The Systematic Analysis of Tourist Guiding Knowledge

Abstract

In recent years, social network analysis and bibliometric analysis have been performed together to determine the structure of a particular field and the social structures of that field. In this study, it is aimed to reveal and map the social network structure of this field by examining the structure of the tourist guidance field in an integrated manner. In the study, the evolution of tourist guidance research between 1985 and 2019, the cooperation network between authors and institutions, research themes and common citation structure were examined. Data were obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection and Scopus databases. 245 research papers were analyzed using measures of centrality, Bonacich power, co-occurrence of keywords, and cocitation analysis. Research results identify major journals, articles, themes, authors, institutions, countries, and networks of cooperation between institutions and authors. As a result of the research, it is seen that the field is in a rising trend and the number of writers participating in the network is increasing. The most common keywords leading to the main clusters are “tour guide”, “tourism”, “guided tour” and “interpretation”, while the keywords “globalisation, education, representation and ecotourism” are more established themes in the field of tourist guidance is seen.