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Abstract

The study aims to evaluate research trends of ecotourism, which has attracted wide attention by both researchers and policymakers as an important way to realize sustainable tourism. Bibliometric analysis was carried through the 2,531 records related to ecotourism searching from Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI), and Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP) databases from 1990 to 2016. A total of 4,138 keywords were divided into three categories: topical keywords, case-related keywords, and research methods–related keywords. They, respectively, were analyzed on overall development as well as the dynamic changes by three divided stages of ecotourism research. The results showed that Tourism Management was the most prolific journal. U.S.-based authors published more often than those from any other country, whereas among research institutions, the Chinese Academy of Sciences was the most prolific contributor. It also revealed that conservation was the key focus, protected area was the main study object, and sustainable tourism was the main aim. The top three countries for cases study were China, the United States, and South Africa, and the main methodologies were contingent valuation method and geographic information system. According to the dynamic analysis, research perspectives changed from ecotourism resources to management and subsequently expanded to multistakeholders involvement, with a rapid expansion of the case and implementation of quantitative research methods. With multidisciplinary involvement and multistakeholders participation, the study of tourist awareness and behavior on ecotourism would become the main aspects for deepening and concreting ecotourism research. Our findings provide a quantitative understanding of global ecotourism research features.

Keywords

ecotourism bibliometric analysis dynamic changes sustainable tourism

Introduction

Ecological environment pollution has become a difficult and restrictive factor of regional sustainable development (Zhang & Wen, 2008). With increasing awareness of environment protection, ecotourism has become a special interest tourism and considered as an effective way of achieving sustainable development (Buckley, 1994; Pforr, 2001; Ramos & Prideaux, 2014).The concept of ecotourism emerged in the 1980s to address the negative impacts of traditional tourism, such as environmental damage and cultural erosion. Thus, ecotourism generally was considered to fall within sustainable, ecologically sustainable, environmentally appropriate, and environmentally responsible tourism (Farrell & Runyan, 1991; Sharpley & Duffy, 2006; Wight, 1993). The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), which was found in 1990, first proposed an authoritative definition of ecotourism, and after years of exploration, presently defined ecotourism as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education” (TIES, 2015).

In a span of over 30 years of development, a large number of studies of ecotourism from various aspects emerged worldwide, such as framework establishment (Fennell, 2001; Fleischer, 2010; Ross et al., 1999), function and valuation (He et al., 2008; D. N. B. Lee & Snepenger, 1992; Wendy & Jim, 2012), environmental capacity (Sagoff, 1995; Kang & Xu, 2010; Shi et al., 2015), community participation (S. Jones, 2005; Scheyvens, 1999; Stem et al., 2003; Stronza & Gordillo, 2008), ecotourists’ intention and behavior (Russell, 1995; Shamsub & Lebel, 2012; Teeroovengadum, 2019), and so on. Being an effective way to realize sustainable tourism, ecotourism has been studied not only in various types of natural areas but also in different countries and regions. There were many publications based on ecotourism, and the trends of ecotourism research have received continuous attention (Das & Chatterjee, 2015; Liu et al., 2013; Nzengy’a, 2004; Sun & Gao, 2012; Weaver & Lawton, 2007). However, a comprehensive statistical review of global ecotourism research was not reported.

In this study, bibliometric analysis was used to quantitatively and qualitatively investigate the global research trend of ecotourism during the period from 1990 to 2016. Specifically, this article aims at identifying (a) the general patterns for document type, publication output, journals and contribution of territories/countries and institutions in ecotourism research; (b) the overall development of the research topics, the geographic areas of case study, and the research methods in ecotourism; (c) the characteristics of dynamic changes of ecotourism research at developing stages. This study might visualize features of global ecotourism research that may serve as a potential guide for future studies.

Materials and Methods

The Web of Science (WoS), developed by Thomson Reuters Inc., is regarded as a comprehensive research platform. WoS has been used as literature database for bibliometric analysis of tourism research (Schubert & Glänzel, 2007). Therefore, WoS is chosen as the source database for bibliometric analysis in this study.

The Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) are commonly used databases, covering influential journals (Gu, 2004). In addition, the Conference Proceedings Citation Index, including Conference Proceedings Citation Index – Science (CPCI-S) and Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH), revealing emerging trends and new ideas before they appear in journals, should not be neglected. Therefore, the strings “ecotourism” (or) “eco-tourism” (or) “ecological tourism” were used to search titles, abstracts, and keywords of the documents published between 1990 and 2016 in the database of SCI-E, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI-S, and CPCI-SSH. Since the first authoritative definition of ecotourism was proposed in 1990, our bibliometric analysis began at this time. All publication used in this work was downloaded on March 2, 2017. A total of 2,531 records were obtained. The documents were analyzed according to document type, country or territory and institutions affiliation of authors, study country/territory, and keywords.

The bibliometric indicators, including document type, publication year, distribution of publications by country or territory, journal, research institution, international collaboration, and keywords, were imported into Microsoft Excel 2013 and then used for further analysis. The affiliations of authors were geocoded by CiteSpace 5.0.R2 and the worldwide geographic distribution of authors was plotted using ArcGIS 10.2. Co-word analysis, based on social network analysis (SNA), was employed in this study to reveal the hotspots of ecotourism research. Among the data obtained, only 1,672 records could be used to analyze the co-word network, as 606 publications did not include keywords. The author names and keywords were extracted from the 1,672 records. To prevent the results from being distorted by words having synonyms, each keyword’s synonyms were combined. Ultimately, a total of 4,138 keywords, 60 of which are used in more than 10 articles, were divided into three categories: topical keywords (related to the research content and subject), case-related keywords (related to the geographic areas being studied), and research methods–related keywords (related to research and data analysis methods). Based on this, the topical keywords used Gephi 0.9.1 for co-word analysis and Ucinet 6 for clustering analysis. The case-related keywords were processed using the inverse distance weight interpolation technique in ArcGIS 10.2, while the research methods–related keywords were analyzed by computing the descriptive statistics.

Results and Discussion

Document Type

In this study, 12 document types were identified from the total of 2,531 publication records during the last 27 years. Among them, article (1,582 records) was the most frequently used document type, accounting for 62.50% of total publications and was followed far behind by conference proceedings (696, or 27.50%), book reviews (91, or 3.60%), reviews (73, or 1.56%), editorials (33, or 1.30%), and meeting abstracts (27, or 1.07%). Other document types, for example, note, letter, news item, book chapter, correction, book review, and poetry, accounted for less than 1%.

Characteristics of Published Output

The annual amount distributions of all documents and the top three document types related to ecotourism during the last 27 years are counted and displayed in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Annual amount of all documents and the top three document types related to ecotourism during the last 27 years.

The number of annual publications showed a rapid growth, increasing from 2 in 1990 to 196 in 2016, and a fluctuating growth with two fast-growing nodes appearing in 1996 and 2007. Examining the trends of different document types, the growth curve of articles is the most closely aligned with that of the total document count.

According to a standard practice in bibliometrics (De Bellis, 2009), only articles were selected among all publications for analysis of research output features. Specifically, 1,673 articles accounting for 66% of the total literature were analyzed. A growth trend was apparent in the annual counts of published articles, authors, and cited references. The annual publication count increased from 2 in 1990 to 196 in 2016, representing an annual growth rate of 96%, while the fraction of authors writing about ecotourism grew by approximately 322.5% between 1990 and 2016, demonstrating that an increasing number of scholars were interested in ecotourism. Similarly, the average number of cited references per ecotourism publication, numbering 5 in 1990, rose steadily to 50 in 2016. The continuous increase of publications and references was illustrative of a positive growth trend.

Combined with the annual changes in publications caused by the social activities of ecotourism, the total development was divided into three stages.

The initial stage: 1990–1999

The concept of ecotourism was put forward but did not draw much attention from 1990 to 1993. The first definition of ecotourism was proposed by TIES in 1990, attracting extensive attention. With the proposal of a sustainable development strategy by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, much more attention was given to environmental protection in tourism development (Buckley, 1994; Goodwin, 1996). As an effective way of sustainable tourism development, ecotourism was promoted both in theory and practice (Masberg & Morales, 1999; Ross et al., 1999; Scheyvens, 1999). With rising social interest, the quantity of academic research related to ecotourism has also increased. This stage peaked in 1996, when growth in research output slowed down. During the following years, the annual publication count of documents remained stable at approximately 40 until 1999. As this period was characterized by a low cumulative output (fewer than 250 publications), it was named the initial stage of ecotourism research.

