Bibliometric Analysis of Religious Tourism Studies

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to examine bibliometric analysis of articles and graduate theses published between 1998-2019 on religious tourism in Turkish literature and to guide researchers who want to work in this field. In this regard, the word "religious tourism" was searched in Turkish and English languages in the Academic Search database of the Council of Higher Education. In research, 46 of 98 publications consist of graduate thesis and 52 articles were examined. The data were analyzed by statistical software to make frequency and percentage analysis and the studies related to religious tourism were examined with bibliometric analysis. The studies related to religious tourism were analyzed in terms of the year of publication, type of the study, institution, research field and subject, research approach and design, research method, research analysis, data collection techniques, sample group and sample selection methods were examined. The most researched subject in the articles was on the evaluation of religious places within the scope of religious tourism, and in the theses the most researched subjects were the religious tourism potential of a region and the local people's perspective on religious tourism. In the study, it was found that in the articles were preferred mostly qualitative research methods, whereas in graduate theses mostly quantitative research methods were preferred. It is concluded that articles and theses using quantitative research methods generally benefit from basic level statistical analysis.