Night tourism: a bibliometric analysis of the state-of-the-art and future research directions using the Scopus database.

Abstract

Night tourism has emerged as a growing trend within the broader tourism industry, offering new opportunities for the advancement and transformation of destinations. Despite its increasing popularity, academic exploration of night tourism remains fragmented. This study employs a semi-systematic review method, incorporating bibliometric analysis to assess the current state of research and identify future research prospects. Forty-four high-quality scientific articles from the Scopus database were analyzed, revealing that night tourism continues to attract significant scholarly interest. The findings reveal a steady increase in night tourism research as evidenced by rising publication and citation trends. Co-citation analysis illustrates the interdisciplinary connections within the field. Keyword co-occurrence analysis identifies key themes, including tourist behavior, cultural heritage, sustainable development, economic impacts, and the nighttime economy, highlighting the breadth of focus areas in night tourism research. This study contributes to the night tourism literature by highlighting research gaps and suggesting future directions.