 0 number of articles
IJCHM Average
31,7 citations Total
Journal Rank per year citations

Tourism Management 1 25.92 8,671

Journal of Travel Research 2 18.69 1,867
International Journal of Hospitality Management 3 15.22 2,386
2708 Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research 4 14.00 56
Cornell Hospitality Quarterly 5 11.50 903
Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 6 10.40 104
Tourism Management Perspectives 7 10.05 400
Journal of Vacation Marketing 8 9.93 1,896
Annals of Tourism Research 9 9.92 810
Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 10 8.68 154
Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 11 8.41 1,481
Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management 12 8.08 1,344
Current Issues in Tourism 13 7.98 386
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 14 5.83 144
Tourism and Hospitality Research 15 5.31 186
Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research 16 4.63 121
International Journal of Tourism Research 17 4.60 271
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology 18 4.53 306
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 19 4.50 394
Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education 20 4.46 34
Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research 21 4.17 24
International Journal of Heritage Studies 22 4.00 33
Information Technology and Tourism 23 3.95 619
Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 24 3.73 48
Tourism Geographies 25 3.67 22
Journal of Sport and Tourism 26 3.44 31
Tourism Planning and Development 27 3.14 34
Journal of China Tourism Research 28 3.00 6
Tourism Review 29 2.88 23
International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration 30 2.85 61
Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism 31 2.58 26
Journal of Convention and Event Tourism 32 2.33 24
Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality and Tourism 33 2.20 11
Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism 34 2.11 71
Tourist Studies 35 2.08 29
Journal of Sustainable Tourism 36 1.88 12
Leisure Studies 37 1.85 34
Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes 38 1.64 41
Tourism Analysis 39 1.60 32
International Journal of Event and Festival Management 40 1.58 19
Journal of Ecotourism 41 1.56 22
International Journal of Tourism Cities 42 1.50 3
Table VII.
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education 43 1.00 1
Ranking of journals Tourism Culture and Communication 44 0.75 6
publishing social Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 45 0.67 10
media research by Journal of Foodservice Business Research 46 0.50 2
citations Journal of Heritage Tourism 46 0.50 2
 Social media
Countries Articles Total citations Average citations per year

USA-China 15 261 4.55

China-Hong Kong 10 382 10.30
USA-South Korea 7 319 8.01
Australia-Hong Kong 3 161 10.94
China-Australia 3 46 6.50
Australia-China-Hong Kong 2 58 14.50 2709
Denmark-Norway 2 229 35.46
UK-France 2 12 2.58
UK-Hong Kong 2 70 11.67
USA-Australia 2 12 6.00
USA-Austria 2 234 19.50
USA-Hong Kong 2 11 3.75
USA-Taiwan 2 9 1.35
Australia-Greece 1 26 13.00
Australia-UK 1 25 8.33
Australia-Zimbabwe 1 1 0.50
Austria-Germany-Sweden 1 9 3.00
Belgium-Italy 1 0 0.00
Canada-China-Australia 1 32 10.67
China-Israel 1 18 6.00
France-Monaco 1 5 2.50
Germany-Italy 1 0 0.00
Hong Kong-New Zealand 1 26 13.00
Hong Kong-Switzerland 1 0 0.00
Hong Kong-Thailand 1 3 1.50
Hong Kong-Macau 1 14 7.00
Italy-Malaysia 1 7 1.75
Japan-Taiwan 1 0 0.00
The Netherlands-Hong Kong 1 8 2.67
The Netherlands-Portugal 1 28 14.00
Norway-Denmark 1 139 27.80
South Africa-UAE 1 73 14.60
Spain-Ireland 1 50 10.00
Spain-UK 1 27 13.50
UAE-Hong Kong 1 1 1.00
UK-Argentina 1 3 3.00
UK-China 1 70 35.00
UK-Georgia 1 12 4.00
UK-Germany 1 150 25.00
UK-Italy 1 0 0.00
UK-Philippines 1 36 7.20
UK-Portugal-Switzerland 1 22 11.00
UK-Spain 1 18 6.00
UK-Switzerland 1 58 7.25
UK-Switzerland-Spain 1 53 10.60
USA-Australia-Austria 1 74 10.57
USA-Australia-Finland 1 40 6.67
USA-Austria-Turkey 1 14 2.80
USA-Bulgaria 1 71 10.14 Table VIII.
USA-Canada 1 677 67.70 Inter-country
USA-China-Hong Kong 1 520 65.00 comparison of social
USA-China-South Korea 1 0 0.00 media research
(continued) collaborations
IJCHM
31,7 Countries Articles Total citations Average citations per year

