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Challenges in Tourism Research

• Edited by: Tej Vir Singh
• X / Twitter

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Channel View Publications
• Copyright year: 2015
• Audience: College/higher education;
• Main content: 392
• Keywords: Tourism studies ; Tourism research ; Tourism knowledge ; Sustainable tourism ; Tourism debates ; Volunteer tourism ; Sustainability ; Elenctic approach ; Vulnerability ; Traveller-tourist dichotomy ; Tourism management ; Tourist identities ; Tourism development ; Carrying capacity
• Published: August 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781845415341

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Ecotourism and sustainable development: a scientometric review of global research trends

• Published: 21 February 2022
• Volume 25 , pages 2977–3003, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Lishan Xu 1 , 2 ,
• Changlin Ao   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8826-7356 1 , 3 ,
• Baoqi Liu 1 &
• Zhenyu Cai 1  

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With the increasing attention and awareness of the ecological environment, ecotourism is becoming ever more popular, but it still brings problems and challenges to the sustainable development of the environment. To solve such challenges, it is necessary to review literature in the field of ecotourism and determine the key research issues and future research directions. This paper uses scientometrics implemented by CiteSpace to conduct an in-depth systematic review of research and development in the field of ecotourism. Two bibliographic datasets were obtained from the Web of Science, including a core dataset and an expanded dataset, containing articles published between 2003 and 2021. Our research shows that ecotourism has been developing rapidly in recent years. The research field of ecotourism spans many disciplines and is a comprehensive interdisciplinary subject. According to the research results, the evolution of ecotourism can be roughly divided into three phases: human disturbance, ecosystem services and sustainable development. It could be concluded that it has entered the third stage of Shneider’s four-stage theory of scientific discipline. The research not only identifies the main clusters and their advance in ecotourism research based on high impact citations and research frontier formed by citations, but also presents readers with new insights through intuitive visual images.

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1 Introduction

Ecotourism, which has appeared in academic literature since the late 1980s, is a special form of nature-based tourism that maintains the well-being of the local community while protecting the environment and provides tourists with a satisfying nature experience and enjoyment (Ceballos-Lascuráin, 1996 ; Higgins, 1996 ; Orams, 1995 ). With years of research and development, ecotourism has risen to be a subject of investigation in the field of tourism research (Weaver & Lawton, 2007 ). In 2002, the United Nations declared it the International Year of Ecotourism (IYE), and the professional Journal of Ecotourism was established in the same year.

With the progress and maturity of ecotourism as an academic research field, countless scholars have put forward standards and definitions for ecotourism (Sirakaya et al., 1999 ; Wight, 1993 ). The main objectives of ecotourism emphasize long-term sustainable development (Whitelaw et al., 2014 ), including the conservation of natural resources, the generation of economic income, education, local participation and the promotion of social benefits such as local economic development and infrastructure (Ardoin et al., 2015 ; Coria & Calfucura, 2012 ; Krüger, 2005 ; Oladeji et al., 2021 ; Ross & Wall, 1999 ; Valdivieso et al., 2015 ). It can also boost rural economies and alleviate poverty in developing countries (Snyman, 2017 ; Zhong & Liu, 2017 ).

With unrestricted increasing attention to the ecological environment and the improvement of environmental awareness, ecotourism is becoming ever more prevalent, and the demand for tourism is increasing year by year (CREST, 2019 ). This increase, however, leads to a number of environmental, social and economic challenges in the development of ecotourism. For example, due to the low public awareness of ecotourism, the increase in tourists has brought a series of negative impacts on the local ecological environment, culture and economy, including disrespect for local culture and environmental protection, as well as more infrastructure construction and economic burden to meet the needs of tourists (Ahmad et al., 2018 ; Chiu et al., 2014 ; Shasha et al., 2020 ; Xu et al., 2020 ). Such challenges and contradictions are urgent problems to be tackled by the sustainable development of ecotourism. Especially against the backdrop of the current pandemic, tourism has experienced a severe blow, but climate change and other environmental issues have not been improved (CREST, 2020 ). In this context, facing these challenges and difficulties, it is essential to re-examine the future development path of ecotourism, to explore how government agencies can formulate appropriate management policies while preserving the environment and natural resources to support sustainable tourism development. Accordingly, it is necessary to consult literature in the field of ecotourism to understand the research progress and fundamental research issues, to identify challenges, suitable methods and future research direction of ecotourism.

Some previous reviews of ecotourism offer a preview of research trends in this rapidly developing area. Weaver and Lawton ( 2007 ) provide a comprehensive assessment of the current state and future progress of contemporary ecotourism research, starting with the supply and demand dichotomy of ecotourism, as well as fundamental areas such as quality control, industry, external environment and institutions. Ardoin et al. ( 2015 ) conducted a literature review, analyzing the influence of nature tourism on ecological knowledge, attitudes, behavior and potential research into the future. Niñerola et al. ( 2019 ) used the bibliometric method and VOSviewer to study the papers on sustainable development of tourism in Scopus from 1987 to 2018, including literature landscape and development trends. Shasha et al. ( 2020 ) used bibliometrics and social network analysis to review the research progress of ecotourism from 2001 to 2018 based on the Web of Science database using BibExcel and Gephi and explored the current hot spots and methods of ecotourism research. These reviews have provided useful information for ecotourism research at that time, but cannot reflect the latest research trends and emerging development of ecotourism either of timeliness, data integrity, research themes or methods.

This study aims to reveal the theme pattern, landmark articles and emerging trends in ecotourism knowledge landscape research from macro- to micro-perspectives. Unlike previous literature surveys, from timeliness, our dataset contains articles published between 2003 and 2021, and it will reveal more of the trends that have emerged over the last 3 years. Updating the rapidly developing literature is important as recent discoveries from different areas can fundamentally change collective knowledge (Chen et al., 2012 , 2014a ). To ensure data integrity, two bibliographic datasets were generated from Web of Science, including a core dataset using the topic search and an expanded dataset using the citation expansion method, which is more robust than defining rapidly growing fields using only keyword lists (Chen et al., 2014b ). And from the research theme and method, our review focuses on the area of ecotourism and is instructed by a scientometric method conducted by CiteSpace, an analysis system for visualizing newly developing trends and key changes in scientific literature (Chen et al., 2012 ). Emerging trends are detected based on metrics calculated by CiteSpace, without human intervention or working knowledge of the subject matter (Chen et al., 2012 ). Choosing this approach can cover a more extensive and diverse range of related topics and ensure repeatability of analysis with updated data (Chen et al., 2014b ).

In addition, Shneider’s four-stage theory will be used to interpret the results in this review. According to Shneider’s four-stage theory of scientific discipline (Shneider, 2009 ), the development of a scientific discipline is divided into four stages. Stage I is the conceptualization stage, in which the objects and phenomena of a new discipline or research are established. Stage II is characterized by the development of research techniques and methods that allow researchers to investigate potential phenomena. As a result of methodological advances, there is a further understanding of objects and phenomena in the field of new subjects at this stage. Once the techniques and methods for specific purposes are available, the research enters Stage III, where the investigation is based primarily on the application of the new research method. This stage is productive, in which the research results have considerably enhanced the researchers’ understanding of the research issues and disclosed some unknown phenomena, leading to interdisciplinary convergence or the emergence of new research directions or specialties. The last stage is Stage IV, whose particularity is to transform tacit knowledge into conditional knowledge and generalized knowledge, so as to maintain and transfer the scientific knowledge generated in the first three stages.

The structure of this paper is construed as follows. The second part describes the research methods employed, the scientometric approach and CiteSpace, as well as the data collection. In the third part, the bibliographic landscape of the core dataset is expounded from the macroscopic to the microscopic angle. The fourth part explores the developments and emerging trends in the field of ecotourism based on the expanded dataset and discusses the evolution phase of ecotourism. The final part is the conclusion of this study. Future research of ecotourism is prospected, and the limitations of this study are discussed.

2 Methods and data collection

2.1 scientometric analyses and citespace.

Scientometrics is a branch of informatics that involves quantitative analysis of scientific literature in order to capture emerging trends and knowledge structures in a particular area of study (Chen et al., 2012 ). Science mapping tools generate interactive visual representations of complex structures by feeding a set of scientific literature through scientometrics and visual analysis tools to highlight potentially important patterns and trends for statistical analysis and visualization exploration (Chen, 2017 ). At present, scientometrics is widely used in many fields of research, and there are also many kinds of scientific mapping software widely used by researchers and analysts, such as VosViewer, SCI2, HistCite, SciMAT, Gephi, Pajek and CiteSpace (Chen, 2011 , 2017 ; Chen et al., 2012 ).

Among these tools, CiteSpace is known for its powerful literature co-citation analysis, and its algorithms and features are constantly being refined as it continues to evolve. CiteSpace is a citation visual analysis software developed under the background of scientometrics and data visualization to analyze the basics that are included in scientific analysis (Chen, 2017 ; Chen et al., 2012 ). It is specialized designed to satisfy the need for systematic review in rapidly changing complicated areas, particularly with the ability to identify and explain emerging trends and transition patterns (Chen et al., 2014a ). It supports multiple types of bibliometric research, such as collaborative network analysis, co-word analysis, author co-citation analysis, document co-citation analysis, and temporal and spatial visualization (Chen, 2017 ). Currently, CiteSpace has been extensively used in more than 60 fields, including computer science, information science, management and medicine (Abad-Segura et al., 2019 ; Chen, 2017 ).