The rapid growth stage: 2000–2009

After a decade of development, the concept of ecotourism had been widely accepted. It could be said that ecotourism research entered a rapid growth stage since 2000. Beginning in 2002, the year designated the International Year of Ecotourism (IYE), research was being conducted worldwide, with more in-depth exploration aiming at an accurate understanding of ecotourism (Fennell, 2001; Weaver, 2005). In addition, the International Ecotourism Standard, another important achievement of the IYE, was regarded as a complete and practical guide to ecotourism activities. Promoted globally, ecotourism has drawn greater attention from academic researchers. Under this background, the publication output related to ecotourism experienced small fluctuations between 2001 and 2004 and showed a rapid growth beginning in 2005. By 2009, it was nearly 2 times more than 2005, as ecotourism commenced in the Third World (Chok et al., 2007; Mowforth & Munt, 2008).

The steady growth stage: 2010–2016

The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) celebrated World Tourism Day 2010 under the theme “Tourism and Biodiversity,” emphasizing a close relationship between tourism and environmental protection, promoting the international spread of the concept of ecotourism. Driven by this, the annual publication count stayed in the peak amount since 2009, exceeding 200 in 2012 and subsequently experiencing stable growth.

Journals Rankings

Table 1 shows the statistics for the top 10 journals most active in ecotourism during 1990–2016, including the total counts of publications and citations, the average number of citations per publication, and the impact factors.

Table 1.

Top 10 Most Active Journals in Ecotourism During 1990–2016.

Journal title	TP (%)	TC	TC/TP	IF
Tourism Management	102 (4.03)	2,800	27.45	3.14
Journal of Sustainable Tourism	85 (3.36)	1,153	13.56	2.48
Annals of Tourism Research	81 (3.20)	1,769	21.84	2.275
Biological Conservation	42 (1.66)	1,528	36.38	3.985
Environmental Management	35 (1.38)	581	16.60	1.857
Biodiversity and Conservation	35 (1.38)	835	23.86	2.258
International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology	35 (1.38)	199	5.69	1.609
Environmental Conservation	34 (1.34)	971	28.56	2.235
Ocean & Coastal Management	31 (1.22)	283	9.13	1.696
PLOS One	29 (1.15)	256	8.83	3.057
Total	2,531	26,373
Average			10.42

Note. TP = total publications; TC = total citations; TC/TP = average citations per publication; IF = impact factor.

The top three most prolific journals were all in the field of tourism, accounting for more than 10% of the total publication count. Among the top three, Tourism Management with the highest impact factor of 3.14 boasts the highest total publication count of 102, as well as the total count of 2,800 citations. It was noteworthy that journals ranked between 4 and 9 by total publication count were in the field of environmental science rather than tourism. Among such environmental science journals, Biological Conservation has the highest impact factor of 3.985 among the top 10 journals, as well as the highest average number of citations per publication (36.38). The focus areas of the top 10 published journals indicate that ecotourism not only was an important part of tourism research but also receives much attention from environmental science aspect.

Contribution of Territories/Countries and Institutions

The contribution of the top 10 territories/countries and research institutions from 1990 to 2016 is shown in Tables 2 and 3, respectively.

Table 2.

Contribution of the Top 10 Territories/Countries During 1990–2016.

Country	TP	TP R (%)	SP R (%)	CP R (%)	FA R (%)	RP R (%)
USA	646	1 (25.50)	1 (16.12)	1 (9.40)	1 (20.9)	1 (19.44)
China	361	2 (14.30)	2 (12.45)	6 (1.82)	2 (13.47)	2 (8.46)
UK	239	3 (9.44)	4 (4.58)	2 (4.86)	4 (6.24)	4 (6.16)
Australia	219	4 (8.65)	3 (6.01)	3 (2.65)	3 (6.91)	3 (6.36)
Canada	147	5 (5.81)	5 (3.48)	5 (2.33)	5 (4.78)	5 (4.23)
South Africa	124	6 (4.90)	6 (2.53)	4 (2.37)	6 (3.75)	6 (3.44)
Brazil	78	7 (3.08)	7 (2.33)	14 (0.75)	7 (2.57)	7 (2.29)
Malaysia	62	8 (2.45)	10 (1.82)	16 (0.63)	10 (2.02)	14 (1.42)
Spain	61	9 (2.41)	14 (1.07)	7 (1.34)	12 (1.74)	10 (1.82)
Taiwan	60	10 (2.37)	8 (2.21)	42 (0.16)	8 (2.33)	8 (2.09)