USA-Denmark 1 34 8.50
USA-Denmark-Switzerland 1 14 3.50
USA-Malaysia-Indonesia 1 21 2.63
USA-Oman 1 11 11.00
2710 USA-Thailand 1 2 1.00
USA-UK 1 11 3.67
USA-UK-France-Switzerland 1 5 2.50
Table VIII. USA-UK-Hong Kong 1 286 71.50

contribution from scholars in USA and Canada who received the highest total number of
citations. While the analysis in this paper indicated that inter-country collaborations in the
area of social media research were relatively modest, interestingly, inter-country
collaborations have been steadily increasing, averaging 25 per cent in the past five years.
Research objective 5 is related to research orientations in social media. In hospitality and
tourism research, the trend has been to use qualitative research for developing research
hypotheses and then to use quantitative analysis to validate research findings (Davies, 2003;
Lee et al., 2008; Walle, 1997). Statistics presented in Table IX [objective 5(a)] indicate that
quantitative research is predominant over qualitative social media research studies. For
example, 75 per cent of articles published in Tourism Management used quantitative
research methods. The popularity of quantitative approaches may be due to the maturity of
qualitative theories and models in hospitality and tourism studies (Tsang and Hsu, 2011).
While social media research tends to be empirical, however, we need to interpret our
findings with caution as it can be debated that both qualitative and quantitative research
methodologies are needed for innovative research on this emerging topic. This finding calls
for more attention to be directed towards theory building in the field of social media
(qualitative research).
The statistics in Table X [objective 5(b)] summarize the methodologies adopted in ABDC
journals. It can be observed from the figures that researchers tend to use quantitative
methods more than any other research methods. Over 60 per cent of articles used
quantitative methods, while only 40 per cent of articles used qualitative and mixed research
methods. Table X reveals that 68.22 per cent of “A*” rated journals applied quantitative
methods in social media research. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that quantitative
social media quantitative research articles were published in high quality journals.
To address research objective 6(a, b, c, d, and e), the results in Table XI show a
retrospective analysis of social media research trends in two sub-periods: 2002-2007 and
2011-2016. Five categories were identified to track the growth and impact of social media on
hospitality and tourism research, namely, platform, industry, research design, theoretical
development and emerging topics. It is clear that there is a growth pattern on all five
categories from 2002-2007 and 2011-2016. The period of 2011-2016 observed a significant
rise in the number of investigated social media platforms in the hospitality and tourism
literature. In the period between 2002 and 2007, the impact of only 6 social media platforms
was studied in the literature, while in the period between 2011 and 2016, the number
surpassed 51 platforms. Our analysis indicated that social media continues to increasingly
influence all sectors within the hospitality and tourism industry, such as tourism
organizations in general, travel businesses, destinations and hotels/lodgings. The largest
share of research was relevant to the general tourism industry, followed by the hotel/lodging
Journal Articles MM QL QN MM (%) QL (%) QN (%)
Social media
Tourism Management 56 6 8 42 10.71 14.29 75.00
Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 38 0 10 28 0.00 26.32 73.68
International Journal of Hospitality Management 37 4 3 30 10.81 8.11 81.08
International Journal of Contemporary 29 2 7 20 6.90 24.14 68.97
Hospitality Management
Journal of Hospitality Marketing and 28 3 7 18 10.71 25.00 64.29 2711
Management
Journal of Vacation Marketing 27 2 9 16 7.41 33.33 59.26
Information Technology and Tourism 23 2 6 15 8.70 26.09 65.22
Journal of Travel Research 18 3 4 11 16.67 22.22 61.11
Cornell Hospitality Quarterly 17 3 3 11 17.65 17.65 64.71
Annals of Tourism Research 16 1 11 4 6.25 68.75 25.00
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology 13 3 2 8 23.08 15.38 61.54
Current Issues in Tourism 12 2 4 6 16.67 33.33 50.00
International Journal of Tourism Research 10 2 2 6 20.00 20.00 60.00
Tourism Management Perspectives 10 1 3 6 10.00 30.00 60.00
Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research 8 3 3 2 37.50 37.50 25.00
Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality and 7 0 1 6 0.00 14.29 85.71
Tourism
Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes 7 0 3 4 0.00 42.86 57.14
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 6 1 3 2 16.67 50.00 33.33
Tourist Studies 6 0 6 0 0.00 100.00 0.00
Tourism Analysis 5 0 3 2 0.00 60.00 40.00
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and 4 1 3 0 25.00 75.00 0.00
Hospitality Research
International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 4 1 0 3 25.00 0.00 75.00
Administration
Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and 4 0 2 2 0.00 50.00 50.00
Tourism
Tourism and Hospitality Research 4 1 2 1 25.00 50.00 25.00
Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism 3 0 1 2 0.00 33.33 66.67
and Hospitality Research
International Journal of Heritage Studies 3 3 0.00 100.00 0.00
Leisure Studies 3 3 0.00 100.00 0.00
Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 3 1 1 1 33.33 33.33 33.33
Tourism Planning and Development 3 2 1 0.00 66.67 33.33
International Journal of Event and Festival 2 1 1 0.00 50.00 50.00
Management
International Journal of Tourism Cities 2 1 1 50.00 50.00 0.00
Journal of Convention and Event Tourism 2 2 0.00 0.00 100.00
Journal of Ecotourism 2 2 0.00 100.00 0.00
Journal of Heritage Tourism 2 1 1 50.00 0.00 50.00
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research 2 1 1 0.00 50.00 50.00
Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and 2 2 0.00 100.00 0.00 Table IX.
Tourism Education
Journal of Sustainable Tourism 2 1 1 50.00 0.00 50.00
Research orientation
Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism 2 1 1 50.00 50.00 0.00 comparison across
hospitality and
Notes: MM: mixed methods; QL: qualitative research; QN: quantitative research tourism journals
IJCHM industry. A summary analysis of research designs in collected social media articles reported
31,7 5 quantitative articles and 7 qualitative articles in the period 2002-2007 compared to 227
quantitative articles, 103 qualitative articles and 41 mixed method articles in the period
2011-2016. The present study supported the conclusion that social media research in
hospitality and tourism adopts quantitative research approaches. Finally, with respect to
theoretical development, our results showed that social media research experienced
2712 significant growth between the two sub-periods. In the period 2002-2007, social media
research was limited to basic research in consumer behaviour. In the period 2011-2016, six
new areas within the consumer behaviour research theme emerged, namely, eWOM, service
recovery, customer satisfaction, brand/destination image and service quality. Finally, it is

ABDC Rating Articles MM QL QN MM (%) QL (%) QN (%)

A* 129 15 26 88 11.63 20.16 68.22

A 176 14 52 110 7.95 29.55 62.50
B 115 15 42 58 13.04 36.52 50.43
Table X. C 19 3 8 8 15.79 42.11 42.11
Research orientation Total 439 47 128 264 10.71 29.16 60.14
comparison in ABDC
rating Notes: MM: mixed methods; QL: qualitative research; QN: quantitative research

Keywords occurrence (N) Keywords occurrence (N)

Category (2002-2007) (2011-2016)