In this paper, we utilize CiteSpace (5.8.R1) to analyze acquired bibliographies of ecotourism to study emerging trends and developments in this field. From macro to micro, from intuitive to complex, from whole to part and from general to special, the writing ideas are adopted. Figure  1 presented the specific research framework of this study.

The research framework of this study

2.2 Data collection

Typical sources of scientific literature are Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar. Considering the quantity and quality of data, the Web of Science database was expected to provide the original data in this research. In order to comprehend the research status and development trends of ecotourism, this study systematically reviewed the ecotourism literature collected on the Web of Science Core Collection. The Web of Science Core Collection facilitates access to the world’s leading scholarly journals, books and proceedings of conferences in the sciences, social sciences, art, and humanities, as well as access to their entire citation network. It mainly includes Science Citation Index Expanded from 2003 to current and Social Sciences Citation Index from 2004 to present. Therefore, the data obtained in this study are from 2003 and were consulted on June 3, 2021.

In the process of data retrieval, it is frequently confronted with the choice between recall rate and precision rate. To address the problem of low recall rate in keyword or topic retrieval, Chen et al. ( 2014a , b ) expanded the retrieval results through ‘citation expansion’ and ‘comprehensive topic search’ strategies. However, when the recall rate is high, the accuracy rate will decrease correspondingly. In practical standpoint, instead of refining and cleaning up the original search results, a simpler and more efficient way is to cluster or skip these unrelated branches. Priority should be placed on ensuring recall rate, and data integrity is more important than data for accuracy. Therefore, two ecotourism documentation datasets, the core dataset and the expanded dataset, were obtained from the Web of Science by using comprehensive topic search and citation expansion method. The latter approach has been proved more robust than using keyword lists only to define fast-growing areas (Chen et al., 2014b ). A key bibliographic landscape is generated based on the core dataset, followed by more thorough research of the expanded dataset.

2.2.1 The core dataset

The core dataset was derived through comprehensive subject retrieval in Web of Science Core Collection. The literature type was selected as an article or review, and the language was English. The period spans 2003 to 2021. The topic search query is composed of three phrases of ecotourism: ‘ ecotour* ’ OR ‘ eco-tour* ’ OR ‘ ecological NEAR/5 tour* ’. The wildcard * is used to capture related variants of words, for example, ecotour, ecotourism, ecotourist and ecotourists. The related records that are requested include finding these terms in the title, abstract or keywords. The query yielded 2991 original unique records.

2.2.2 The expanded dataset

The expanded dataset includes the core dataset and additional records obtained by reference link association founded on the core dataset. The principle of citation expansion is that if an article cites at least one article in the core dataset, we can infer that it is related to the topic (Garfield, 1955 ). The expanded dataset is comprised of 27,172 unique records, including the core dataset and the articles that cited them. Both datasets were used for the following scientometrics analysis.

3 Bibliographic landscape based on the core dataset

The core dataset consists of a total of 2991 literature from 2003 to 2021. This study utilized the core dataset to conduct an overall understanding of the bibliographic landscape in the field of ecotourism.

3.1 Landscape views of core dataset

The distribution of the yearly publication of bibliographic records in the core and expanded datasets is presented in Fig.  2 . It can be observed that the overall number of ecotourism-related publications is on the rise, indicating that the scholarly community is increasingly interested in ecotourism. After 2018, the growth rate increased substantially. And in 2020, the number of publications in the expanded dataset is close to 5000, almost double that of 2017 and 5 times that of 2011. This displays the rapid development of research in the field of ecotourism in recent years, particularly after 2018, more and more researchers began to pay attention to this field, which also echoes the trend of global tourism development and environmental protection. With the increase in personal income, tourism has grown very rapidly, and with it, tourism revenue and tourist numbers, especially in developing states. For instance, the number of domestic tourists in China increased from 2.641 billion in 2011 to 6.06 billion in 2019, and tourism revenue increased from 1930.5 billion RMB in 2011 to 5725.1 billion RMB in 2019 (MCT, 2021 ). However, due to the lack of effective management and frequent human activities, the rapid development of tourism has led to various ecological and environmental problems, which require corresponding solutions (Shasha et al., 2020 ). This has played an active role in promoting the development of ecotourism and triggered a lot of related research. In addition, since 2005, the expanded dataset has contained numerous times as many references as the core dataset, demonstrating the importance of using citation expansion for literature retrieval in scientometric review studies.

The distribution of bibliographic records in core and expanded dataset. Note The data were consulted on June 3, 2021

The data were consulted on June 3, 2021

The dual-map overlay of scientific map literature as Fig.  3 shows, against the background of global scientific map from more than 10,000 journals covered by Web of Science, represents the distribution and connections on research bases and application fields across the entire dataset of the research topics (Chen & Leydesdorff, 2014 ). Colored lines are citation links, and numbered headings are cluster labels. On the left side is the journal distribution which cites literature, regarding the field application of ecotourism, mainly covers multiple disciplines such as 3. Ecology, Earth, Marine, 6. Psychology, Education, Health, 7. Veterinary, Animal Science and 10. Economics, Economic and Political. On the right side is the distribution of journals of cited literature, representing the research basis of ecotourism. As can be observed from the figure, ecotourism research is based on at least five disciplines on the right, including 2. Environmental, Toxicology, Nutrition, 7. Psychology, Education, Social, 8. Molecular, Biology, Genetics, 10. Plant, Ecology, Zoology and 12. Economics, Economic, Political. It can be viewed that the research field of ecotourism spans multiple disciplines and is a comprehensive and complex subject. The dual-map overlay provides a global visualization of literature growth of the discipline level.

A dual-map overlay of ecotourism literature

The total number of papers issued by a country or an institution reflects its academic focus and overall strength, while centrality indicates the degree of academic cooperation with others and the influence of published papers. The top 15 countries and institutions for the number of ecotourism papers published from 2003 to 2021 are provided in Table 1 . Similar to the study of Shasha et al. ( 2020 ), the ranking of the top six countries by the number of publications remains unchanged. As can be seen from the table, the USA ranks first in the world, far ahead in both the number of publications and the centrality. China ranks second in global ecotourism publications, followed by Australia, England, South Africa and Canada. While the latest data show that Taiwan (China), Turkey and South Korea appear on the list. Overall, the top 15 countries with the most publications cover five continents, containing a number of developed and developing, which shows that ecotourism research is receiving global attention. In terms of international academic cooperation and impact of ecotourism, Australia and England share second place, Italy and France share fourth place, followed by South Africa and Spain. China’s centrality is relatively low compared to the number of publications, ranking eighth. Academic cooperation between countries is of great significance. Usually, countries with high academic publishing level cooperate closely due to similar research interests. International academic cooperation has enhanced each other’s research capacity and promoted the development of ecotourism research. Therefore, although some countries have entered this list with the publication number, they should attach importance to increase academic cooperation with other countries and improving the international influence of published papers.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences and its university are the most prolific when it draws to institutions’ performance. It is the most important and influential research institute in China, especially in the field of sustainable development science. Australia has four universities on the list, with Griffith University and James Cook University in second and third place. USA also includes four universities, with the University of Florida in fourth place. South Africa, a developing country, gets three universities, with the University of Cape Town and the University of Johannesburg fifth and sixth, respectively. In comparison with previous studies (Shasha et al., 2020 ), Iran and Mexico each have one university in the ranking, replacing two universities in Greece, which means that the importance and influence of developing countries in the field of ecotourism is gradually rising. Based on the above results, it can be summarized that the USA, China, Australia and South Africa are relatively active countries in the field of ecotourism, and their development is also in a relatively leading position.

3.2 Most active topics

The foam tree map and the pie chart of the focal topics of ecotourism based on the core dataset generated by Carrot2 through the title of each article is illustrated in Fig.  4 . Developing and developed, case study, protected areas, sustainable tourism, tourism development and developing ecotourism are leading topics in the field of ecotourism research, as well as specific articles under the main topics. The lightweight view generated by Carrot2 provides a reference for the research, and then, co-word analysis is employed to more specifically reflect the topics in the research field.

Foam tree map and pie chart of major topics on ecotourism

The topics covered by ecotourism could be exposed by the keywords of the articles in the core dataset. Figure  5 displays the keywords analysis results generated based on the core dataset. From the visualization results in the figure, it can infer that ecotourism, conservation, tourism, management, protected area, impact, biodiversity, sustainability, national park and community are the ten most concerned topics. Distinct colors set out at the time of co-citation keywords first appear, and yellow is generated earlier than red. In addition, Fig.  5 can also reflect the development and emerging topics in the research field, such as China, Mexico, South Africa and other hot countries for ecotourism research; ecosystem service, economic value, climate change, wildlife tourism, rural tourism, forest, marine protected area and other specific research directions; valuation, contingent valuation, choice experiment and other research methods; willingness to pay, preference, benefit, perception, attitude, satisfaction, experience, behavior, motivation, risk, recreation and other specific research issues.

A landscape view of keywords based on the core dataset

4 Emerging trends and developments based on the expanded dataset

The expanded dataset, consisting of 27,172 records, is approximately nine times larger than the core dataset. This research applies the expanded dataset to profoundly explore the emerging trends and developments of ecotourism.

