Innovation Research in Tourism and Hospitality Field: A Bibliometric and Visualization Analysis

Authors need to justify how the findings can contribute to the body of knowledge and add managerial implications.

In the literature review paragraph, regarding innovation in the tourism context, I suggest the authors to mention gamification as a new technology.

See these references:

Pasca, M. G., Renzi, M. F., Di Pietro, L., & Mugion, R. G. (2021). Gamification in tourism and hospitality research in the era of digital platforms: a systematic literature review. Journal of Service Theory and Practice.

Bartoli, E., Elmi, B., Pascuzzi, D., & Smorti, A. (2018). Gamification in tourism. Psychology & Behavioral Science, 8(3), 93-95.

Sigala, M. (2018). New technologies in tourism: From multi-disciplinary to anti-disciplinary advances and trajectories. Tourism management perspectives, 25, 151-155.

 In addition, I suggest that the authors insert a paragraph with the managerial implications that are highlighted by the study conducted.

We thank the reviewer for his/her comments and suggestions. We believe these recommendations will help improve the quality of our research. Considering your valuable suggestions, we have revised our work again. We marked our additions/edits/changes in red throughout the manuscript.

Congratulations on this paper.

About the references, the authors can use more recent papers, for example:

Ali Bavik & Chen-Feng Kuo (2022) A systematic review of creativity in tourism and hospitality, The Service Industries Journal, 42:5-6, 321-359

The conclusions can be improved with more actual secondary literature. 

We improved the current study in accordance with your recommendation. We marked our additions/edits/changes in red throughout the manuscript.

The article is valuable because of the research technique it uses, which is a trend in many areas of knowledge. Although, the selected topics should be improved.

In a general perspective, the manuscript follows an adequate structure and it is focused on an logic perspective

Are the arguments and discussion of findings coherent, balanced and compelling?

For empirical research, are the results clearly presented?

Are the conclusions thoroughly supported by the results presented in the article or referenced in secondary literature?

We thank the reviewer for his/her comments, observations, suggestions, and providing helpful recommendations and remarks that help increase the quality of this manuscript and support for publication of our study. We have revised the manuscript following your invaluable recommendations. We marked our additions/edits/changes in red throughout the manuscript.

The study entitled Innovation research in tourism and hospitality field: A bibliometric and visualization analysis presents in a consistent, excellent motivated and well structured manner the topical issue of innovation research in tourism from a bibliometric perspective.

I highly recommend and support its publication in the special issue of Sustainability journal entitled Green Energy and Tourism Policy for Sustainable Economic Growth and I have some recommendations as specified below:

THE ABSTRACT

The abstract needs an introductory phrase about the context and/or specifying the need for the study which should naturally match the existing one on the research purpose. This part exists in the introductory part of the article but was skipped in the structure of the abstract.

At line 19 in „which was published” was should be replaced by were

At line 24 – 25 the sentence “There has been a significant increase in the number of research studies, especially after 2010” is too general.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

At line 69 in RQ1 the term “field” is too general and is better to be specified even if repeated

At line 180 “in her study” instead of “in his study”

The research questions and objectives of the study need to be reiterated in the other parts of the study for the good flow and the coherence of the scientific discourse in the paper.

METHODOLOGY

The methodology is well structured and consistently motivated.

However for a better understanding and a synthetic view on methodology I suggest a table/figure/schema on methodological framework.

I also recommend the authors to integrate from the theoretical and methodological point of view the objectives of the study (the research questions) in their methodological framework.

RESULTS

An existing gap for the reader would be that there are not clear specifications and comments on how these results answer the previously formulated research questions.

I recommend the authors to formulate some extended answers / discussions for the research questions formulated in the first part of the paper. Discussions should focus on RQ as they were formulated and of course on the obtained results. In this manner ideally a separate chapter entitled Discussions might help improve and better exploit the results that were obtained and would reduce on the other hand the chapter of conclusions which now takes a part of the discussion/debate function.

Another variant would be to answer research questions at the end of each part of results corresponding to each of the four research questions.

All in all I consider the article Innovation research in tourism and hospitality field: A bibliometric and visualization analysis entirely qualified for publication in Sustainability journal. The reasons for which I chose major changes are based on my main recommendations that I explained above and I also resume below:

1.       To introduce RQs or concepts / key words from RQ on the methodological  discourse ideally in a methodological frame / schema

2.       To make distinct and consistent comments on how the obtained results answer each of the formulated research questions

We thank the reviewer for his/her comments, observations, suggestions, and providing helpful recommendations and remarks that help increase the quality of this manuscript and support for the publication of our study. We added an introductory phrase about the context and/or specifying the need for the study in accordance with your advice.

All miswriting has corrected according to the reviewer’s observations.

In accordance with the reviewer’s suggestion, we added a table and figure on a methodological framework for a better understanding and a synthetic view of the methodology.

Also, we addressed the discussion as a separate part.

Reviewer 1

V2 The paper has improved significantly

From Revision 1

1. What is your definition/concept of innovation? How has it been defined and understood in the articles that you have analyzed. For sure not always in the same way. Please elaborate your definition and the differences how it has been understood in the articles. 
2. Also there exist different definitions of tourism. Which one are you using? Where are the boarders between tourism and other forms of travel (e.g. business travel). How is this difference relevant in the articles that you have analyzed? 
The analytical part of the article is fine, but without these definitions the findings are not very relevant and useful. 

We thank the reviewer for his/her comments, observations, suggestions, and providing helpful recommendations and remarks that help increase the quality of this manuscript and support for publication of our study. We have revised the manuscript following your invaluable recommendations. We marked our additions/edits/changes in red throughout the manuscript.

The new version of the article respects most parts of my previous recommendations and might be published after a secondary round of revisions from behalf of the authors.

Besides the methodological framework which was successfully added, another major recommendation I made for the authors was to make distinct answers on each of the research questions which appear at the beginning of their study. This could be done either at the end of each subchapter of results  or on discussions. On discussions chapter new comments have been added but they are rather mingled and they do not answer separately and distinctively all the 5 research questions.

This formula of RQ can be entirely accepted as not all studies should have hypotheses or objectives. But I inssist on this major recommendation of answering RQs because this will contribute to a great extent to the flow and the coherence of the article. In other words research questions formulated at the beginning of the paper should be explicitely answered along the article or at the end of the article and the authors are those to underline this and make it obvious for the reader.

My comment does not concern future research questions or the implications of the study which were added in the discussion chapter by the authors.

We thank the reviewer for his/her comments, observations, suggestions, and providing helpful recommendations and remarks that help increase the quality of this manuscript and support for the publication of our study. We added an introductory phrase about the context and/or specifying the need for the study in accordance with your advice.