Platforms Trip advisor (2), Blog (3), Facebook (180), Tripadvisor (143), Twitter (143),
Virtual Tourist.com (4), Wine. YouTube (62), Blog (56), Flickr (42), My Space
com (1), Hotel blogs 2.0 (1), (28), Expedia (21) Linkedin (12), Travel Blog
Travelrants.com (1) (21), Booking.com (15), Instagram (14), Ctrip (9),
Yelp (14), Pinterest (11), Google (11), Yahoo (11),
FourSquare (10), IgoUgo (9), Wikis (9), Hotels.
com (8), Lonelyplanet (8), Bebo (7), Wikepedia
(7), Amazon (6), Digg (6), WAYN (6), Orbitz (5),
Travelocity (5), Travel 2.0 (5), Tumblr (5),
Virtual Tourist (5), Lonely, Travbuddy (4),
Couchsurfing (3), Planet (3), Virtual Tourist (3),
Agoda (3), Weibo (3), Flyer Talk (2), Travel blog
(1), Travelers Point (1)
Industry Tourism (7), travel (3), hotel (1), Tourism (79), travel (27), hotel/lodging (69),
destination (2) destination (48)
Research design Quantitative research methods Quantitative research methods (227), qualitative
(5), qualitative research research methods (103), mixed research
methods (7) methods (41)
Table XI. Theoretical Consumer behaviour (2) Consumer behaviour (56), eWOM (65), brand/
Progress review of development destination image (30), service recovery (26),
customer satisfaction (21), service quality (10)
social media Emerging topics Web 2.0 (32), netnography (13), big data (12),
scholarship in Travel 2.0 (4)
hospitality and
tourism discipline Note: N: Keyword occurrence (Frequency)
important to note that four new trends in social media research appeared between 2011 and Social media
2016, namely, big data, netnography, Travel 2.0, and Web 2.0.