4.1 Keywords with citation bursts

Detection of citation bursts can indicate both the scientific community’s interest in published articles and burst keywords as an indicator of emerging tendencies. Figure  6 displays the top 30 keywords with the strongest citation bursts in the expanded dataset. Since 2003, a large number of keywords have exploded. Among them, the strongest bursts include ecotourism, bird, disturbance, reserve, Africa, challenge, sustainable development and strategy. Keywords with citation burst after 2017 are experience, challenge, sustainable development, willingness to pay, perspective, strategy, quality and satisfaction, which have continued to this day. The results indicate dynamic development and emerging trends in research hotspots in the field of ecotourism.

Top 30 keywords with the strongest citation bursts

4.2 References with citation bursts

Figure  7 sets out the top 30 references in the expanded dataset with citation bursts. The articles with the fastest growing citations can also contribute to describe the dynamics of a field. References with high values in strength column are important milestones of ecotourism research. The two articles with strong citation bursts prior to 2010 focused on the human impact on the environment and animals. West et al. ( 2006 ) discussed the relationship between parks and human beings and the social impact of protected areas, and Köndgen et al. ( 2008 ) studied the decline of endangered great apes caused by a human pandemic virus. The paper with the strongest citation burst in the entire expanded dataset was released by Fairhead et al. ( 2012 ), which looked at ‘green grabbing,’ the appropriation of land and resources for environmental purposes. Milcu et al. ( 2013 ) conducted a semi-quantitative review of publications dealing with cultural ecosystem services with the second strongest citation burst, which concluded that the improvement of the evaluation method of cultural ecosystem service value, the research on the value of cultural ecosystem service under the background of ecosystem service and the clarification of policy significance were the new themes of cultural ecosystem service research. In addition, many articles with citation burst discussed the evaluation method of ecosystem services value (Costanza et al., 2014 ; Groot et al., 2010 ), the evaluation of cultural ecosystem service value (Plieninger et al., 2013 ) and its role in ecosystem service evaluation (Chan et al., 2012 ; Chan, Guerry, et al., 2012 ; Chan, Satterfield, et al., 2012 ; Chan, Satterfield, et al., 2012 ; Daniel et al., 2012 ). The most fresh literature with strong citation burst is the article of D’Amato et al. ( 2017 ) published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, which compared and analyzed sustainable development avenues such as green, circular and bio economy. In addition, it is worthwhile noting the use of R in ecotourism, with the persuasive citation burst continuing from 2012 to the present, as indicated by the orange arrow in Fig.  7 .

Top 30 references with the strongest citation bursts

4.3 Landscape view of co-citation analysis

The landscape view of co-citation analysis of Fig.  8 is generated based on the expanded dataset. Using g -index ( k  = 25) selection criteria in the latest edition of CiteSpace, an annual citation network was constructed. The final merged network contained 3294 links, 2122 nodes and 262 co-citation clusters. The three largest linked components cover 1748 connected nodes, representing 82% of the entire network. The modularization degree of the synthetic network is 0.8485, which means that co-citation clustering can clearly define each sub-field of ecotourism. Another weighted mean silhouette value of the clustering validity evaluation is 0.9377, indicating that the clustering degree of the network is also very superior. The harmonic mean value amounts to 0.8909.

A landscape view of the co-citation network based on the expanded dataset

In the co-citation network view, the location of clusters and the correlation between clusters can show the intellectual structure in the field of ecotourism, so that readers can obtain an overall understanding of this field. The network falls into 25 co-citation clusters. The tags for each cluster are generated founded on the title, keywords and abstract of the cited article. Color-coded areas represent the time of first appeared co-citation links, with gray indicating earlier and red later. The nodes in the figure with red tree rings are references to citation bursts.

4.4 Timeline view

In order to further understand the time horizon and study process of developing evolution on clusters, after the generation of co-citation cluster map, the Y -axis is cluster number and the year of citation publication is X -axis, so as to obtain the timeline view of the co-citation network, shown as Fig.  9 . Clusters are organized vertically from largest to smallest. The color curve represents co-citation link coupled with corresponding color year, with gray representing earlier and red representing newer. Larger nodes and nodes with red tree rings indicate high citation or citation burst. The three most cited references of the year demonstrate below each node, in vertical order from least to most.

A timeline visualization of the largest clusters

The timeline view provides a reasonably instinctual and insightful reference to understand the evolutionary path of every subdomain. Figure  9 shows 19 clusters ranging from #0 to #18, with #0 being the largest cluster. As can be seen from the figure, the sustainability and activeness of each cluster are contrasting. For example, the largest cluster has been active since 2006, while the gray and purple clusters are no longer active.

4.5 Major clusters

Taking clustering as a unit and analyzing at the level of clustering, specifically selecting large or new type clustering, is the foothold of co-citation analysis, which can help to understand the principal and latest research fields related to ecotourism. Table 2 displays a summary of the foremost 19 clusters, the first nine of which are all over 100 in size. The silhouette score of all clusters is greater than 0.8, indicating that the homogeneity of each cluster is high. The mean year is the average of the publication dates of references in the cluster. By combining the results in Table 2 , Figs.  8 and 9 , it can be observed that the five largest clusters are #0 cultural ecosystem services, #1 large carnivore, #2 human disturbance, #3 whale shark and #4 ecosystem service. A recent topic is cluster #16 COVID-19 pandemic. #11 Ecological footprint and #14 social media are two relatively youthful fields.

The research status of a research field can be demonstrated by its knowledge base and research frontier. The knowledge base consists of a series of scholarly writing cited by the corresponding article, i.e., cited references, while the research frontier is the writing inspired by the knowledge base, i.e., citing articles. Distinct research frontiers may come from the same knowledge base. Consequently, each cluster is analyzed based on cited references and citing articles. The cited references and citing articles of the five largest clusters are shown in Online Appendix A. Fig a) lists the 15 top cited references with the highest Σ (sigma) value in the cluster, where Σ value indicates that the citation is optimal in terms of the comprehensive performance of structural centrality and citation bursts. Fig b) shows the major citing articles of cluster. The citation behavior of these articles determines the grouping of cited literature and thus forms the cluster. The coverage is the proportion of member citations cited by citing articles.

4.6 Phase evolution research

Through the above analysis of the core dataset and the expanded dataset of ecotourism, we can see the development and evolution of the research field of ecotourism. The research process of ecotourism has gone through several stages, and each stage has its strategic research issues. Research starts with thinking about the relationship between humans and nature, moves to study it as a whole ecosystem, and then explores sustainable development. Hence, the evolution of ecotourism can be roughly parted into three phases.

4.6.1 Phase I: Human disturbance research stage (2003–2010)

This phase of research concentrates on the influence of human activities such as ecotourism on the environment and animals. Representative keywords of this period include ecotourism, human disturbance, response, coral reef, bird, disturbance, recreation, reserve, park, South Africa and people. Representative articles are those published by West et al. ( 2006 ) and Köndgen et al. ( 2008 ) of human impact on the environment and animals. The representative clustering is #2 human disturbance, which is the third largest one, consisting of 130 cited references from 1998 to 2012 with the average year of 2004. This cluster has citation bursts between 2002 and 2010 and has been inactive since then. As showed in Fig S3 a) and b), the research base and frontier are mainly around the impact of human disturbances such as ecotourism on biology and the environment (McClung et al., 2004 ). And as showed in Fig.  8 and Fig.  9 , clusters closely related to #2 belong to this phase and are also no longer active, such as #5 off-road vehicle, #6 protected area, #10 poverty reduction and #12 sustainable lifestyle.

4.6.2 Phase II: Ecosystem services research stage (2011–2015)

In this stage, the content of ecotourism research is diversified and exploded. The research is not confined to the relationship between humans and nature, but begins to investigate it as an entire ecosystem. In addition, some specific or extended areas began to receive attention. Typical keywords are abundance, resource, Africa, risk, predation, consequence and science. The most illustrative papers in this stage are Fairhead et al. ( 2012 )’s discussion on green grabbing and Milcu et al. ( 2013 )’s review on cultural ecosystem services. Other representative papers in this period focused on the evaluation methods of ecosystem service value and the role of cultural ecosystem service in the evaluation of ecosystem service value. Most of the larger clusters in the survey erupted at this stage, including #0 cultural ecosystem services, #1 large carnivore, #3 whale shark, #4 ecosystem services. Some related clusters also belong to this stage, such as #7 neoliberal conservation, #8 responsible behavior, #9 tourism development, #13 mangrove forest, #15 volunteer tourism, #17 circular economy and #18 telecoupling framework.

Cluster #0 cultural ecosystem services are the largest cluster in ecotourism research field, containing 157 cited references from 2006 to 2019, with the mean year being 2012. It commenced to have the citation burst in 2009, with high cited continuing until 2019. Cultural ecosystem services are an essential component of ecosystem services, including spiritual, entertainment and cultural benefits. Thus, in Fig.  8 , the overlap with #4 ecosystem services can obviously be seen. In Cluster #0, many highly cited references have discussed the trade-offs between natural and cultural ecosystem services in ecosystem services (Nelson et al., 2009 ; Raudsepp-Hearne et al., 2010 ) and the important role of cultural ecosystem services in the evaluation of ecosystem services value (Burkhard et al., 2012 ; Chan, Guerry, et al., 2012 ; Chan, Satterfield, et al., 2012 ; Fisher et al., 2009 ; Groot et al., 2010 ). As non-market value, how to evaluate and quantify cultural ecosystem services is also an important issue (Hernández-Morcillo et al., 2012 ; Milcu et al., 2013 ; Plieninger et al., 2013 ). Besides, the exploration of the relationship among biodiversity, human beings and ecosystem services is also the focus of this cluster research (Bennett et al., 2015 ; Cardinale et al., 2012 ; Díaz et al., 2015 ; Mace et al., 2012 ). The citing articles of #0 indicate the continued exploration of the connotation of cultural ecosystem services and their value evaluation methods (Dickinson & Hobbs, 2017 ). It is noteworthy that some articles have introduced spatial geographic models (Havinga et al., 2020 ; Hirons et al., 2016 ) and social media methods (Calcagni et al., 2019 ) as novel methods to examine cultural ecosystem services. In addition, the link and overlap between #0 cultural ecosystem service and #17 circular economy cannot be overlooked.