Note. TP = total publication; R = rank; % = share in publication; SP = single country publication; CP = internationally collaborative publication; FA = publication with first author; RP = publication with corresponding author.

Table 3.

Contribution of the Top 10 Institutes During 1990–2016.

Institute	TP	TP R (%)	SP R (%)	CP R (%)	FP R (%)	RP R (%)
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China	31	1 (1.89)	2 (0.97)	1 (4.43)	2 (1.22)	1 (1.46)
Griffith University, Australia	26	2 (1.58)	1 (1.8)	50 (0.49)	1 (1.46)	61 (0.12)
University of Florida, USA	19	3 (1.16)	5 (0.6)	2 (2.71)	3 (1.04)	3 (0.55)
Texas A&M University, USA	18	4 (1.1)	5 (0.6)	3 (2.46)	4 (0.85)	2 (0.73)
James Cook University, Australia	11	5 (0.67)	3 (0.82)	— (—)	5 (0.67)	— (—)
Utah State University, USA	10	6 (0.61)	51 (0.22)	4 (1.72)	16 (0.37)	8 (0.37)
University of Otago, New Zealand	10	6 (0.61)	5 (0.6)	50 (0.49)	7 (0.49)	46 (0.12)
University of British Columbia, Canada	10	6 (0.61)	4 (0.67)	194 (0.25)	6 (0.55)	160 (0.06)
Cornell University, USA	10	6 (0.61)	43 (0.3)	8 (1.48)	16 (0.37)	4 (0.43)
University of Washington, USA	9	10 (0.55)	124 (0.15)	4 (1.72)	28 (0.3)	7 (0.37)

Note. TP = total publication; R = rank; % = share in publication; SP = single institution publication; CP = inter-institution collaborative publication; FP = publication with first author; RP = publication with corresponding author.

As seen in Table 2, the United States (646) accounts for the largest number of publications, followed by China (361), the United Kingdom (239), Australia (219), and Canada (147). Whereas in the terms of international cooperation, China, Brazil, Malaysia, and Taiwan ranked much lower than that of their total publication. Among the top 10 high-yielding countries, the rankings, resulting from considering the publications’ first authors and those resulting from considering co-authors, were nearly identical.

Seen in Table 3, it was worth mentioning that, at 5, the United States has the largest share of the top 10 most prolific research institutions, followed by Australia (2). Among the research institutions, the contribution of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was the largest at 31 publications, followed by Griffith University (26) and University of Florida (19). Certain institutions, Utah State University, Cornell University, and the University of Washington, though ranked in the top 10 by the total publication count, they ranked far lower by counts of single institution-authored papers. This finding indicates that such institutions were successful in international cooperation; Griffith University, James Cook University, the University of Otago, and the University of British Columbia have stronger ability for independent research.

Furthermore, to visualize the worldwide distribution of ecotourism-related publications, authors’ affiliations were geo-coded using CiteSpace, with the resulting worldwide geographic distribution plotted using red dots, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Global geographical distribution of authors of ecotourism-related publications during 1990–2016.

Seen from the research institutions worldwide in Figure 2, they were mainly located in most areas of Europe and the south part of Northern America, followed by eastern and southern Asia, central and southern America, southern Africa, and the southeastern Oceania. Their distribution was concentrated in two types of areas. One was the developed areas that housed a large number of academic institutions and had a strong sense of environmental protection. The other was the less developed areas which had advantaged ecotourism resources and urgently needed to be protected because of poverty, population pressure, and consciousness scarcity.

Keywords Analysis

Three categories of keywords, including topical keywords, case-related keywords, and research methods–related keywords, were analyzed to identify the characteristic of ecotourism research.

