Tourism, hospitality, and DEA: Where do we come from and where do we go?

•The first paper in tourDEA was published in 1986.•From 1986 to 2011 the number of tourDEA articles increased exponentially. From 2011 to 2018 the number decreased.•Tourism Economics, Tourism Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management are the most utilized journals.•In recent years, the study of tourism with DEA techniques is moving from an industrial to a geographical orientation.•The study of tourism efficiency determinants, cultural tourism, and sustainability are growing lately. The primary goal of this paper is to present a literature survey on the application of data envelopment analysis (DEA) in tourism and hospitality studies. The secondary goal is to categorize the studies by tourism products and tourism industries according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). The tertiary goal is to identify the gaps and challenges in the field. The paper presents a comprehensive review of 350 tourism-related articles that use DEA methodology and highlights several key issues. The publications were statistically classified by methodological innovation, input-output variables, sources of publications, and several other relevant attributes. The investigation reveals the importance of the DEA methodology in the study of the productivity and efficiency of hospitality and tourism. The results also show a high degree of industrial (hotel sector) and geographical (Europe and Asia) concentration of studies. Cultural aspects, tourism sustainability, as well as the efficiency of tourism destinations, have attracted much interest recently. In addition, the new DEA models are increasingly gaining ground in the literature. Finally, the present review highlights the limitations of existing studies and provides important directions for future research.