Ecosystem services relate to all the benefits that humans receive from ecosystems, including supply services, regulatory services, cultural services and support services. Research on cultural ecosystem services is based on the research of ecosystem services. It can be viewed in Fig.  9 that the research and citation burst in #4 was all slightly earlier than #0. Cluster #4 includes 118 references from 2005 to 2019, with an average year of 2011. In its research and development, how to integrate ecosystem services into the market and the payment scheme to protect the natural environment is a significant research topic (Gómez-Baggethun et al., 2010 ). In Cluster #4, the most influential literature provides an overview of the payment of ecosystem services (PES) from theory to practice by Engel et al. ( 2008 ). Many highly cited references have discussed PES (Kosoy & Corbera, 2010 ; Muradian et al., 2010 ), including the effectiveness of evaluation (Naeem et al., 2015 ), social equity matters (Pascual et al., 2014 ), the suitability and challenge (Muradian et al., 2013 ), and how to contribute to saving nature (Redford & Adams, 2009 ). The cluster also includes studies on impact assessment of protected areas (Oldekop et al., 2016 ), protected areas and poverty (Brockington & Wilkie, 2015 ; Ferraro & Hanauer, 2014 ), public perceptions (Bennett, 2016 ; Bennett & Dearden, 2014 ) and forest ecosystem services (Hansen et al., 2013 ). The foremost citing articles confirm the dominant theme of ecosystem services, especially the in-depth study and discussion of PES (Muniz & Cruz, 2015 ). In addition, #4 is highly correlated with #7 neoliberal protection, and Fairhead et al. ( 2012 ), a representative article of this stage, belongs to this cluster.

As the second largest cluster, Cluster #1 contains 131 references from 2008 to 2019, with the median year of 2014. As Fig S2 a) shows, the highly cited literature has mainly studied the status and protection of large carnivores (Mace, 2014 ; Ripple et al., 2014 ), including the situation of reduction (Craigie et al., 2010 ), downgrade (Estes et al., 2011 ) and even extinction (Dirzo et al., 2014 ; Pimm et al., 2014 ), and the reasons for such results, such as tourist visits (Balmford et al., 2015 ; Geffroy et al., 2015 ) and the increase in population at the edge of the protected areas (Wittemyer et al., 2008 ). The conservation effects of protected areas on wildlife biodiversity (Watson et al., 2014 ) and the implications of tourist preference heterogeneity for conservation and management (Minin et al., 2013 ) have also received attention. It is worth noting that the high citation rate of a paper using R to estimate the linear mixed-effects model (Bates et al., 2015 ) and the use of R in this cluster. The relationship between biodiversity and ecotourism is highlighted by the representative citing articles in research frontier of this cluster (Chung et al., 2018 ).

Cluster #3 refers to marine predator, and as shown in Fig.  8 , which has a strong correlation with #1. A total of 125 references were cited from 2002 to 2018, with an average year of 2011. References with high citation in #3 mainly studied the extinction and protection of marine life such as sharks (Dulvy et al., 2014 ), as well as the economic value and ecological impact of shark ecotourism (Clua et al., 2010 ; Gallagher & Hammerschlag, 2011 ; Gallagher et al., 2015 ). The paper published by Gallagher et al. ( 2015 ) is both the highly cited reference and main citing article, mainly focusing on the impact of shark ecotourism. It is also noteworthy that #6 protected area, #13 mangrove forest and #29 Mediterranean areas are highly correlated with these two clusters (Fig.  8 ).

Moreover, some clusters are not highly correlated with other clusters, but cannot be neglected at this stage of research. Cluster #8 responsible behavior includes 107 citations with the average year 2013, and mainly studied environmentally responsible behaviors in ecotourism (Chiu et al., 2014 ). Cluster #9 tourism development contains 97 cited references with mean year of 2015, focusing on the impact of such factors as residents’ perception on tourism development (Sharpley, 2014 ). Cluster #15 volunteer tourism consists of 52 citations, with an average year of 2011, which mainly considers the role of volunteer tourism in tourism development and sustainable tourism (Wearing & McGehee, 2013 ). Cluster #18 telecoupling framework has 26 cited references with the mean year being 2015, and the application of the new integrated framework of telecoupling Footnote 1 in ecotourism can be seen (Liu et al., 2015 ).

At this stage, it can be seen that the research field of ecotourism begins to develop in the direction of diversification, including the value evaluation and related research of ecosystem services and cultural ecosystem services, as well as the exploration of wild animals and plants, marine animals and plants and biodiversity. Neoliberal conservation, tourists’ responsible behavior, tourism development, volunteer tourism and circular economy are all explored. Some new research methods have also brought fresh air to this field, such as the introduction of spatial geographic models and social media methods, the discussion of economic value evaluation methods, the widespread use of R and the exploration of telecoupling framework. Therefore, from this stage, research in the field of ecotourism has entered the second stage of scientific discipline development (Shneider, 2009 ), featured by the use and evolution of research tools that can be used to investigate potential phenomena.

4.6.3 Phase III: Sustainable development research stage (2016 to present)

This stage of research continues to explore a series of topics of the preceding phase and further extends the research field on this basis. The keywords at this stage are politics, marine protected area and valuation. Some other keywords are still very active today, such as experience, challenge, sustainable development, willingness to pay, perspective, strategy, quality and satisfaction. The representative article is about sustainable development published by D'Amato et al. ( 2017 ), as shown in Fig.  8 belonging to #17 circular economy. The emerging clusters in this period are #11 ecological footprint, #14 social media and #16 COVID-19 pandemic. Cluster #11 contains 70 cited references from 2013 to 2020 with the mean year 2017. This clustering study mainly used the ecological footprint as an environmental indicator and socioeconomic indicators such as tourism to investigate the hypothesis of environmental Kuznets curve (Ozturk et al., 2016 ; Ulucak & Bilgili, 2018 ). Cluster #14 includes 52 cited references, with an average year of 2016. It can be seen that the introduction of social media data has added new color to research in the field of ecotourism, such as using social media data to quantify landscape value (Zanten et al., 2016 ) and to understand tourists’ preferences for the experience of protected areas (Hausmann et al., 2018 ), as well as from a spatial perspective using social media geo-tagged photos as indicators for evaluating cultural ecosystem services (Richards & Friess, 2015 ). As the latest and most concerned topic, cluster #16 contains 48 cited references, with mean year of 2018. This cluster mainly cites research on over-tourism (Seraphin et al., 2018 ) and sustainable tourism (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018 ) and explores the impact of pandemics such as COVID-19 on global tourism (Gössling et al., 2021 ).

These emerging clusters at this phase bring fresh thinking to the research of ecotourism. First of all, the analysis of ecological footprint provides a tool for measuring the degree of sustainability and helps to monitor the effectiveness of sustainable programs (Kharrazi et al., 2014 ). Research and exploration of ecological footprint in ecotourism expresses the idea of sustainable development and puts forward reasonable planning and suggestions by comparing the demand of ecological footprint with the carrying capacity of natural ecosystem. Secondly, the use of social media data brings a new perspective of data acquisition to ecotourism research. Such large-scale data acquisition can make up for the limitations of sample size and data sampling bias faced by survey data users and provide a new way to understand and explore tourist behavior and market (Li et al., 2018 ). Finally, the sudden impact of COVID-19 in 2020 and its long-term sustainability has dealt a huge blow to the tourism industry. COVID-19 has highlighted the great need and value of tourism, while fundamentally changing the way destinations, business and visitors plan, manage and experience tourism (CREST, 2020 ). However, the stagnation of tourism caused by the pandemic is not enough to meet the challenges posed by the environment and the climate crisis. Therefore, how to sustain the development of tourism in this context to meet the challenges of the environment and climate change remains an important issue in the coming period of time. These emerging clusters are pushing the boundaries of ecotourism research and the exploration of sustainable development in terms of research methods, data collection and emerging topics.

Despite the fact that the research topics in this stage are richer and more diversified, the core goal of research is still committed to the sustainable development of ecotourism. The introduction of new technologies and the productive results have led to a much-improved understanding of research issues. All this commemorates the entrance of research into the third stage of the development of scientific disciplines (Shneider, 2009 ). In addition to continuing the current research topics, the future development of the field of ecotourism will continue to focus on the goal of sustainable development and will be more diversified and interdisciplinary.