Discussion and conclusion

This paper provided an extensive systematic literature review to evaluate social media
research performance in the field of hospitality and tourism. It adopted a bibliometric
approach to analyse 439 academic social media articles published in 51 hospitality and 2713
tourism journals in the period between 2002 and 2016. The main contribution of this paper is
threefold: to identify the most influential scholars, universities and regions in the field of
social media; to explore prevalent social media research orientations (quantitative,
qualitative and mixed methods); and to provide a progress review analysis of social media
research trends in five main categories (platforms, industry, research design, theoretical
development and emerging topics). The research builds on the measurement of research
performance of bibliometric research in hospitality and tourism and adopts a variety of
quantified metrics to investigate the objectives of study, including fractional citations,
adjusted appearances, total citations and average citations per year. In fact, there is a dearth
of social media studies using fractional score to rank scholars or the adjusted appearance
score to evaluate universities. The study showed that there was a steady growth in social
media research during the study period. Our findings extended earlier bibliometric research
on social media studies and suggested some useful implications.
The present study analysed institutional, journal and scholar contributions. One aim of
the current research was to identify the most prolific authors in social media research
between 2002 and 2016. This study combined fractional citations per year and total
fractional citations in the analysis. Thus, our research eliminated the bias of either inflating
or deflating the individual contribution of authors. Ulrike Gretzel was the most productive
author in terms of number of publications and total fractional citation score. Evaluating the
performance of individual scholars helps educational institutions to compete in the global
university ranking system. Also, it helps academic administrators to set the standards for
faculty annual evaluations, compensation, teaching loads, research grants and promotions.
Further, the volume of published articles is a fundamental determinant of the quality of
academic institutions (Heck and Cooley, 1988). Our findings indicated that Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, Purdue University, University of Florida and University of Central
Florida were some of the most prolific universities in social media research. Achieving
world-leading research position in the emerging topic of social media can bolster a
university’s public image in the world’s most popular ranking systems such as Academic
Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), QS World University Ranking, and Times Higher
Education World University Ranking (THE). Citations are an important part of university
rankings, for example they make up 20 per cent for ARWU and QS rankings, and 30 per cent
of THE rankings. Research productivity also accounts for 6 per cent of THE ranking.
Additionally, shrinking of research budgets faced by many universities today is another
motivation to improve research performance. Most research funding opportunities are
intended to stimulate high priority research on pivotal topics relevant to the hospitality and
tourism industry. Hence, to compete for research grant opportunities awarded by other
universities and funding agencies, institutions can use citation counts to demonstrate their
competitiveness and contribution to knowledge (Au et al., 2014).
Consistent with other studies (Judge et al., 2007), our study found that top-tier journals
received a high proportion of citations compared to lower tier journals. The topmost
influential journals in terms of the average citations per year were Tourism Management,
Journal of Travel Research and International Journal of Hospitality Management. Our
IJCHM findings indicated that nearly two-thirds of publications in social media research were
31,7 published in top ranked journals. Interestingly, a very small percentage of social media
studies were published in “C” rated journals, while the majority of articles were published in
high impact factor journals (A* and A rated journals). Recruitment, tenure and promotion
are increasingly determined by the number of articles and citations by individual authors in
a selective list of quality journals. Several academic studies have also demonstrated that
2714 social media platforms are becoming highly significant in the tourism industry (Leung et al.,
2013). Therefore, academics engaged in hospitality and tourism research are increasingly
publishing social media research in top-tier journals, keeping up with the constant changes
in this dynamic industry.
While social media research in the field of hospitality and tourism has become a popular
topic, inter-country research collaborations were rarely observed with a few exceptions to
this finding. Some of the inter-country research collaborations’ challenges include
“geographical”, “cultural proximity”, and “historical proximity” (Finardi and Buratti, 2016).
Interestingly, the most prolific inter-country collaborations in social media were observed in
countries with low geographical, cultural and historical proximities including USA-China
and USA-South Korea. However, a closer look at the names of authors collaborating from
USA, China and South Korea reveals that the majority of authors from USA have cultural
