25 YEARS OF BIG DATA AND TOURISM MARKETING: THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
(R2021-104578)

AUTHORS

SOFIA BLANCO-MORENO, UNIVERSITY OF LEÓN; ANA MARIA GONZALEZ-FERNANDEZ, UNIVERSITY OF LEÓN; Pablo Antonio Muñoz-Gallego, Universidad de Salamanca

KEYWORDS

Big Data; Science Mapping Analysis; Tourism marketing

ABSTRACT

Big Data has transformed ways of processing information in Tourism enabling market analysts to gain a better understanding of tourist behaviour. This investigation constitutes perhaps the first exhaustive bibliometric analysis of the applications of Big Data in tourism marketing. Using the SciMAT program we identified three distinct periods in the last twenty-five years: digitalization of information (1996-2006); acceleration (2007-2016); and consolidation (2017-2020). The principal themes include: “patterns”; “WOM”; “behaviour”; “destination marketing”; “revenue management”; “geo-tagged content”; “analytics”; and “smart tourism”. Our analysis reveals the most used statistical analysis techniques, the most relevant foci of investigation, the principal challenges and potential business implications.