5 Conclusion

This paper uses scientometrics to make a comprehensive visual domain analysis of ecotourism. The aim is to take advantage of this method to conduct an in-depth systematic review of research and development in the field of ecotourism. We have enriched the process of systematic reviews of knowledge domains with features from the latest CiteSpace software. Compared with previous studies, this study not only updated the database, but also extended the dataset with citation expansion, so as to more comprehensively identify the rapidly developing research field. The research not only identifies the main clusters and their advance in ecotourism research based on high impact citations and research frontiers formed by citations, but also presents readers with new insights through intuitive visual images. Through this study, readers can swiftly understand the progress of ecotourism, and on the basis of this study, they can use this method to conduct in-depth analysis of the field they are interested in.

Our research shows that ecotourism has developed rapidly in recent years, with the number of published articles increasing year by year, and this trend has become more pronounced after 2018. The research field of ecotourism spans many disciplines and is a comprehensive interdisciplinary subject. Ecotourism also attracts the attention of numerous developed and developing countries and institutions. The USA, China, Australia and South Africa are in a relatively leading position in the research and development of ecotourism. Foam tree map and pie chart of major topics, and the landscape view of keywords provide the hotspot issues of the research field. The development trend of ecotourism is preliminarily understood by detecting the citation bursts of the keywords and published articles. Co-citation analysis generates the main clusters of ecotourism research, and the timeline visualization of these clusters provides a clearer view for understanding the development dynamics of the research field. Building on all the above results, the research and development of ecotourism can be roughly divided into three stages: human disturbance, ecosystem services and sustainable development. Through the study of keywords, representative literature and main clusters in each stage, the development characteristics and context of each stage are clarified. From the current research results, we can catch sight that the application of methods and software in ecotourism research and the development of cross-field. Supported by the Shneider’s four-stage theory of scientific discipline (Shneider, 2009 ), it can be thought that ecotourism is in the third stage. Research tools and methods have become more potent and convenient, and research perspectives have become more diverse.

Based on the overall situation, research hotspots and development tendency of ecotourism research, it can be seen that the sustainable development of ecotourism is the core issue of current ecotourism research and also an important goal for future development. In the context of the current pandemic, the tourism industry is in crisis, but crisis often breeds innovation, and we must take time to reconsider the way forward. As we look forward to the future of tourism, we must adopt the rigor and dedication required to adapt to the pandemic, adhering to the principles of sustainable development while emphasizing economic reliability, environmental suitability and cultural acceptance. Post-COVID, the competitive landscape of travel and tourism will change profoundly, with preventive and effective risk management, adaptation and resilience, and decarbonization laying the foundation for future competitiveness and relevance (CREST, 2020 ).

In addition, as can be seen from the research and development of ecotourism, the exploration of sustainable development increasingly needs to absorb research methods from diverse fields to guide the formulation of policy. First of all, how to evaluate and quantify ecotourism reasonably and scientifically is an essential problem to be solved in the development of ecotourism. Some scholars choose contingent valuation method (CVM) and choice experiment (CE) in environmental economics to evaluate the economic value of ecotourism, especially non-market value. In addition, the introduction of spatial econometrics and the use of geographic information system (GIS) provide spatial scale analysis methods and results presentation for the sustainable development of ecotourism. The use of social media data implies the application of big data technology in the field of ecotourism, where machine learning methods such as artificial neural networks (ANN) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) are increasingly being applied (Talebi et al., 2021 ). The measurement of ecological footprint and the use of telecoupling framework provide a reliable way to measure sustainable development and the interaction between multiple systems. These approaches all have expanded the methodological boundaries of ecotourism research. It is worth noting that R, as an open source and powerful software, is favored by scholars in the field of ecotourism. This programming language for statistical computation is now widely used in statistical analysis, data mining, data processing and mapping of ecotourism research.

The scientometrics method used in this study is mainly guided by the citation model in the literature retrieval dataset. The range of data retrieval exercises restraint by the source of retrieval and the query method utilized. While current methods can meet the requirements, iterative query optimization can also serve to advance in the quality of the data. To achieve higher data accuracy, the concept tree function in the new version of CiteSpace can also serve to clarify the research content of each clustering (Chen, 2017 ). In addition, the structural variation analysis in the new edition is also an interesting study, which can show the citation footprints of typical high-yielding authors and judge the influence of the author on the variability of network structure through the analysis of the citation footprints (Chen, 2017 ).

Availability of data and material

The data that support the findings of this study are available from Web of Science.

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This study is funded by Education Department of Heilongjiang Province (1451MSYYB013) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.71874026 and No.71171044).

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Xu, L., Ao, C., Liu, B. et al. Ecotourism and sustainable development: a scientometric review of global research trends. Environ Dev Sustain 25 , 2977–3003 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-022-02190-0

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100+ Tourism Research Topics: Trends and Future Directions

Tourism research stands at the crossroads of exploration and understanding, dissecting the intricacies of an industry that transcends geographical boundaries. In this blog, we delve into the realm of tourism research topics, examining their importance, trends, popular areas of study, challenges faced by researchers, and the future directions that the field is poised to take.

Key Trends in Tourism Research

Table of Contents

• Sustainable Tourism

Sustainable tourism has become a cornerstone of research in recent years, reflecting the global shift towards eco-conscious travel. Researchers are delving into the intricate balance between satisfying the wanderlust of tourists and preserving the environment.

Initiatives such as wildlife conservation, eco-friendly accommodations, and community engagement are key focus areas.

Technology in Tourism

The pervasive influence of technology on tourism cannot be overstated. From online booking platforms to virtual reality experiences, researchers are exploring the impact of technology on travel behavior.

Emerging areas of study include the use of artificial intelligence in personalized travel recommendations and the implications of augmented reality for enhancing tourist attractions.

What is the Importance of Tourism Research for Students?

Tourism research holds significant importance for students pursuing studies in various disciplines, including tourism management, hospitality, business, sociology, and environmental studies. Here are some key reasons why tourism research is valuable for students:

Academic Enrichment

• Increases Understanding: By conducting study on the tourist business, students may increase their comprehension of the intricate relationships between the economic, social, cultural, and environmental facets of the sector.
• Application of Theoretical information: This increases the practical relevance of their education by giving them the chance to apply the theoretical information they have learned in the classroom to real-world situations.

Skill Development

• Research Skills: Gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data are just a few of the vital research skills that come from conducting tourist research. These abilities are adaptable and useful in a range of work environments.
• Communication abilities: Through research papers, presentations, and conversations, students learn how to effectively express their results, which improves both their writing and spoken communication abilities.

Industry Insights

• Current Trends and Issues: Research allows students to stay abreast of current trends, challenges, and emerging issues in the tourism industry. This awareness is crucial for adapting to the dynamic nature of the field.
• In-Depth Knowledge: By delving into specific tourism research topics, students gain in-depth knowledge of particular sectors within the industry, positioning themselves as experts in specialized areas.

Career Opportunities

• Competitive Advantage: Having experience in tourism research can provide students with a competitive advantage in the job market. Employers value candidates who can bring a research-driven perspective to decision-making.
• Diverse Career Paths: Whether in academia, policy-making, destination management, or market analysis, a background in tourism research opens doors to a variety of career paths within the broader field of tourism and hospitality.

Contributions to Sustainable Practices

• Environmental and Social Responsibility: Tourism research often focuses on sustainable practices. Students, through their research, can contribute ideas and solutions for promoting responsible tourism, minimizing negative impacts on the environment and local communities.

Global Perspective

• Cultural Awareness: Researching diverse tourism topics exposes students to various cultures, traditions, and perspectives. This global perspective is crucial in an industry where interactions with people from different backgrounds are common.

Problem-Solving Skills

• Analytical Thinking: Research involves analyzing complex issues and developing solutions. This cultivates students’ analytical thinking and problem-solving skills, valuable attributes in any professional setting.

Personal Growth

• Confidence Building: Successfully conducting research and presenting findings builds students’ confidence in their abilities. It empowers them to tackle challenges and approach tasks with a systematic mindset.

In summary, tourism research is a multifaceted learning experience that goes beyond textbooks, providing students with the skills, knowledge, and perspectives needed for a successful and impactful career in the tourism industry or related fields.

