Rural tourism and development: Evolution in Scientific Literature and Trends

This work represents a contribution by showing the state of the art of research on rural tourism and development, identifying trends and proposing future lines and topics of research. Rural tourism and its influence on the economic development of rural areas has been an important and dynamic area of research since 2004. For this purpose, a quantitative bibliometric analysis of the 892 documents related to this topic contained within the Web of Science Core Collection has been carried out. Results show that studies on rural tourism mainly focus on Spain, Romania, and China. However, the most prolific authors are from Portugal, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. There is a notable lack of studies focused on countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, mainly due to political and religious factors. Rural tourism is also an important and emergent sector, particularly in countries like Romania and China.