Title: Past, present and future of virtual reality research landscape in tourism and hospitality using bibliometric analysis

Authors: Bhavna Agarwal; Sunita Singhal; Ashok Kumar; Bhoopendra Bharti; Sohail Yasin Ahmad

Addresses: Department of Management, KCC Institute of Legal and Higher Education, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201306, India ' Department of Management, KCC Institute of Legal and Higher Education, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201306, India ' Department of Management, PSIT College of Higher Education, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh 209305, India ' Department of Management Studies, Guru Nanak College, Jhajhra, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248007, India ' ICFAI Business School, ICFAI University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248197, India

Abstract: The study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis to synthesise virtual reality (VR) publication patterns in tourism. Consequently, this study examines the historical, current, and prospective research on virtual reality in tourism. The document has been extracted from the Scopus database, and a total of 461 documents have been selected for bibliometric analysis after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. The citation analysis is used to identify the most influential publications and contributors. The productivity analysis is employed to determine the most prolific authors and sources. Five thematic clusters are uncovered: VR presence, virtual technology, immersive technology, mixed reality, and virtual tours using bibliographic coupling. Co-citation analysis is employed to uncover patterns of citation and highly referenced documents. Additionally, co-occurrence analysis is employed to establish the thematic trends in research on virtual reality in tourism. The future directions for research are presented in the respective section.

Keywords: virtual reality; mixed reality; virtual tours; bibliometric analysis; citation analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPMB.2025.149983

International Journal of Process Management and Benchmarking, 2025 Vol.21 No.4, pp.477 - 498

Received: 05 Feb 2024
Accepted: 08 Jun 2024
Published online: 20 Nov 2025 *

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