Doctoral Dissertations on Tourism in China: A Co-Word Analysis

The aim of this paper is to map the foci of research in doctoral dissertations on tourism in China. In the paper, co-word analysis is applied, with keywords coming from six public dissertation databases, i.e. CDFD, Wanfang Data, NLC, CALIS, ISTIC, and NSTL, as well as some university libraries providing doctoral dissertations on tourism. Altogether we have examined 928 doctoral dissertations on tourism written between 1989 and 2013. Doctoral dissertations on tourism in China involve 36 first level disciplines and 102 secondary level disciplines. We collect the top 68 keywords of practical significance in tourism which are mentioned at least four tines or more. These keywords are classified into 12 categories based on co-word analysis, including cluster analysis, strategic diagrams analysis, and social network analysis. According to the strategic diagram of the 12 categories, we find the mature and immature areas in tourism study. From social networks, we can see the social network maps of original co-occurrence matrix and k-cores analysis of binary matrix. The paper provides valuable insight into the study of tourism by analyzing doctoral dissertations on tourism in China.