proximity as their last name indicates affiliation with the Asia Pacific region. A possible
explanation for the infrequent inter-country collaborations may relate to the fact that
research is mostly funded and organized at the national level. Therefore, there is a need to
apply new perspectives to inter-country collaborations within the field. For example, a
“large consortia of research institutions” based in several countries working on a “themed
programme of research projects” as practiced in UK and European Union can enhance inter-
country collaborations in social media.
Furthermore, social media researchers in hospitality and tourism journals use various
methods to report their findings. Our analysis provided a deeper review of research methods
adopted by social media researchers. The results obtained from our bibliometric analysis
offered a strong base to justify the growing trend of adopting quantitative methods as a
primary research orientation in social media research. Our conclusion is consistent with
Khang et al.’s (2012) study as it confirmed the dominance of quantitative research methods
over both qualitative and mixed research methods. The majority of articles adopted
quantitative research designs, while studies that attempted to use qualitative and mixed
research designs have been modest. The quantitative method fit in social media research
could be largely attributed to the popularity of advanced software tools for statistical data
analysis in near real time such as SPSS, AMOS, STAT and SYSTAT, which are often used
to test research hypotheses and to give credibility to findings and conclusions. On the other
hand, qualitative data are non-numerical, being made up of words and observations. It is the
researcher’s responsibility to report quality results based on his/her ability to present valid
arguments, while providing a fair presentation of data (Michael, 2011). It is important to note
that although social media research is quantitative in nature, some journals focus on
qualitative research (e.g. Annals of Tourism Research) and others focus on mixed methods
research (e.g. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research).
The present study found a remarkable rise in the number of social media platforms
studied in the hospitality and tourism industry where social media has transformed travel
marketing. Different social media platforms bring knowledge to travel communities and
influence tourists’ behaviours in distinct ways. For example, WAYN is a social media
network for travel and lifestyle that is more popular in the UK than in the USA. Foursquare
is another social media network that provides tourism-related product recommendations
based on the current location of the traveller, while Pinterest is more popular with women Social media
than with men. Hence, based on our findings, it can be assumed that a number of new social
media networks will be introduced in the future for the hospitality and tourism industry.
Accordingly, practitioners need to understand motivating factors and tourists’ needs in
different countries and target market segments, age groups and cultures to create highly
engaging communities around their brands.
A key contribution of this study highlighted that major theoretical developments in
consumer behaviour have been witnessed in the hospitality and tourism field. Social media 2715
research in consumer behaviour appeared to be in its infancy between 2002 and 2007, while a
considerable number of studies have explored this subject in the period of 2011-2016. During
the latter period, topical coverage heavily increased in areas targeting consumer behaviour
research. For example, for the period 2011-2016 considerable attention was paid to eWOM as
it has become the ultimate form of marketing in social media research. Due to the growing
importance of online reviews, topical areas such as customer satisfaction, image, service
quality, and service recovery have become major issues for researchers and practitioners in
the hospitality and tourism industry. Service failure incidents on social media have negative
impacts on the image of service providers. Well-developed service recovery systems on social
media that acknowledge problems and offer timely resolutions are needed to satisfy
customers and improve service quality. Hence, social media scholars in hospitality and
tourism have been closely examining the underlying consumer behaviour theories. This, in
turn, would guide theoretical development and improve industry practices on this topic.
Finally, the results demonstrated that the period 2011-2016 has witnessed the emergence
of hot topics in this area of research, such as Web 2.0, Travel 2.0, big data and netnography.
The rapid growth of second generation social media technologies such as Web 2.0 and
Travel 2.0 (a replica of Web 2.0 but specific for the tourism industry) has transformed
hospitality and tourism industry practices from marketing to customer service. The result is
a myriad of new technologies to engage with tourists, improve brand image and build long-
lasting communities. Furthermore, netnography in social media studies refers to the
analyses of “cybercultures” and hidden insights of users in social media communities.
However, this area is still understudied and will require more focus from hospitality and
tourism scholars. Similarly, Big data has evolved in the hospitality and tourism industry as
a data-driven strategy based on real actions generated by tourists. The finding of this
review indicated that limited studies have examined this area of research.