Analysis of topical keywords

A keyword network diagram of 43 of ecotourism’s most frequently used topical keywords (cited more than 10 times during 1990–2016) was prepared with Gephi 0.9.1. As shown in Figure 3, the larger the point is, the more times the respective keyword was used. The lines show the co-occurrence relationship of every keyword pair, with thicker lines corresponding to higher frequencies of co-occurrence.

Figure 3.

The co-word network of the top 43 frequent topical keywords from 1990 to 2016.

Ecotourism was undoubtedly the greatest point in the center. Conservation was the second largest point closely related to ecotourism and was presently in the process of becoming the most important research topic in ecotourism. The keywords seen near the center, protected area, sustainable, tourism, sustainable development, sustainable ecotourism, and biodiversity, illustrated that ecotourism and sustainable development had a strong relationship and occur together in theoretical research.

The keywords at the periphery were nature-based tourism, community, community conservation, community tourism, willingness to pay, management, and disturbance. These keywords were consistent with TIES’ definition of ecotourism proposed in 2015, emphasizing the focus on natural areas, conservation of the environment, and sustaining the well-being of indigenous people (Ceballos-Lascurain, 1996; Hunt et al., 2015). Meanwhile, management, being an important element of ecotourism development, was also emphasized (Garrod, 2003; Goodwin, 1996; Li, 2004).

In addition, certain keywords at the edge of the network, for example, wildlife tourism, ecosystem service, environmental education, indigenous tourism, and so on, represented the relatively concentrated research areas of ecotourism that resulted in it growing into a broader research field.

Most lines in Figure 3 were thin, making it difficult to comprehend the keyword network clearly. To improve the understanding of relationships between keywords, a subgroup analysis was performed by using Concor, a software tool for network analysis, in Ucinet. After transforming the co-word matrix of topical keywords into a similar matrix, it was imported into Ucinet. With the clustering level equal to 2, keywords were clustered into four categories. R-square was .076, indicating that the correlation among the four classification groups was low, and the intergroup relationships were relatively close. Table 4 showed the four categories of high-frequency topical keywords. Based on their features, the four categories were named as Conservation of Natural Resources, Community Participation and Conservation, Environmental Education and Sustainable Development, and Adjacent Forms of Ecotourism, respectively. This classification structure essentially demonstrated the main areas of ecotourism research over the past 27 years.

Table 4.

Naming the Results of Subgroup Analysis of 43 High-Frequency Topical Keywords of Ecotourism From 1990 to 2016.

Named category	Topical keywords
Conservation of Natural Resources	Ecotourism, conservation, tourism, protected area, disturbance, management, development, marine protected area, whale shark, habituation, neoliberalism, flagship species, wetlands, perceptions, natural resources, attitudes
Community Participation and Conservation	Biodiversity, community tourism, nature-based tourism, community, community conservation, wildlife, ecosystem services, willingness to pay, national park, recreation, valuation, wildlife tourism, nature, parks, livelihoods
Environmental Education and Sustainable Development	Sustainable ecotourism, sustainable, participation, environmental education, protected area, environmental protection, alternative tourism
Adjacent Forms of Ecotourism	Community tourism, rural tourism, indigenous tourism, environment

Analysis of case-related keywords

An ArcGIS layer was used to visualize countries in which the cases had been studied. The color intensity represented the frequency of occurrence of cases from respective countries. The labels in Figure 4 showed the 10 most frequently occurring countries. Larger labels (name of country) indicated higher occurring frequencies.

Figure 4.

The geographical distribution map of the cases-located countries from 1990 to 2016.

The top three countries were China, the United States, and South Africa, accounting for more than 40 publications, followed by Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica, Turkey, Nepal, Thailand, and India, with publication counts falling in the range of 21 to 40. Except for the United States, the cases studied were concentrated in developing countries. The position of the United States, a highly prominent producer of research, echoed the high rankings of the country and its institutions (Tables 2 and 3). In contrast, developing countries showed discrepancies in the number of publications by researchers from such countries and publications focused on such countries, indicating that while the ecological challenges of tourism development in developing countries drew significant attention, the research capacity of the countries themselves was insufficient to meet the developing research needs.

