Data for the present study was obtained from the WoS (www.webofscience.com, accessed on 01 January 2023), which is known for providing comprehensive coverage of scientific literature. The database comprises articles published in high-quality journals, and is particularly appropriate for bibliometric analysis (Korom, 2019). The WoS is a powerful research engine that provides libraries with secure access to publication and citation data for discovery and evaluation. It is particularly beneficial for specialized research topics, and enables more accurate co-citation analysis due to the availability of cited references (Zupic and Cater, 2015). Many bibliometric studies have utilized the WoS database (Jiménez-García et al., 2020; Bastidas-Manzano et al., 2021; Goyal and Kumar, 2021; Palácios et al., 2021; Ülker et al., 2023), to identify trends in research topics, track the impact of specific articles or authors, and map out the intellectual structure of a particular field.

A comprehensive search of published documents from 1991–2022 related to wildlife tourism was conducted in January 2023, employing the “All databases” search option in Clarivate Analytics of WoS. Literature search was conducted using a string of keywords, including “wildlife tourism,” “adventure tourism,” “ecotourism,” and “safari.” The meta-data of publications related to wildlife tourism was obtained. A total of 1,432 documents generated on initial search and these papers were screened for their suitability for the study. Only such studies were included which primarily focus on wildlife tourism and irrelevant studies were excluded after screening of titles and abstracts. A total of 453 documents including research articles, review articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, and editorials etc. formed the final dataset and were downloaded for the bibliometric analysis.

Data were analyzed using the “bibliometrix” tool in R software. In this study, all of the bibliometric indicators such as quantitative, qualitative, and structural indicatorswere measured. Quantitativeindicators measure the productivity of a particular author or source; qualitative indicators measure the quality of a source, author, or a research group; and structural indicators measure connections between publications, authors, or research fields. In the present study, the quality of the research was evaluated using a comprehensive approach. Citation analysis served as the primary method of assessment. Additionally, various bibliometric indices were considered to provide a more nuanced evaluation. These included the h-index, which measures both the productivity and citation impact of a researcher's publications; the g-index, which gives more weight to highly-cited articles; and the m-index, which adjusts the h-index by the number of years a researcher has been active.

According to the WoS, total scholarly articles on wildlife tourism published globally totaled 453 between 1991 and 2022 in different journals, including 386 articles, 10 early access articles, eight proceeding papers, five book reviews, 10 editorial materials, one correction, four letters, one meeting abstract, two news items, and 26 review papers. These publications were retrieved from a total of 153 sources, including journals, books, etc. A total of 20,480 references have been used in these publications, showing the breadth of the literature and research that has been reviewed and cited in the field. With the advent of time, the number of publications on wildlife tourism has been progressively increasing since 1991, from only three publications in 1991 to 57 publications in 2021 (Figure 1). The steady rise in annual publications suggests that research on wildlife tourism is growing significantly, which is a positive development that can lead to the advancement of knowledge and understanding in the field. Increase in the publication output in the last decade could be accredited to various factors, like the availability of online journals and the ease of access to electronic databases such as WoS. In the 1990s, many papers may have been published in print journals that may not have been included in WOS or other electronic databases, leading to the potential underrepresentation of publications from that time period. Additionally, the ease of accessing and disseminating research online has likely facilitated greater collaboration among researchers, leading to more publications in the field of wildlife tourism. The publication output is an imperative indicator for analyzing the research progression in a particular subject (Ridwan et al., 2023). However, the quantity of publications reflects an output of an author or a research group; it does not address the quality of the papers. A more selective approach to overcoming some of these restrictions is to count the number of articles in the top-quality journals with a high impact factor (Durieux and Gevenois, 2010). Moreover, it is important to acknowledge that the search for the present study was limited to English-language publications, which could potentially lead to the over sighting of significant documents in other languages.

The most prolific authors, sources, nations, and institutions are the key markers in bibliometric studies that identify the most influential contributors to a particular field (Sharma et al., 2021). This Information aid scholars and practitioners in relevant scientific disciplines who seek collaboration and higher education (Wani et al., 2023). With regard to authors, 1,290 of them have published their works in various periodicals. A total of 53 of them contributed documents with a single author, while 1,237 authors produced documents with multiple authors. The most productive authors are “Huveneers, C” (15 publications), “Dearden, P” (12 publications), and “Ballantyne R” (10 publications; Table 1).

