Artificial Intelligence and Tourism: A Bibliometric Visualisation Review (2015-2024)

Abstract

In recent years, technological advances have enabled the detection of changes in customer preferences and the review and adaptation of services in response. In this context, a tool that has been widely used in the tourism sector in recent years is Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI can be defined as a new trend that can solve many complex mathematical problems and algorithms, using comprehensive, computer-based systems to do so. In the tourism sector, this new tool has numerous applications: robots, chatbots, check-in/out or demand forecasting, among others. Therefore, this study, which employs bibliometric analysis, explores the relationship between AI and tourism to help policymakers and destination marketing organisations (DMOs) understand the main lines of research and identify the main applications of AI in tourism. Data were collected from 720 documents in the period 2015-2024 from the Web of Science database. VOSviewer software was used to create scientific maps showing the current and future lines of research in this scientific field. The results show evidence of research on ‘machine learning, deep learning and artificial neural networks in tourism’, ‘use of robots and AI in tourism’, ‘sustainability and AI in tourism’ and ‘acceptance of chatbots in tourism’.