Analysis of research methods–related keywords

The percentages of the research methods–related keywords from 1990 to 2016 are shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5.

The pie chart with the percentages of the research methods–related keywords from 1990 to 2016.

The CVM (contingent valuation method) at 34.38% and GIS (geographic information system) at 29.7% were the most frequently used keywords pertaining to research methods. Specifically, the CVM was a method for assessing the value of the intangible benefits to environment such as public goods (Holmes et al., 1987), widely used to estimate the potential value of ecotourism especially in resources and economy (C. K. Lee & Mjelde, 2007; Park et al., 2016; Wendy & Jim, 2012). GIS was used as a decision supporting tool for tourism planning, impact assessment, visitor flow management, and site selection in ecotourism (Fung & Wong, 2007). Other frequently used research methods–related keywords were confirmatory factor analysis, content analysis, importance-performance analysis, analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and strength-weakness-opportunity-threats (SWOT) analysis. However, a considerable number of research methods–related keywords appeared only 2 times, accounting for 53.52%. The appearance of methods from various research perspectives and disciplines showed the evolution of multidisciplinary perspectives on ecotourism research.

Dynamic Changes of Ecotourism Research Based on Keywords Analysis

The keywords analysis above had made a general identification on the development of ecotourism. Furthermore, the total development of ecotourism was analyzed at different stages for clarifying its dynamic changes. The keywords (topical keywords, case-related keywords and methods-related keywords) of each stage were analyzed, presenting the dynamic characteristics of ecotourism research.

Characteristics of the initial stage

Analyzing the co-word network of topical keywords in the initial stage, it was found that the research focused on “what the ecotourism is.” As shown in Figure 6, the research carried out in this stage was nonsystematic. The concept of ecotourism was introduced only a short while earlier. Hence, basic theories were weak, and the co-word network was loosely connected.

Figure 6.

The co-word network of the top 20 frequent topical keywords of initial stage (1990–1999).

Although there was no unified definition of ecotourism, a general consensus emerged regarding the importance of developing ecotourism to protect diversity of natural and biological resources, sustainable resource utilization, and sustainable development of tourism (Goodwin, 1996). At this stage, ecotourism was the core concept, conservation was emphasized, and protected area, national park, and national protected areas were the primary subjects of study. Furthermore, the ecological protection aspect of tourism was explored, with keywords related to ecological destruction, for example, deforestation, hunting, and disturbance, and keywords related to approaches to environmental protection, for example, carrying capacity and community conservation, being used frequently. In other words, conservation and sustainability were the main lines of research in this period.

Analyzing the case-related keywords and research methods–related keywords in the initial stage separately, it was found that publications focused on such countries as the United States (at 14.52%), New Zealand (at 6.45%), and South Africa (at 6.45%), and qualitative analysis method was the most commonly used, with only a few articles using the contingent valuation method and multi-criteria models.

Characteristics of the rapid growth stage

The co-word network of the top 20 frequent topical keywords of rapid growth stage was showed in Figure 7.

Figure 7.

The co-word network of the top 20 frequent topical keywords of rapid growth stage (2000–2009).

The most significant feature in this stage was the appearance of management in the network, with a range from the development of the economic and sustainable indicators, to the proposal of specific management measures (Foucat, 2002; Garrod, 2003; Li, 2004), indicating that ecotourism research had turned to practice oriented. Seen from the topical network diagram of the rapid growth stage, the lines were thicker than the former one, especially the lines connecting to sustainable development, protection, protected area, and so on, implying stronger connections between these keywords. It was worth mentioned that since early 21st century, whale shark ecotourism had become an important economic activity and turn into one of the hotspots in ecotourism research. Studies related to whale shark ecotourism were focus on the community involvement, the behavior of tour participants, and the community-based management (Cárdenas-Torres et al., 2007; T. Jones et al., 2009; Rowat & Engelhardt, 2007).

In addition, new concepts related to ecotourism, including community tourism and nature-based tourism, were proposed. Studies on community tourism increased rapidly, including the analysis of interactions between local residents and visitors (Julian & Angela, 2006; Lindsey et al., 2007), as well as the analysis of the role played by ecotourism and its impact on local development (Bookbinder et al., 2008; He et al., 2008).

