What has been said about the reinvention of post-COVID tourism: A bibliometric analysis

This study focuses on the relationship between the effects of COVID-19 and tourism, regarding the most appropriate policies and strategies to relaunch the sector. Its main objective is to identify the mediating variables that help one understand the relationship established between the main variables (‘Policies’ and ‘Tourism Recovery’), as well as the relevance of the associations established between them. In this context, systematising the characteristics of scientific literature about this field contributes to a more solid knowledge of the most relevant aspects of crisis management in tourism. The effects of the pandemic crisis on diverse sectors of society, and on tourism in particular, caused serious economic, social, and psychological problems. This new reality implies rethinking policies and strategies that help to develop a more efficient tourism model in adverse conditions.

Bibliometric analysis is one of the most appropriate techniques to highlight new configurations between concepts and give meaning to themes that have not yet been explored (Herrera-Franco et al., 2021; León-Gómez et al., 2021; Sigala, 2020). Research was carried out in the SCOPUS and Web of Science (WOS) bibliographic databases, having been selected all the papers published from January 2020 to April 2021, which included the descriptors ‘Tourism and COVID-19’ in the title, abstract or keywords.

The underlying motivations for this study were, essentially, three: (1) bibliometric analysis on this topic is scarce and essential to guide future research; (2) it is crucial to give visibility to the work already carried out about the effects of this pandemic on tourism, crossing information, signalling gaps, and highlighting the most explored themes; (3) systematise the academic recommendations for the sector can contribute to reflect on the tourism organisation model and make it evolve in a more solid and grounded way.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had unprecedented negative effects on tourism worldwide. In addition to the serious economic crisis that ensued, insecurity at work and the decrease in social life caused changes in people’s behaviour, which began to be guided by fear, mistrust, and insecurity. At the psychological level, it is expected that the negative impacts will still have greater visibility in the daily organisation of people’s lives (Chica et al., 2021; Guo et al., 2021). For these reasons, the relaunch of the tourism sector is a priority, as the improvement in economic conditions is directly reflected in the social and psychological well-being of the populations. In this sense, more than talking about the recovery of tourism in the post-COVID period, it is important to assume tourism as a political option for the recovery from this global crisis, given the transversality of its impacts on society (Tzanelli, 2021; Wickramasinghe & Ratnasiri, 2020).

This literature review focuses on the need for a paradigm shift in tourism, highlighting the necessity for a change in the sector’s guiding policies, particularly on the following fields: (1) research and training; (2) social responsibility, encouraging ethics, equality, authenticity and helping the poorest; (3) network governance; and (4) technology. It is also highlighted regional autonomy in the elaboration and implementation of specific policies at the destination, leading to a development model that combines the sector's modernisation and competitiveness with the increase in its ability to manage crises (Benjamin et al., 2020; Chica et al., 2021; Hayes, 2021; Ivars-Baidal et al., 2021; Knight et al., 2021). On the other hand, tourism responses cannot be dissociated from social challenges, so governments should guarantee ethics and social responsibility in their planning, ensuring more equitable responses. The connection between business, health, education, and social well-being enriches the tourist experience, as it emphasises the companies’ commitment to the destinations, reinforcing the bonds between tourism and local identity.

This development model involves the governance of networked destinations, in which the active participation of stakeholders and the inclusion of local communities is fundamental. New perspectives on the shared economy emphasise the increase of collaborative tourism practices, due to the transformation that this operates in the way businesses are carried out. It is the articulated management of the components of this intricate system that will bring the economy closer to the environment, people, and technology. In this context, Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) must assume themselves to be integrated structures for the strategic thinking of tourism, ensuring sustainability, in its different dimensions (Çakar & Uzut, 2020; Carr, 2020; Coles, 2021; Dias et al., 2021; Gyimóthy et al., 2020; Kallmuenzer et al., 2021).

Developing resilient local economies involves supporting small-scale businesses, empowering them with resources and skills. Linking these to consolidated business fields facilitates entrepreneurs’ access to markets and encourages network innovation. This strategy is an important way to deal with the tourism crisis, in which local sustainability is the basis for competitiveness (Bravo et al., 2021; Cooper & Alderman, 2020; Del Río et al., 2020; Everingham & Chassagne, 2020; Lee et al., 2021, Rubio-Mozos et al., 2020; Sigala, 2020; Sharfuddin, 2020; Sheller, 2020).

Finally, human resources education in fields such as e-governance, leadership, decision-making and social responsibility is essential (Hayes, 2021). The pandemic crisis has led to an association between the loyalty of tourists and the perception of risk management in destinations. The transformation of commercial structures, smart tourism policies, more effective communication systems and monitoring of destinations, appear to be strategic fields in managing change in the sector. These seem to be the most relevant conditions to consider when it comes to formulating policies aimed at fostering confidence, an essential link to the revitalisation of tourism (Knight et al., 2021).

