Research Trends and Intellectual Structure of the City Tax Literature in Tourism: A Bibliometric Analysis Based on Web of Science Data

Abstract

The aim of this study is to reveal the development trends, scientific production structure, and intellectual knowledge network of the academic literature on city taxes in tourism through bibliometric analysis. The dataset consists of 75 research articles published in English between 2003 and 2025 and retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection database. Bibliometric analyses were conducted using Bibliometrix (R package/Biblioshiny), VOSviewer, and Microsoft Excel. The analyses included annual scientific production and citation performance, the most productive authors, journals, institutions, and countries, as
well as co-authorship relationships, bibliographic coupling, keyword co-occurrence, and historiographic mapping. The findings reveal that the literature on city taxes in tourism has shown a remarkable development, particularly since 2016, with a substantial increase in annual scientific production in recent years. The analysis identified Tourism Economics as the most productive journal, while Spain emerged as the leading country in terms of scientific contributions. Co-authorship analysis demonstrated that the literature is concentrated around several collaborative research clusters, although these clusters are interconnected through knowledge-sharing links. Furthermore, keyword co-occurrence and bibliographic coupling
analyses indicated that research on city taxes has primarily focused on tourism economics, destination management, sustainable tourism, and public policy. Overall, the findings suggest that the literature on city taxes has expanded considerably in both publication output and thematic diversity over recent years and has gradually evolved into an increasingly interdisciplinary field of research.