100+ Tourism Research Topics: Category Wise

• Impact of Technology on Travel
• Cultural Tourism and Heritage Preservation
• Dark Tourism: Ethics and Motivations
• Community-Based Tourism for Socioeconomic Development
• Wildlife Tourism and Conservation
• Gastronomic Tourism: Culinary Experiences
• Adventure Tourism: Risk and Reward
• Medical Tourism: Trends and Implications
• Religious Tourism and Pilgrimages
• LGBTQ+ Tourism: Diversity in Travel
• Film Tourism: Influence on Destination Choice
• Cruise Tourism: Environmental Impact
• Rural Tourism: Exploring Off-the-Beaten-Path
• Urban Tourism and City Planning
• Educational Tourism: Learning Journeys
• Wellness Tourism: Mind and Body Retreats
• Space Tourism: Future Frontiers
• Luxury Tourism and Experiential Travel
• Sports Tourism: Events and Impact
• Volunteer Tourism: Traveling for a Cause
• Accessible Tourism: Inclusive Travel
• Niche Tourism: Unusual Destinations
• The Psychology of Tourist Behavior
• Destination Marketing and Branding
• Over-tourism: Challenges and Solutions
• Impacts of Climate Change on Tourism
• Cruise Tourism: Cultural Interactions
• Heritage Tourism Management
• Tourism and Globalization
• Impact of Political Instability on Tourism
• COVID-19 and Tourism: Recovery Strategies
• Solo Travel: Trends and Safety Concerns
• E-Tourism: Online Booking Trends
• Responsible Tourism Practices
• Agritourism: Farm and Rural Experiences
• Wildlife Sanctuaries: Balancing Conservation and Tourism
• Backpacking Culture: Trends and Challenges
• Tourism Entrepreneurship and Innovation
• Social Media Influencers in Tourism
• Geotourism: Exploring Geological Wonders
• Virtual Reality in Tourism Experiences
• Tourism Policy and Regulation
• Sustainable Transportation in Tourism
• Wellness Retreats: Trends and Impacts
• Coastal and Marine Tourism
• Historical Tourism and Interpretation
• Space-Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Tourism
• Cross-Cultural Communication in Tourism
• Slow Tourism: Embracing the Journey
• Geopolitics and Tourism
• Adventure Sports Tourism: Risk Management
• Wellness Tourism: The Spa Industry
• Religious Festivals and Tourism
• Volunteer Tourism: Cultural Exchange
• Impacts of Terrorism on Tourism
• Tourism and Gender Equality
• Dark Sky Tourism: Stargazing Adventures
• Social Justice in Tourism
• Music Tourism: Festivals and Events
• Cruise Tourism: Port Infrastructure
• Urban Regeneration through Tourism
• Wellness Tourism: Mindful Travel
• Cultural Appropriation in Tourism
• Sports Mega-Events and Tourism
• Virtual Tourism: Exploring from Home
• Tourism Education and Training
• Destination Resilience to Crises
• Adventure Tourism: Environmental Stewardship
• Slow Food Movement and Culinary Tourism
• Accessible Tourism: Technology Solutions
• Adventure Tourism: Cultural Immersion
• Experiential Learning in Tourism
• Tourism and Biodiversity Conservation
• Indigenous Tourism: Empowerment and Challenges
• Film-Induced Tourism: Pop Culture Impact
• Ephemeral Tourism Events
• Adventure Tourism: Cultural Sensitivity
• Slum Tourism: Ethical Considerations
• Tourism and Water Conservation
• Space Tourism: Ethical Considerations
• Rural Tourism: Community Engagement
• Wellness Tourism: Mind-Body Connection
• Tourism and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• Adventure Tourism: Extreme Sports
• The Role of Festivals in Tourism
• Cultural Tourism and Social Inclusion
• Wellness Tourism: Alternative Therapies
• Tourism and Human Rights
• Heritage Conservation and Tourism
• Adventure Tourism: Risk Perception
• Virtual Reality Museums and Tourism
• Responsible Wildlife Tourism
• Tourism and Disaster Management
• Festivals as Cultural Tourism Attractions
• Adventure Tourism: Psychological Benefits
• Wellness Tourism: Eco-Friendly Retreats
• Tourism and Aging Population
• Culinary Tourism: Fusion Cuisine
• Adventure Tourism: Cross-Cultural Interactions

Challenges and Opportunities in Tourism Research

Data collection and analysis.

While technology has streamlined data collection, challenges persist in ensuring data accuracy and relevance. Researchers are exploring advanced methodologies, such as big data analytics and machine learning, to overcome these hurdles and derive meaningful insights.

Globalization and Tourism

The globalization of the tourism industry poses both challenges and opportunities. Researchers are scrutinizing the impact of global trends on local economies, cultural identities, and the environment. Striking a balance between global and local interests is a complex task that requires careful consideration.

Future Directions in Tourism Research

Emerging tourism destinations.

The landscape of tourist destinations is ever-evolving. Researchers are turning their attention to emerging destinations, investigating the factors that contribute to their rise and the implications for the broader tourism industry. 

This includes understanding the appeal of off-the-beaten-path locations and the potential challenges associated with their sudden popularity.

Post-Pandemic Tourism

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the tourism industry in unprecedented ways. Researchers are exploring the long-term effects of the pandemic on travel behavior, destination preferences, and the overall structure of the tourism sector. 

Strategies for recovery and resilience are also under the microscope as the industry adapts to the new normal.

Resources for Tourism Research Topics

• Academic Journals and Publications: Leading academic journals in tourism research, such as the “Journal of Sustainable Tourism” and the “Annals of Tourism Research,” provide a wealth of knowledge for researchers. These publications cover a wide array of topics, from sustainable practices to cultural tourism.
• Conferences and Events: Attending conferences and events, such as the “International Conference on Tourism Research” and the “World Tourism Forum,” offers researchers the opportunity to engage with peers, present their work, and stay abreast of the latest developments in the field.
• Online Databases and Research Platforms: Online databases, including Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and Tourism Management Database , provide access to a vast repository of research articles, theses, and reports. These platforms facilitate collaboration and information exchange among researchers.

In conclusion, the landscape of tourism research topics is vast and dynamic, reflecting the multifaceted nature of the tourism industry. As researchers continue to explore sustainable practices, emerging trends, and the post-pandemic landscape, the importance of their work cannot be overstated. 

By navigating the challenges and embracing the opportunities presented, tourism researchers contribute to a more informed and resilient industry, ensuring that the joy of travel remains accessible for generations to come.

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Medical, Health and Wellness Tourism Research—A Review of the Literature (1970–2020) and Research Agenda

1 Institute for Big Data Research in Tourism, School of Tourism Sciences, Beijing International Studies University, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100024, China; nc.ude.usib@anilgnohz (L.Z.); moc.361@5220niloabgned (B.D.); moc.361@gnay__uyil (L.Y.)

Baolin Deng

Alastair m. morrison.

2 Greenwich Business School, Old Royal Naval College, University of Greenwich, London SE10 9SL, UK; [email protected]

J. Andres Coca-Stefaniak

Associated data.

Data are reported in the article.

Medical, health and wellness tourism and travel represent a dynamic and rapidly growing multi-disciplinary economic activity and field of knowledge. This research responds to earlier calls to integrate research on travel medicine and tourism. It critically reviews the literature published on these topics over a 50-year period (1970 to 2020) using CiteSpace software. Some 802 articles were gathered and analyzed from major databases including the Web of Science and Scopus. Markets (demand and behavior), destinations (development and promotion), and development environments (policies and impacts) emerged as the main three research themes in medical-health-wellness tourism. Medical-health-wellness tourism will integrate with other care sectors and become more embedded in policy-making related to sustainable development, especially with regards to quality of life initiatives. A future research agenda for medical-health-tourism is discussed.

1. Introduction

In 1841, Thomas Cook organized a tour of 570 people to travel from Leicester to Loughborough’s hot springs [ 1 ]. This was the first historically documented tour arranged by a travel agent. However, far earlier, people in Ancient Greece used to travel considerable distances for medical treatment [ 2 ]. Thus, the pursuit of health and medical care has been an essential reason for travel for centuries.

Today, people continue to travel in the pursuit of relaxation, for health reasons, as well as fitness and well-being [ 3 ]. As a response to this growing demand, countries, medical providers, and hospitality and tourism organizations are adapting to offer a broader set of medical, health, and wellness tourism experiences.

The concept of medical-health-wellness tourism has emerged relatively recently as a scholarly field of enquiry in tourism [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. Although it has been pointed out that travel medicine has existed for 25 years [ 7 ], much of the research related to this has traditionally focused on medical aspects with inadequate consideration given to travel or tourism. Medical-health-wellness tourism can be classified into two primary categories according to a tourist’s choice - obligatory or elective. Obligatory travel occurs when required treatments are unavailable or illegal in the place of origin of the traveler and, as a result of this, it becomes necessary to travel elsewhere to access these services. Elective travel is usually scheduled when the time and costs are most suitable, and the treatments may even be available in the travelers’ home regions [ 8 ]. Other studies have classified these forms of travel and tourism into specific types based on the purpose of the treatment, such as dental tourism [ 9 ], stem cell tourism [ 10 ], spa tourism [ 11 ], springs tourism [ 12 ], IVF treatment [ 13 ], hip and knee replacements, ophthalmologic procedures, cosmetic surgery [ 5 ], cardiac care, and organ transplants [ 14 ].

A consensus is yet to be established on the definitions and contents of medical-health-wellness tourism, and how they interact, including their potential overlaps. Medical travel and tourism, health tourism, wellness tourism, and other similar terms (e.g., birth tourism, cosmetic surgery tourism, dental tourism) tend to be investigated separately in tourism research [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. Notwithstanding the apparently disconnected nature of published research in this field, medical-health-wellness tourism has become much more popular for a variety of economic, cultural, lifestyle and leisure reasons [ 11 , 21 , 22 ]. Given their rapid development, it seems appropriate to conduct a comprehensive review of the definitions, history, typologies, driving factors, and future directions for these forms of tourism.

This study firstly reviews existing scholarly research through a meta-analysis of medical-health-wellness publications in the context of tourism ( Section 2 ). Then, the method used to analyze the data collected from ISI Web of Science is outlined in Section 3 , followed by a discussion of the research findings ( Section 4 ). Finally, in Section 5 , the conclusions, future research directions, and limitations of the study are presented.

2. Scholarly Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Medical, Health and Wellness Tourism

Previous reviews of the literature and meta-analyses have contributed to clarifying the overall understanding of medical-health-wellness tourism. Existing literature reviews tend to be very broad, spanning health-oriented tourism, medical tourism, sport and fitness tourism, adventure tourism, well-being (Yang sheng in Chinese) tourism, cosmetic surgery tourism, spa tourism, and more.

