Does geography matter? Implications for future tourism research in light of COVID-19

Due to the 2019 new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, tourism is undergoing fundamental changes that are affecting tourism research. This situation calls for in-depth analyses of tourism research. Scholars have already published review studies on COVID-19-related research within the tourism field; however, these studies do not connect findings, such as the research focus, research methodology and target group, to form a research profile, and the geographical patterns of the findings are not identified. study, COVID-19-related tourism studies were collected and analyzed in depth following the Preferred Reporting Items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) method. In addition, data-driven methods, such as spatial multilayer networks, frequent patterns and content-based analyses, were applied to identify research profiles and their geographic patterns. This study pointed out the role of geographic patterns in tourism research, going beyond the research of the authors. Moreover, topics, focus destinations, applied methodologies and employed data sources have relevant geographic patterns. Four dominant research profiles that show that a shift can be observed in tourism research toward data sources and research methods were identified. Due to COVID-19, the strengthening of the application of quantitative methods and employment of secondary data sources are needed. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11192-022-04615-z.