Blockchain Propels Tourism Industry—An Attempt to Explore Topics and Information in Smart Tourism Management through Text Mining and Machine Learning

Abstract

Blockchain and immersive technology are the pioneers in bringing digitalization to tourism, and researchers worldwide are exploring many facets of these techniques. This paper analyzes the various aspects of blockchain technology and its potential use in tourism. We explore high-frequency keywords, perform network analysis of relevant publications to analyze patterns, and introduce machine learning techniques to facilitate systematic reviews. We focused on 94 publications from Web Science that dealt with blockchain implementation in tourism from 2017 to 2022. We used Vosviewer for network analysis and artificial intelligence models with the help of machine learning tools to predict the relevance of the work. Many reviewed articles mainly deal with blockchain in tourism and related terms such as smart tourism and crypto tourism. This study is the first attempt to use text analysis to improve the topic modeling of blockchain in tourism. It comprehensively analyzes the technology’s potential use in the hospitality, accommodation, and booking industry. In this context, the paper provides significant value to researchers by giving an insight into the trends and keyword patterns. Tourism still has many unexplored areas; journal articles should also feature special studies on this topic.

Keywords

• text analysis
• machine learning
• artificial intelligence
• bibliometrics
• topic modeling
• blockchain in tourism