Mapping the past to guide the future: bibliometric insights into last chance tourism

The purpose of this study is to conduct a thorough bibliometric analysis of last chance tourism literature within the Web of Science (WoS) database, to identify research trends, key contributors, and significant publications to inform and guide future research efforts in this emerging field.  Within this context, the research employed a bibliometric analysis approach and utilized bibliometric mapping techniques. The study established specific inclusion criteria to select articles aligned with the research objective. Subsequently, the scholars analyzed various parameters such as the most productive journals, popular keywords, annual publication trends, influential authors, highly cited studies, contributing organizations, and countries of significance. To fulfill the research objective, VOSviewer software was employed as a tool for analysis and visualization. The analysis yielded a total of 45 articles, starting from the first publication in WoS in 2010 and spanning until October 2022. It was seen that the three most cited articles were prepared by considering the polar region. It has been determined that the subject has gained momentum especially since 2019. Canada was at the top of the articles published on last chance tourism. Europe is the continent that contributes the most to last chance tourism with 18 different countries. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that the University of Ottawa stood out as the most productive institution, and the Journal of Sustainable Tourism emerged as the most prominent publishing venue.