LAUSR

Abstract This paper presents a study of the most cited papers, the most productive and influential institutions and countries, and the most influential authors in the tourism, leisure, and hospitality fields. The number of publications in journals focused on these areas has increased exponentially over the past 40 years. This paper examines the fundamental contributions in these areas using a bibliometric approach. This paper also uses the visualization of similarities to graphically map the main topics and keywords. No study has examined all journals indexed in the Web of Science in these fields over a period as wide as the one considered in this study. This study is valuable for several reasons. It can help scholars and researchers to identify the countries and institutions with the most potential to develop and share research, as well as where it would be interesting to carry out their doctoral studies and develop their careers.