Natural Disasters and Tourism Research Progress: A bibliometric analysis

In recent years, natural disasters have become more frequent and severe, causing significant damages and deaths in many countries worldwide. Although several case studies have addressed how natural disasters affect tourism, there have been very limited studies that investigate the key themes and trends of natural disasters and tourism. Accordingly, this study aims to examine the current state and trends of scientific research on natural disasters and tourism by using a bibliometric approach. Secondary data consisting of 363 Scopus-indexed studies published over the period from 2000 to March 2023 were extracted and analyzed by VOSviewer software. The findings of the study show a remarkable growth in research related to natural disasters and tourism. In terms of the number of publications and most productive institutions, Indonesia was the leading country in this topic. The IOP conference series: earth and environmental science were the top source of publications on the study topic. Furthermore, the keyword analysis reveals that tourism, climate change, natural disaster, tourist destination, disaster management, tourism development, sustainable development, tsunamis, and floods are key hotspots in research. The study concluded that future research should be focused on climate change related disasters and tourism, especially the adaptation and resilience of the tourism industry towards such kind of disasters.