ANALYSIS OF THE INFORMATIVE TERM THERMAL TOURISM IN SCOPUS

Abstract

Objective. The objective was to evaluate the status of the term thermal tourism in the international scientific literature for consultation and research use by universities, institutions and decision makers. Methodology. A bibliometric method was applied with the support of the Biblioshiny tool, analyzing 152 documents extracted from Scopus from 1975 to July 2024. The indicators evaluated were: annual scientific production, most productive publication sources, most prolific authors, most productive institutions, most cited articles, most frequent keywords, co-citation network, and collaboration network. Results. The year with the highest production was 2017 (19 articles), with the main source of contribution being the Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics conference (6 articles). Additionally, the University of Vigo (Spain) leads in contributions (17 articles) and is also the core of the most robust collaboration network along with Portugal. Discussion. Despite the growth of thermal tourism following the COVID-19 pandemic, there is low interest from the community in researching this topic. Conclusions. There is limited participation from South American institutions, despite the region's numerous thermal resources, which can be partly attributed to a lack of awareness and inadequate preservation and management actions by authorities and the local population. Originality. This study contextualizes the current scientific landscape of thermal tourism, offering an opportunity for researchers to contribute to the sustainable development of this sector in the region.