The literature review made it evident that the recovery of the tourism sector from the crisis caused by COVID-19 requires a multidisciplinary approach. Diverse problems emerged as a result of the pandemic crisis, demanding answers at different levels that would address the psychological, economic, and political dimensions of the crisis (Tzanelli, 2021; Wickramasinghe & Ratnasiri, 2020). The results provided by the empirical study were in line with these dimensions. However, it was verified that specific aspects for each of these perspectives emerge depending on whether the respective scientific source was provided by SCOPUS or WOS.

Regarding the psychological dimension, the articles in the WOS documentary sample associate ‘person’ with ‘buen vivir’, ‘region’, and ‘economic policy’. This indicates that there is an urgent need to reflect on regional/local policies that stimulate the quality of life of residents and tourists. A link is established between the binomial ‘tourism/people’s quality of life’ (see Table 6 and Figure 3). The documentary sample collected at SCOPUS suggests a similar path, refocusing the ‘tourism model’ on the ‘person’ associated with ‘experience’ and ‘economy’ (see Table 7 and Figure 4).

The ‘economy’ and ‘policy’ dimensions are observed in the themes that constitute the factors designated as ‘governance model’ and ‘crisis management’, evidenced in publications taken from the WOS database (see Table 6). The documents selected from the SCOPUS database regarding this issue emphasise the link between ‘tourism model’ and ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘research’ (see Table 7). It can be concluded that the analysis of the documents published in the SCOPUS database emphasises the conceptual component of the ‘tourism model’. This is more evident in what the ‘research’ refers to on the implications of ‘hospitality industry’ management practices and its progress towards sustainable economic models, focused on the tourist experience and local communities. The publications selected in the WOS database refer to the more operational side of the ‘tourism model’, associating the ability of destinations to overcome this crisis to the stimulation of local economies through governance models.

Finally, in relation to the political dimension, the analysis of the documents (see Figure 5) highlighted that refocusing policies on the regional/local level seems to be of utmost importance to tourism transformation and recovery. Governments have an important role in building this tourism model, guiding businesses towards sustainability, technological innovation, and revitalisation of rural and inland tourism. Moreover, stakeholder involvement is crucial in implementing this new paradigm. The transformational tourism model requires governance models that reconcile political constraints resulting from the pandemic and business innovation. The urgency to find answers that help people to re-establish confidence in tourism and zest for life can be highlighted here. The contribution of tourism to global economic development depends, to a large extent, on governance models that integrate sustainability, innovation, technology, and people at the local level.

This study provided a bibliometric analysis (Rafael & Pires, 2021) that made it possible to systematise the characteristics of scientific literature produced about the effects of COVID-19 on tourism, especially the policies and strategies adopted to relaunch the sector. The bibliometric analysis was carried out using the SCOPUS and Web of Science (WOS) databases, from January 2020 to April 2021. The search criteria followed the assumptions of the non-probabilistic Snowball sampling technique (Vinuto, 2014). A total of 613 documents containing references to the variables ‘Tourism’ and ‘COVID’ were considered, having been selected from 176 publications that met rigorous previously defined criteria. It was considered appropriate to conduct the data analysis from the two bibliometric databases separately, in order to highlight contrasting or coincident perspectives on the subject under study. The results were processed in SPSS and VosViewer software.

Four main dimensions were found that mediate the relationship between tourism and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, namely: (1) policies, enabling network governance and regional autonomy; (2) research, enhancing knowledge transfer and new teaching models; (3) economic collaborative approaches that support DMO's activities; and (4) network innovation that fosters positive change.

Through the analysis of these four dimensions, it was possible to reflect on the main effects that the new reality brought by COVID-19 will have on a new paradigm of tourism development. The results suggest that this will be more focused on host communities, implying a more efficient tourism model, based on sustainability principles. In addition, the regionalisation of policies, bringing the economy closer to the environment, will reinforce the territories' identity. Strengthening relationships among stakeholders is also central to the sector’s transformation. Finally, tourism is a vital sector in the recovery of the world economy, which depends, in part, on restoring people’s feelings of confidence in travel, destinations and tourism products. Tourism recovery policies must pay special attention to this dimension.

It is crucial that research will continue to follow the ongoing changes closely, either on the new business models and technologies, but also regarding tourism demand trends, especially the tourists' needs and behaviours. A solid knowledge about these dimensions will be fundamental to the development of more sustainable tourism destinations, based on the needs of people involved in the development process, host communities, tourists, workers, and entrepreneurs.