Medical tourism is an expanding global phenomenon [ 15 , 23 , 24 ]. Driven by high healthcare costs, long patient waiting lists, or a lack of access to new therapies in some countries, many medical tourists (mainly from the United States, Canada, and Western Europe) often seek access to care in Asia, Central and Southern Europe, and Latin America [ 25 , 26 , 27 ]. There are potential biosecurity and nosocomial risks associated with international medical tourism [ 28 ]. One research study collected 133 electronic copies of Australian television programs (66 items) and newspapers (65) about medical care overseas from 2005 to 2011 [ 29 ]. By analyzing these stories, the researchers discovered that Australian media coverage of medical tourism was focused geographically mainly on Asia, featuring cosmetic surgery procedures and therapies generally not available in Australia. However, people tend to engage with medical tourism for a broad range of reasons. In some cases, it is better service quality or lower treatment costs that prevail. In other cases, treatments may not be available locally, or there are long patient waiting lists for non-emergency medical care. Some 100 selected articles were reviewed and categorized into different types of medical tourism depending on the medical treatments they involved, such as dentistry, cosmetic surgery, or fertility work [ 25 ]. An analysis was done on 252 articles on medical tourism posted on the websites of the Korean Tourism Organization and the Korean International Medical Association [ 30 ]. This work enhanced the understanding of medical tourism in Korea as well as identifying the key developmental characteristics. Another research study detailed patient experiences in medical travel, including decision making, motivations, risks, and first-hand accounts [ 31 ]. A literature review was conducted on international travel for cosmetic surgery tourism [ 5 ] and it concluded that the medical travel literature suffered from a lack of focus on the non-surgery-related morbidity of these tourists.

Another set of authors defined health tourism as a branch of tourism in general in which people aim to receive specific treatments or seek an enhancement to their mental, physical, or spiritual well-being [ 32 ]. This systematic literature review assessed the value of destinations’ natural resources and related activities for health tourism. It was argued that most of the research on health tourism has focused on travel from developed to developing countries, and that there is a need to study travel between developed nations [ 33 ].

Wellness tourism is a key area of relevant research as well [ 34 ]. One research study reviewed trends in wellness tourism research and concluded that tourism marketing had so far failed to tap into the deeper meaning of wellness as a concept [ 35 ]. The emergence of health and wellness tourism was explored with their associated social, political, and economic influences [ 13 ]. A review was conducted of the development of wellness tourism using the concept of holistic wellness tourism where it was found that the positive impacts of this type of tourism on social and economic well-being were key to its rising levels of popularity [ 36 ].

All in all, although earlier literature reviews provide invaluable insights into medical-health-wellness tourism, there is a lack of studies that approach this concept in a holistic way. This research seeks to redress this balance by delivering a holistic review of the literature with the following objectives in mind: (1) investigating international journal articles across the typologies of tourism outlined above; (2) identifying influential scholars that have significantly contributed to this field; and (3) summarizing key trends in markets, industry development and promotion, as well as policy-making and impacts. In order to achieve this, a systematic review was conducted to analyze research articles in medical-health-wellness tourism published over a 50-year period from 1970 to 2020.

3.1. Data Collection

A two-step approach was adopted for the development of a database of publications for analysis with CiteSpace. The first step involved a search for relevant, high-quality refereed articles in medical-health-wellness tourism. Several academic journal databases, within tourism and hospitality but also including other disciplines too, were searched for relevant articles in medical-health-wellness tourism using a set of selected keywords. The ISI Web of Science and Scopus were chosen for this purpose as a result of their international recognition and comprehensiveness. Articles included in the list of references of selected articles were also considered valid as part of this search, in line with methodological suggestions for systematic literature searches [ 37 ]. Cited articles were also collected from prominent journals, including the Southern Medical Journal, Journal of Travel Medicine, BMC Public Health, Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Travel Research, and Journal of Vacation Marketing. Non-tourism related journals were selected as well including Amfiteatru Economic, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Public Personal Management, and Revista de Historia Industrial. Adding these references not only delivered a higher number of relevant articles to the database, but it also increased its representativeness.

The second step involved using appropriate, valid and representative search keywords. A total of 986 articles were gathered using the following keywords: medical tourism, health tourism, wellness tourism, and spa tourism. After careful sorting of these publications, using their abstracts and keywords, the number of articles in the database was narrowed down to 802. Of these, 615 were obtained using the keywords medical tourism or wellness tourism, 157 were located by searching for health tourism, and 30 were discovered using spa tourism as the search term. Using the above keywords and restricting the search to 50 years (1970–2020), the first article was found to be published in 1974. As a result, the ensuing analysis of the literature comprises the period from 1974 to 2020.

3.2. Data Analysis

The research tool used for this study was CiteSpace, which is a bibliometric analysis software developed by Professor Chaomei Chen of Drexel University based on the Java framework [ 38 ]. This software assists researchers in the analysis of research trends in a specific field of knowledge and presents scientific knowledge structures through visualization. It has been applied to numerous research fields by scholars from many countries. The data processing for this research used the software V.5.7.R2 (64-bit) version.

The data were classified and analyzed to achieve three specific goals. The first and primary goal of this review work was to analyze the content of the chosen articles, including year of publication, authors, journal impact factors, and the institutional affiliations of scholars in this field. The data were then sorted into categories. The order of authorship was not recorded. For multiple-authored articles, each author was given the same level of credit as sole authors. Second, one of the aims of this research was to discover associations in authorships, regions, and affiliations using statistical analysis. Third, the 802 articles were classified into dominant thematic categories applying the approach proposed by Miles and Huberman [ 39 ]. Three flows of analytical activities were targeted here: data reduction, data display, and verification of data. In the data reduction activity, the word count technique was adopted. Through content analysis, each article’s title and full-text body were recorded for word counting. The most frequently appearing words were extracted to represent the main topics of the collected articles. The dominant thematic categories to be explored further based on the content analysis and word count were: (1) tourism market: tourist demand and behavior; (2) tourism destinations: development and promotion; and (3) tourism development contexts: policies and impacts.

Finally, in order to refine the set of topic sub-categories, abstracts, first paragraphs, and conclusions were read to make the most appropriate assignments. This approach contributed to the more advanced stages of development of the classification of sub-categories and, consequently, the verification of findings.

This section presents the results of the data analysis carried out in this study and provides further insights on the methodology adopted.

4.1. Overview of Articles Published

The 802 articles selected were all published in English and in international peer-reviewed academic journals. Figure 1 displays the timeline distribution of the research on medical-health-wellness tourism and shows a steady growth in publications in this field between 1974 and 2020. This growth in scholarly activity is particularly significant from 2010 onwards. In fact, 74.9% of the articles were published between 2013 and 2020.

Number of articles by publication year.

4.2. Source Journals

Initially, the first stage of this literature search involved identifying academic journals publishing research articles on medical-health-wellness tourism. It was found that 38 articles had been published on this topic in Tourism Management, and 24 articles in Social Science & Medicine. Table 1 shows the top ten tourism journals for publications in this field, with Tourism Management in first place.

Tourism journals publishing articles on medical-health-wellness tourism.

Non-tourism journals in fields such as business, economics, and health, also contributed a significant number of publications in this field, as shown in Table 2 .

Non-tourism journals publishing articles on medical-health-wellness tourism.

4.3. Author Productivity and Authorship Analysis

The second aim was to identify the most prolific scholars in medical-health-wellness tourism research. This was achieved using co-occurrence network analysis of the authors of relevant research articles ( Figure 2 ). Each node in the co-occurrence map shown in Figure 2 represents a given scholar. The larger the node, the more articles the authors published on the topic, with the connections between nodes representing cooperation between authors.

Author article productivity.

Among the 2381 authors identified, 1820 (76.4%) contributed to only one article, whereas the remaining 561 (23.6%) authored two or more articles. The three most prolific authors were Jeremy Snyder, Valorie Crooks, and Rory Johnston.

4.4. Author Regions and Affiliations

Another objective was to illustrate the relationships and networks of authors publishing research on medical-health-wellness tourism. An analysis of countries this research originated from was carried out using the CiteSpace software. Figure 3 shows that scholars publishing in this field were distributed across 61 countries. The largest group of authors originated from the USA ( n =197). The second and third largest groups corresponded to Canada ( n = 88) and the UK ( n = 84), respectively, followed by Australia ( n = 70) and South Korea ( n = 65). As shown in Figure 3 , authors from the USA and Canada have made the most significant contributions to medical-health-wellness tourism based on the number of journal articles published.

Country of origin of authors in medical-health-wellness tourism.

As shown in Figure 4 , a significant number of scholars publishing in this field ( n = 47) were affiliated to Simon Fraser University in Canada. This university was followed by Sejong University in South Korea ( n = 13), and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine ( n = 13) in the UK. The top universities in terms of author frequency were based in Canada, USA, Australia, UK, South Korea, and Hong Kong.

Institutions of authors.

4.5. Thematic Analysis of Research

The fourth research objective was to elicit the prevailing research themes using the 802 articles gathered. First, an analysis of keyword frequency was performed to identify the main research interests. High frequency keywords reflect the research ‘hotspots’ in the field. Using CiteSpace’s keyword visualization analysis function, the keyword co-occurrence knowledge map of medical-health-wellness tourism research was drawn to grasp the research ‘hotspots’ ( Figure 5 ).

Frequencies of research keywords.