Journals are considered vital tools for disseminating research; hence, the worth and reputation of a journal play an essential role in spreading knowledge to the appropriate portion of society (Shah et al., 2021). In the present study, it was revealed that the journal Tourism Management, with 43 publications is the most relevant and productive source, followed by the Journal of Sustainable Tourism with 32 publications, Biological Conservation with 24 publications, and Current Issues in Tourism with 21 publications (Figure 2). Figure 3 depicts the source dynamics, and demonstrates that the journal Tourism Management has always been the most authoritative source of wildlife tourism research. The journal “Tourism Management” publishes a fairly consistent quantity of articles on sustainability, with a significant influence based on citations. The Journal of Sustainable Tourism is solely committed to publish articles on sustainable tourism research (Lu and Nepal, 2009). Niñerola et al. (2019) has also emphasized its significance in this field.

A total of 70 countries and territories have participated to research output in the field of wildlife tourism, indicating that its global significance. Figure 4 depicts the geographic location of wildlife tourism publications in which a darker color indicates a higher research output. In the present study, Australia was found to the most productive country with the highest number of research publications (270), followed by the USA (237), UK (116), Canada (72) South Africa (52) and China (39). A similar study by Hasana et al. (2022) also observed the same countries among the list of most productive ones; however, the greatest number of publications came from the USA followed by the UK, Australia, South Africa, Canada, and China. The study carried out by Hasana et al. (2022) primarily focus on the ecotourism with special emphasis in protected areas only.

In terms of the most relevant affiliations, James Cook University of Australia turned out to be most productive in terms of the number of publications on wildlife tourism, with 30 research publications, followed by Murdoch University (24 publications), Flinders University of Australia, the University of Queensland, and the University of Western Australia (20 publications each; Supplementary Figure S1). The affiliations of the authors play an important role in research productivity, as different institutions and research organizations may have varying levels of expertise and focus on a particular field. These institutions have been actively engaged in research related to wildlife tourism, as evidenced by their high number of publications in this field.

Research collaboration entails the knowledge exchange and transfer between researchers and research institutes. The trend and nature of research collaborations in the study area is identified by analyzing the pattern of co-authorships from different institutes, regions and countries (Reyes-Gonzalez et al., 2016). In the present study, it was observed that a total of 232 research collaborations have been made from different countries in wildlife tourism research. The highest number of collaborations was found between Australia and USA, accounted for 20 research publications, followed by the USA and Canada (11 publications), followed by the USA and the UK (9 publications), the USA and South Africa (nine publications), and the USA and China (8 publications). It is worth noting that the countries with the most publications on the subject of wildlife tourism also have a greater rate of cooperation, indicating that they have shared knowledge and assisted each other in generating scientifically useful outcomes. Figure 5 depicts global graphical outlook of research collaborations. The pink lines connect the collaborating countries and the thickness of the lines indicates the frequency of collaborative research publications.

Citation analysis is commonly utilized to assess the influence of authors, journals, or publications, as it enables the rapid identification of significant works in a particular field (Niñerola et al., 2019). In this approach, the number of citations received by an article determines its influence. Although there are various methods (e.g., network metrics) for measuring the worth of publications in a research field, the citation is the most clear-cut indicator of their impact. As a result, by using citations, one can investigate the most influential publications in a subject field to gain a better understanding of their intellectual processes (Hirsch, 2005).

Based on the most cited author analysis of the dataset, it was found that in the field of wildlife tourism, “Ballantyne R” tops the list, with 1,237 citations, an h-index of 10, and an m-index of 0.58, followed by “Packer J” (1,207 citations; 9 h-index; 0.6 m-index), “Hughes K” (680 citations; 9 h-index; 0.39 m-index), and “Buckley R” (534 citations; 3 h-index; 0.27 m-index) (Table 1). Among the most cited sources, the journal Tourism Management tops the list with 985 citations, followed by Biological Conservation (758 citations), The Journal of Sustainable Tourism (497 citations), PLoS One (456 citations), and Annals of Tourism Research (399 citations; Figure 6). Among the most cited countries, Australia tops the list, with 4,558 citations, followed by the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway, with 2,343, 1,723, 706, 580, and 513 citations, respectively (Figure 7). Table 2 lists the top ten most cited publications in the field of wildlife tourism. The most cited paper on wildlife tourism was published by Ralf Buckley entitled “Sustainable tourism: Research and reality” in 2012. The study constructs externally-generated themes by applying the key components of sustainability to tourism, and uses these to evaluate the sustainable tourism literature. Furthermore, the h-index is supplied as a number that assesses a person's scientific research output by comparing papers and citations (Donthu et al., 2021). A higher h-index indicates that a researcher's work will have a more significant impact (Niñerola et al., 2019). Indeed, it is important to note that the authors identified as the most cited in the field of wildlife tourism may have also contributed to research in other fields. It is common for researchers to have interdisciplinary interests and expertise, and they may have published papers in other areas besides wildlife tourism. A higher h-index signifies the greater impact of a researcher's work, but it does not necessarily mean that all the citations are related to the field of wildlife tourism.

