IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGIES IN CULTURAL HERITAGE AND MUSEUM TOURISM: A PRISMA-BASED BIBLIOMETRIC PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF SCOPUS-INDEXED LITERATURE (1992–2026)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/JTHEM.1144021Keywords:
Bibliometric Analysis, Cultural Heritage, Immersive Technologies, Museum Tourism, ScopusAbstract
This study maps the scientific production on immersive technologies in cultural heritage and museum tourism from 1992 to 2026, identifying the most productive sources, authors, affiliations, countries, subject areas and funding sponsors and tracing the field’s temporal evolution. Using the Scopus database, data were extracted on 31 March 2026 through a Boolean query combining immersive-technology descriptors (virtual, augmented and mixed reality; virtual and digital museums) with heritage and museum terms, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework. After retracted items, errata, duplicates and off-topic records were removed and the corpus was filtered by document type and language, 940 English-language journal articles were retained and analysed across seven dimensions using the Scopus “Analyze results” tool. The field shows sustained growth, from a single article in 1992 to 161 in 2025, with the transformative phase from 2017 onward accounting for 81.7% of output. The Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage was the most prolific outlet (40 articles) and Puritat, K. the most productive author (13 articles), while Kyung Hee University led the affiliation ranking (15 articles). China was the leading contributor (187 articles), ahead of the United Kingdom (102) and Italy (100), and Computer Science (530) and Social Sciences (376) were the dominant subject areas. The European Commission (20 articles) was the principal funding sponsor. Building on these patterns, the study proposes a research agenda of eight thematic areas. Overall, the field has developed into a sustained, interdisciplinary domain with a dual computing-humanities identity and a geographically diverse contributor base, findings that can help early-career researchers, heritage practitioners and funding agencies identify suitable venues, partners and priority areas for immersive heritage research.
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