Limitations and future research

This research paper has a number of limitations. First, this study attempted to provide a
holistic view of social media research between 2002 and 2016, however research in social
media in hospitality and tourism started in 2000 (Aho, 2001). It is not our intention to
dismiss the contribution of authors who published between 2000 and 2001. Thus, future
research may compare the contributions of scholars, universities, and regions over
longitudinal studies; one from 2000-2010 and the second from 2011-2020. Second, the current
research excluded publications from major conferences, books, book chapters, and
dissertations. This presumably leads to deeper understanding of the emerging trends
related to social media. Third, while scholars usually cite their own work to inform readers
about their prior work, it is not within the scope of this article to discuss whether self-
citations are associated with research quality in social media. However, self-citations may
affect the quality of the reported results in citation analysis. This creates another window of
opportunity for future researchers to analyse self-citations as a metric to evaluate the impact
of leading scholars in the field.
IJCHM High numbers of citations could also be a result of the “Matthew effect” which states that
31,7 papers authored by well-known researchers are likely to get higher recognition (Merton,
1968). It is, therefore, important to examine the context in which the social media article was
cited. Additionally, a more diverse research design should contribute to the advancement of
social media research. It was noted that publication trends are typically constrained to
research papers using quantitative research methods, with very few articles using qualitative
2716 and mixed research methods published in social media research. Therefore, qualitative and
mixed research methodologies are presented as a new avenue in social media research.
Last, at this point more research involving different topical areas in consumer behaviour,
methodological approaches and data analysis techniques of netnography are deemed to be
promising pathways for future research on this topic. With the surge in user-generated
content on social media platforms in hospitality and tourism, businesses need to use social
media analytics tools to make data-driven decisions. Our findings indicated that Web 2.0,
Travel 2.0 and big data have emerged as new trends in social media research. However, it
was also reported that the potential of big data and Travel 2.0-related studies in hospitality
and tourism have been insufficiently studied. Surprisingly, there has been a dearth of
research involving the adoption of modern technologies in social media (e.g. Web 3.0, 3.5 and
4.0). Moving forward, it is necessary to expend more research efforts on these advanced
trends as they will guide future social media research objectives in hospitality and tourism.

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

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