THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN TOURISM: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS FOR TOURISM LITERATURE

Abstract

Over time, the need for travel has become a necessity and alternative types of travel to luxury consumption have emerged. This change in the way of travel has revealed many new concepts in tourism. One of the requirements for realizing this understanding is social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is an enterprise that differs from commercial entrepreneurship and considers social benefit. This concept has started to take its place in the tourism literature in time and has been examined in different ways by researchers. The aim of this study is to contribute to the knowledge accumulation of social entrepreneurship in tourism literature and reveals the subjects that researchers work more frequently and the areas of study with deficiencies. After literature review, social entrepreneurship research conducted in tourism literature were analyzed by bibliometric analysis. In this research, 35 articles in tourism literature related to social entrepreneurship in Turkish and English language are evaluated. According to the findings, concept of social entrepreneurship has an 11-year history in tourism literature. The majority of social entrepreneurship research in tourism literature are related to sustainable tourism, responsible tourism, eco-tourism and rural tourism. Another finding is that social entrepreneurship research is insufficient in Turkish tourism literature as well as international tourism literature.