A NETWORK ANALYSIS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

•Identifies classic scholars and works influencing tourism research over 15 years.•Uses co-citation analysis to explore relationships between scholars and works.•Presents networks of influential scholars and works.•Identifies disciplinary clusters and interdisciplinary contributions.•Reveals networks, tribes and territories in tourism research.

This paper uses network analysis to identify the pioneering scholars and seminal works which have influenced recent papers in leading journals. The analysis extends beyond rankings of scholars by using co-citation networks to visualize the relationships between the most influential scholars and works and to uncover the disciplinary contributions which have supported the emergence of tourism as a field of academic study. The networks of scholars and works illuminate invisible colleges, tribes and territories in tourism research and indicate that while the social sciences have been most influential, business-related citations are increasing. The findings contribute to the discourse about the epistemology of tourism research by using bibliometric techniques to offer insights into the interdisciplinary structure of tourism research.