Two decades of customer experience research in hospitality and tourism: A bibliometric analysis and thematic content analysis

This article presents a state-of-the-art systematic review of the evolution and structure of empirical research on customer experience in hospitality and/or tourism settings based on 1248 articles published in 13 leading hospitality and tourism journals between January 1998 and May 2021. Using Web of Science database and the PRISMA technique, research articles on customer experience were extracted and analyzed to uncover this topic’s intellectual development and key themes through a mixed-methods approach of quantitative bibliometric and qualitative content analyses. The bibliometric analysis enabled scientific investigation and visualization of the scholarly customer experience research. Based on grounded theory, content analysis was subsequently conducted to establish theoretical building blocks of customer experience, providing a conceptual model of this concept. Overall, this study extensively investigates customer experience literature in hospitality and tourism. Findings provide a holistic understanding of customer experience, illustrate the topic’s scholarly evolution, and reveal key directions for future research.