Blue flags in the world:a bibliometric analysis

The recognition of the Blue Flag as an important and distinctive award throughout the world has been increasing in recent years. Consequently, academic research has paid attention to the certification, as well as its impacts and consequences. However, a bibliometric analysis that synthesizes the literature generated in this field is lacking. To fill this gap, this chapter traces the evolution of published research on the topic of the Blue Flag, providing an overview of developments in Blue Flag research. We obtained our data from the published documents compiled in the Web of Science™ Core Collection, the most important database of academic publications, which includes only those books, conference proceedings and journals that meet strict quality criteria. We focus on a bibliometric analysis based on these works, presenting the main conclusions regarding the temporal evolution of these papers, the main authors and their impact, as well as the journals where these studies were published. Finally, we present an analysis of the keywords that characterize each of these papers to provide information on the topics considered the most important over time.