A bibliometric analysis of trust in the field of hospitality and tourism

Abstract

The emerging field of trust has evolved dramatically with an increasing number of academic publications in this area. However, there is a lack of better clarification to draw a global picture of scientific knowledge, from a statistical perspective, using the three structures of knowledge: conceptual, intellectual, and social, to obtain a structured overview of its characteristics, identify dynamic aspects and find intellectual representations. This paper presents a new insight into scientific production through bibliometric (Bibliometrix) and network (VOSviewer) analysis, not previously fully clarified in hospitality and tourism. A total of 305 articles published between 2004 and 2020 were analyzed, covering 580 authors, 19 journals, and 43 countries. This research’s main findings showed that trust is one of the most decisive variables in the digital market, and keywords such as satisfaction, loyalty, service quality are closely related. The results provide clues for further investigation in this field.