Bibliometric analysis of tour guide performance: Trends, influential publications, and emerging research themes

The quality of tours is significantly influenced by tour guides’ communication skills, regional knowledge, and storytelling abilities. Guide effectiveness depends on factors such as training, skill development, and professionalism in guest care. Given their pivotal role in shaping tour quality and experiences, the literature consistently highlights these effects. The present study aims to make a comprehensive contribution to the existing knowledge in the field by analyzing the academic literature on the performance of tour guides using bibliometric methods. Analysis reveals that the most cited publications on tour guide performance are found in tourism and management journals, such as Tourism Management. The analysis further indicates that China is a leading nation in studies and citations related to tour guide performance, with a notable increase observed since 2012. The most frequent terms—performance and satisfaction—highlight the critical link between guide performance and tourist satisfaction. Notably, the co-occurrence network’s strongest connection is between these terms. In addition, terms such as group tours, leadership, and management have found more space in the literature since the 2010s, and studies on the modeling and effects of guide performance have increased after the 2020s.