Mapping Digital Influence in Tourism and Hospitality: A Bibliometric Analysis and Systematic Review Toward a Tri-Channel Framework

Abstract

This study integrates the fragmented literature on digital influence in tourism and hospitality by combining a bibliometric analysis with a PRISMA 2020-guided systematic literature review (SLR), examining how creator-mediated, peer-mediated, and platform-mediated influence jointly shape the customer decision journey. Scopus was searched (last searched 19 May 2026) for English-language articles and reviews addressing tourism or hospitality and at least one digital-influence mechanism, published 2010–May 2026; 906 records met these criteria and were retained for bibliometric analysis. A further eligibility criterion—direct examination of relationships among digital-influence sources, consumer appraisal, and decision outcomes, restricted to 2020–May 2026—narrowed this to 117 studies selected for structured evidence coding, with study design classified using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). The corpus grew sharply after 2019 (84.1% of records), and bibliographic coupling and keyword co-occurrence analysis identified four research fronts and five thematic clusters spanning the three influence channels. Building on this structure and a Stimulus–Organism–Response basis, the study proposes a Tri-Channel Digital Influence Framework formalized into seven research propositions (P1–P7). Evidence coding shows consumer-appraisal and decision-progression pathways (P4) are most extensively evidenced (64 studies), while cross-channel interaction (P5, 3 studies) and post-consumption feedback (P7, 4 studies) remain the least tested, representing the main evidence gaps. To our knowledge, this is the first study to integrate all three channels into a single, evidence-based decision-journey framework, offering an integrative theoretical architecture and a specific, evidence-based agenda for future research that current single-construct reviews of eWOM or influencer marketing do not provide.