Medical Tourism Research: Trends, Themes, and Future Directions Through Bibliometric Analysis

Medical tourism is a rapidly evolving field that integrates medical services with tourism, attracting global attention. This study presents a comprehensive bibliometric review to systematically analyze the knowledge structure, research themes, and dynamic evolution of medical tourism research. Compared with previous reviews that were limited by fragmented content and subjective methodologies, this study employs bibliometric techniques, including co-citation, co-word, and structural variation analyses, to objectively extract insights from 1,313 articles indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. The findings reveal key research clusters, temporal trends, and influential works, culminating in an integrated framework that organizes medical tourism research across micro, meso, and macro levels. Additionally, this study identifies emerging research directions, such as the role of digital platforms, service quality optimization, and ethical considerations in cross-border healthcare. By bridging the limitations in existing reviews, this paper provides actionable insights for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to advance the field of medical tourism.