Analyzed from the case-related keywords during this stage, publications frequently examined South Africa (21, 8.11%) in the total number of 259 case-related keywords, followed by China (17, 6.56%), Costa Rica (16, 6.18%), the United States (15, 5.79%), Australia (9, 3.47%), and Brazil (7, 2.70%). It was obviously that the developing countries such as South Africa, China, and Costa Rica had caught up from behind.

In addition, in the total number of 23 research methods–related keywords, contingent valuation method was the most commonly used method, being mentioned for 8 times, followed by the socioecological systems approach (2) and the cost–benefit analysis (2). These methods were used to solve the problem on “how to achieve ecotourism” in rapid growth stage.

Characteristics of the steady growth stage

The co-word network of the top 20 frequent topical keywords of steady growth stage was showed in Figure 8.

Figure 8.

The co-word network of the top 20 frequent topical keywords of steady growth stage (2010–2016).

Three emerging keywords ecosystem service, willingness to pay, and valuation indicated the sophisticated trend in ecotourism research. The ecosystem service was discussed from the perspective of ecology, which included the support from resource elements of ecotourism to ecosystem and the benefits of ecotourism gained from the ecosystem (Kronenberg, 2014; Nahuelhual et al., 2014). Furthermore, tourists’ willingness to pay for the ecosystem services and stakeholders’ engagement were analyzed with the theory of behavioral economics (Kronenberg, 2014; Wendy & Jim, 2012), while the economic values and social benefits under the goal of sustainable development was evaluated based on the research of welfare economics (Chen & Liaw, 2012; Wang et al., 2016). These cases reflected the tendency of economics’ integration into ecotourism research. Hence, the service management of ecotourism was motivated and ultimately the ecological sustainability was maintained. When ecotourism research was carried out by multiperspective, the interests and behaviors of the stakeholders in ecotourism development came to be valued.

Seen from the connections of keywords in the network, it is found that marine protected area was the most popular type of protected area research in this stage. Besides, the strength of association grew not only between most keywords and ecotourism but also between peripheral keyword pairs, as evidenced by the lines connecting other keyword pairs becoming thicker than that of former two stages, for example, lines connecting conservation with management, conservation with sustainable, biodiversity with value. All things considered, the main area of ecotourism research has become more specific.

Analyzing the case-related keywords during this stage, it was noticed that China became the most frequently studied country, 43 of the 470, accounting for 9.15%, followed by Mexico (18, 3.83%), Brazil (17, 3.62%), the United States (17, 3.62%), Turkey (15, 3.19%), Thailand (14, 2.98%), Costa Rica (13, 2.77%), and South Africa (13, 2.77%). It became obvious that the less developed countries received more and more attention. It was worthy of note that the less developed countries in Asia and Africa, such as Nepal (8), Tanzania (7), Cambodia (6), and Madagascar (3) emerged with not too low frequency.

Besides, it could be seen from the analysis of the case-related keywords in this stage that GIS was the most frequently used method (15, 16.67%), following by the commonly used methods such as AHP (7, 7.78%), SWOT analysis (7, 7.78%) confirmatory factor analysis (5, 5.56%), and surveys (4, 4.44%). This confirmed the multiperspective research features of ecotourism at this stage.

Comparative Analysis of the Three Stages

Analyzing the topical keywords from the three stages of global ecotourism research, it was observed that the interplay between ecotourism, the conservation of natural resources, and the protection of communities had always been the primary topic being studied. Meanwhile, the dynamic changes observed in the successive stages reflected the developing characteristics of ecotourism. (a) Connections within the keywords network strengthened gradually, illustrating the gradual establishment and improvement of the ecotourism research framework. (b) The focus of ecotourism research changed from “what ecotourism is,” to “how to achieve ecotourism,” which study subject changed from ecotourism resources to tourism management, consequently multistakeholders involvement.

