Co-authorship Networks and Thematic Development in Chinese Outbound Tourism Research

ABSTRACTOwing to the increasing number of contributions, related topics that were addressed, and contributing authors, Chinese outbound tourism was established as a research field in the mid-2000s. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature in the field via analysis of collaboration patterns and thematic development using a bibliometric approach. One-hundred and twenty-one academic articles published between 2006 and 2016 are retrieved from 16 tourism journals, and a relational analysis is performed by creating co-authorship and co-keyword networks. The results offer networks of collaborations between authors, institutions and the geographical origins of the research. This network analysis permits exploration of linkages among central authors and institutions. In addition, the results identify and discuss six main thematic areas of research. Significant structural characteristics of the research field, implications and unexplored research themes are presented and discussed.