Moreover, the journals that are most cited in the field of wildlife tourism, such as Tourism Management, Biological Conservation, and The Journal of Sustainable Tourism may also publish papers on other topics related to tourism, conservation, and sustainability. Therefore, it is possible that some of the citations to these journals may not be specifically related to wildlife tourism, but could encompass a broader range of research areas.

Therefore, the authors, journals, countries and publications identified as the most cited in the field of wildlife tourism provide valuable insight into the scholarly impact of research in this area; however, it is important to consider the interdisciplinary nature of research and potential areas of overlap with other fields. Further research and analysis would be needed to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the contributions of these authors and publications to the broader scope of academic literature.

Keywords serve as important markers for locating research documents in various databases field (Dixit and Jakhar, 2021). An effective tool for determining general research trends and directions in a particular domain is a keyword analysis. Author keywords, in particular, play a crucial role in representing and communicating the essence of a paper within the scientific community (Seguí-Amortegui et al., 2019). The selection of keywords by authors has significant implications. They can highlight research patterns and important issues in a specific area, providing insights into the main subjects of the research. The choice of keywords can also impact the visibility and potential success of a publication. Properly chosen keywords can enhance the discoverability of a paper and increase its chances of being cited and shared (Uddin et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2016; Rejeb et al., 2022). Based on keyword frequency analysis, the present study revealed that the keyword “Conservation” is the most frequently used keyword in publications related to wildlife tourism (93 times), followed by other keywords such as “management” (75), “ecotourism,” “wildlife tourism” (62 each), and “behavior” (59). These findings indicate that “conservation,” “management,” “ecotourism,” “wildlife tourism,” and “behavior” are key concepts and areas of focus within the field of wildlife tourism research, as reflected by the frequency of their usage as keywords in related publications. Figure 8 shows the trends in the author keyword in which the height of the keyword represents its frequency of use. It was further revealed that the author keyword “tourism” had the highest frequency of usage (31) in the year 2015. This suggests that “tourism” was a popular topic or theme among authors during that particular year. The careful selection of keywords is therefore essential in order to accurately represent the research and its significance.

The first tier of the plot shows the sources of the publications related to wildlife tourism. These sources are represented by rectangles of different sizes; the size of the rectangle indicates the number of publications contributed by that source. For example, the largest rectangle in the plot represents the journal Tourism Management, which means that the journal Tourism Management has contributed to the greatest number of publications related to wildlife tourism. The second tier of the plot shows the author keywords used in these publications. These author keywords are also represented by rectangles of different sizes, the size of the rectangle indicates the frequency of usage of that keyword. For example, the largest rectangle in the plot represents the keyword “tourism,” followed by “conservation,” “wildlife,” and “shark.” The third tier of the plot shows the countries that contributed to these publications. These countries are also represented by rectangles of different sizes; the size of the rectangle indicates the number of publications contributed by that country. The largest rectangle in the third tier is represented by Australia, followed by USA, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Furthermore, it appears that the keyword “tourism” is connected to several sources, and is also most strongly connected to the country of Australia.

The connection between the keyword “tourism” and the various sources in the plot can indicate that “tourism” is a commonly used keyword in publications related to wildlife tourism across multiple sources. The connections between “tourism” and Australia can suggest that research on wildlife tourism is often conducted or published by researchers affiliated with institutions in Australia. Overall, this three-tier plot provides an overview of the most frequent author keywords, sources, and countries that contributed to publications related to wildlife tourism. It can be used to identify the most active sources, the most frequent author keywords, and the most active countries in this area of research. Authors should consider using relevant and appropriate keywords that reflect the main concepts, theories, methods, and findings of their research. Additionally, keeping up with the latest trends in keyword usage can help authors align their publications with current research trends and increase the visibility and impact of their work.