During the three stages of the case-related keywords analysis, it was found that the United States and South Africa had been the hot cases in ecotourism research. The number of case study in China, Brazil, and Costa Rica rose obviously since the second stage, and China jumped to the top of the list in the third stage. The case studied area spread even more widely during the third stage, not only the range of developing countries but also the less developed countries such as Nepal, Tanzania, and Cambodia. It indicated that developing and less developed countries were getting attention due to their more environmental problems. Exploring the research methods–related keywords across the three stages, it was observed that the qualitative analysis was primarily used in the first stage, reflecting the conceptual nature of the research being performed. Since then, there was a significantly increase in quantitative research methods. The contingent valuation method was popular in the second stage, specifically used for evaluation of recreational value of ecotourism resources. During the third stage, the GIS method was highly valued and widely applied to evaluate aspects related to the development of ecotourism, for example, ecological suitability and sensitivity.

Conclusion

Using bibliometric analysis, this study investigated the characteristics of the ecotourism literature from 1990 to 2016. A search of SCI, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI-S, and CPCI-SSH databases resulted in 2,531 records related to ecotourism. Of these, articles as a subtype of publications in general accounted for 62.50%. Tourism Management was the most prolific journal. The United States was an important contributor to ecotourism literature with not only the highest proportion of single country-authored publications and those involving international collaboration but also the largest number of publications’ first authors, as well as co-authors. Chinese Academy of Sciences was the most prolific institution, followed by Australia’s Griffith University.

Excluding the documents lacking keywords, a total of 4,138 keywords provided by 1,672 articles were used in the analysis of the co-word network and descriptive statistics. Three types of keywords, including topical keywords, case-related keywords, and research methods–related keywords, were classified to make the overall analysis as well as the stages analysis. For the total analysis, it was found that conservation was key focus, protected area was main object of research, and sustainable tourism was main aim. Furthermore, the most 43 high-frequency topical keywords were identified into four categories by subgroup analysis. The categories were the conservation of natural resources, community participation and conservation, environmental education and sustainable development, and adjacent forms of ecotourism, which essentially demonstrated the main areas of ecotourism research over the past 27 years. From the analysis of the case-related keywords and the research methods–related keywords from 1990 to 2016, it was observed that the top three case study countries were China, the United States, and South Africa; the main methodologies used most frequently were contingent valuation method, GIS, confirmatory factor analysis, content analysis, importance-performance analysis, AHP, and SWOT analysis.

According to the social importance of ecotourism and the annual changes in the number of research output, the global ecotourism research was divided into three stages, namely, the initial stage (1990–1999), the rapid growth stage (2000–2009), and the steady growth stage (2010–2016). The three types of keywords were then analyzed by three stages of development. Results revealed that research perspectives changed from ecotourism resources to management and subsequently expanded to multistakeholders involvement, demonstrating the ecotourism study tended to be more specific. The results also confirmed that sustainable tourism was the main aim of ecotourism, which was reflected in the consistency between the ecotourism research and the aim and principles of sustainable tourism. The aim of sustainable tourism is to meet the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing the opportunity for the future (UNWTO, 1993). And its principles refer to the environmental, economic, and sociocultural dimensions of tourism development, so a suitable balance must be established between these three dimensions to guarantee the long-term sustainability of tourism (UNWTO, 2005). Ecotourism research was focused on how to adjust such a balance. It applied management as an important means to ultimately protect and enhance the opportunity for the future, which reflected the pursuit of the aim of sustainable tourism and the adherence to principles of sustainable tourism.

The study cases presented a trend of shifting from the developed countries with perfect research conditions to the developing and less developed countries which were in the pressure of poverty or overpopulation and in urgent need of environmental protection. Furthermore, research methods changed from qualitative to quantitative, especially concentrated on the value evaluation of ecotourism resources and ecotourism development assessment.

From the evolution of ecotourism research, with multidisciplinary involvement and multistakeholders participation, the study of tourist awareness and behavior on ecotourism would become the main aspects for deepening and concreting ecotourism research; economics, as an important theoretical tool to coordinate the relationship among different ecotourism stakeholders and measure the economic values and social benefits, will be further incorporated into ecotourism research; and the research will also receive global attention as the environmental awareness increases.

Footnotes

We highly thank for Prof. Song Hong’s (Wuhan University) contribution on methodology imparting of bibliometric study in this research.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,authorship,and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,authorship,and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 41807212),Research Grant Council of Nanning Normal University (GTEU-KLOP-X1714),and the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (031280). Without their financial support,the work could not have been successfully conducted.

ORCID iD

Wan-Yi Li

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