Then, content analysis performed on the articles gathered for this study identified three main themes, namely: markets (tourist demand and behavior), destinations (development and promotion), and development environments (policies and impacts). An uneven distribution of research themes is highlighted in Figure 6 and Figure 7 .

Timeline of research keyword appearance.

Themes of research articles.

4.6. Markets: Demand and Behavior

Previous studies have shown that the growth of medical-health-wellness tourism in developing countries is largely linked to lower costs, shorter patient waiting lists, and better quality of care [ 40 ]. Similarly, it is suggested that the inequalities and failures in domestic health care systems often lead to people seeking treatment to travel abroad to obtain it [ 41 ]. In general terms, higher costs, long patient waiting lists, the relative affordability of international air travel, favorable exchange rates, and the availability of well-qualified doctors and medical staff in developing countries, all contribute to this situation [ 42 ].

As the demand for these forms of tourism has risen over time, processes and factors influencing decision-making have attracted growing levels of scholarly enquiry. For example, a political responsibility model was used to develop a decision-making process for individual medical tourists [ 43 ]. A sequential decision-making process has been proposed, including considerations of the required treatments, location of treatment, and quality and safety issues attendant to seeking care [ 44 ]. Accordingly, it has been found that health information and the current regulatory environment tend to affect the availability of medical care.

Multiple factors may simultaneously influence decisions related to the destination for care, including culture [ 45 ], social norms [ 46 ], religious factors [ 47 ], and the institutional environment [ 48 ]. It is suggested that socioeconomic conditions shape medical travelers’ decision-making and spending behavior relative to treatment, accommodation, and transport choices as well as the length of stay [ 49 ]. Perceived value is a key predictor of tourist intentions. More specifically, perceived medical quality, service quality, and enjoyment significantly influence the intention to travel abroad for medical-health-wellness purposes [ 50 ]. Further, perceived quality, satisfaction, and trust in the staff and clinics have significant associations affecting intentions to revisit clinics and the destination country [ 51 ]. An empirical study was conducted and found that physical convenience in willingness to stay and time and effort savings in perceived price were key factors affecting the decision-making related to medical hotels [ 52 ]. In addition, the level of perceived advantages, price perceptions, and willingness to stay were found to differ significantly between first-time patients and those with two or more previous visits. In addition, it was found that community communication was a major factor influencing decision-making. For instance, it is argued that virtual community membership has a strong influence on tourist behaviors and the way information is transmitted [ 53 ].

Compared to other tourists, the mental activity and behavior of medical-health-wellness travelers are quite different. Medical tourists are less likely to question their need for surgery and tend to be much readier to accept it [ 54 ]. The emotion and anxiety conditions of medical tourists differ from others’ experiences of travel and tourism, as well as their giving and receiving of transnational health care [ 55 ]. It has been found that language barriers and parenting responsibilities can be significant challenges, while hospital staff and their own families are often major sources of support for medical tourists [ 56 ]. Furthermore, there are significant differences among visitors from different countries in terms of choices, discomfort, preferred product items, and attitudes towards medical tourism [ 57 , 58 ].

4.7. Destinations: Development and Promotion

In response to the demands of medical-health-wellness tourism, destination development and promotion are attracting growing levels of scholarly interest. Scholars from different countries have discussed the market status of Turkey [ 12 , 59 ], the Caribbean [ 60 ] and Barbados [ 61 ], India [ 62 , 63 ], Canada [ 64 ], and Albania [ 65 ]. Table 3 outlines the most frequently researched country destinations in this respect.

Medical-health-wellness destination frequency in keywords.

The advantages and disadvantages of Turkey were examined and indicated needs for improvements [ 59 ]. In another research study, three years (2005, 2007, and 2011) of actual and projected operational cost data were evaluated for three countries: USA, India, and Thailand [ 66 ]. This study discussed some of the inefficiencies in the U.S. healthcare system, drew attention to informing uninsured or underinsured medical tourists of the benefits and risks, and determined the managerial and cost implications of various surgical procedures in the global healthcare system.

As regards medical-health-wellness tourism destination development, scholars have explored research from various perspectives. Conceptual frameworks have been developed to include tourism destinations and services in the context of medical and health tourism [ 59 , 67 ]. Advice has been provided from the perspective of public and private hospital doctors [ 68 ]. The principles of designing hospital hotels have been proposed, including proper planning, low prices of tourism services, medical education, creating websites on medical tourism, and health tourism policy councils [ 69 ]. Above all, scholars have posited that meeting or exceeding tourist expectations and requirements should remain the top priorities as regards the effective development of medical tourism destinations [ 69 , 70 ].

Once a medical-health-wellness tourism destination is developed successfully, marketing and promotion are essential to attract tourists. As part of this process, informing potential patients about procedural options, treatment facilities, tourism opportunities, and travel arrangements are the keys to success [ 71 ]. Most tourists rely on the Internet to gather information about destinations, often using mobile devices or personal computers [ 72 ], with websites and social media playing a key role in this respect, and specifically with regards to information about destinations’ medical facilities, staff expertise, services, treatments, equipment, and successful cases [ 73 ]. For example, apps for medical travel are available to attract tourists and promote medical tourism in Taiwan [ 74 ].

Numerous businesses promote medical-health-wellness travel, including medical travel companies, health insurance companies, travel agencies, medical clinics, and hospitals [ 75 ]. Among them, medical travel facilitators play a significant role as engagement moderators between prospective patients in one country and medical facilities elsewhere around the world [ 76 ]. The services offered on medical tourism facilitator websites vary considerably from one country to another [ 77 ]. Although medical travel facilitators operate on a variety of different scales and market their services differently, they all emphasize the consumer experience through advertising quality assurance and logistical support [ 78 ].

Scholarly research has also considered the factors that need to be taken into consideration in medical-health-wellness tourism promotion. This research has suggested that destinations should identify the specifics in their health tourism resources, attractions, and products, seek collaboration with others, and build a common regional brand [ 79 ]. Regional differences should be considered in the process of marketing as medical-health-wellness tourism is a global industry [ 77 ]. International advertisers need to understand the important, contemporary, and cultural characteristics of target customers before promotion [ 80 ]. Similarly, destinations need to portray safe and advanced treatment facilities to dispel potential patient worries and suspicions. Messages related solely to low cost may detract from and even undermine messages about quality [ 71 ]. However, while benefits are highly emphasized online, websites may fail to report any procedural, postoperative, or legal concerns and risks associated with medical tourism [ 81 ].

4.8. Development Environments: Policies and Impacts

The rise of medical-health-wellness tourism emphasizes the privatization of healthcare, an increasing dependence on technology, and the accelerating globalization of healthcare and tourism [ 82 ]. There are challenges and opportunities in the development of these tourism forms. For instance, it has been suggested that medical tourism distorts national health care systems, and raises critical national economic, ethical, and social questions [ 83 ]. Along with the development of medical-health-wellness tourism, social-cultural contradictions [ 84 ] and economic inequities are widening in terms of access, cost, and quality of healthcare [ 85 ]. It is argued that this tourism leads destinations to emphasize tertiary care for foreigners at the expense of basic healthcare for their citizens [ 86 ]. Moreover, in some instances, this phenomenon can exacerbate the medical brain drain from the public sector to the private sector [ 43 , 87 , 88 ], leading to rising private health care and health insurance costs [ 88 ].

While medical-health-wellness tourism is a potential source of revenue, it also brings a certain level of risk to destinations and tourists [ 89 ]. The spread of this type of tourism has been posited as a contributing factor to the spread of infectious diseases and public health crises [ 90 , 91 ]. Medical tourists are at risk of hospital-associated and procedure-related infections as well as diseases endemic to the countries where the service is provided [ 92 ]. Similarly, the safety of some treatments offered has also been the subject of growing levels of scrutiny. Contemporary scholarship examining clinical outcomes in medical travel for cosmetic surgery has identified cases in which patients traveled abroad for medical procedures and subsequently returned home with infections and other surgical complications [ 93 ]. Stem cell tourism has been criticized on the grounds of consumer fraud, blatant lack of scientific justification, and patient safety [ 94 , 95 ]. During the process of medical tourism, inadequate communication, and information asymmetry in cross-cultural communication may bring medical risks [ 96 ].

Medical-health-wellness tourism has emerged as a global healthcare phenomenon. Policy guidance is vital for the development of this sector in the future [ 97 ]. There are policy implications for the planning and development of medical-health-wellness tourism destinations [ 98 ]. Generally, it has been found that the medical-health-wellness tourism sector tends to perform better in countries with a clear policy framework for this activity [ 99 ]. Similarly, scholars have argued the need for a clearer policy framework regulating tourism agencies and the information and services they provide [ 100 ]. The upsurge of these tourism forms presents new opportunities and challenges for policy makers in the health sector. It has been argued that existing policy processes are mainly based on entrenched ideological positions and more attention should be paid to robust evidence of impact [ 101 ]. The UK developed policies focused on ’patient choice’ that allow people who are able and willing to choose to travel further for healthcare [ 102 ]. However, more robust policy making is still required to strengthen national health services and facilitate medical-health-wellness tourism sector development in destinations [ 103 , 104 ].

5. Discussion and Conclusions

5.1. generation discussion.

This study is based on a literature review of 802 articles on medical-health-wellness tourism from 1970 to 2020. Jeremy Snyder was found to be the most prolific author in this field with 45 articles. It has been found that the literature on this topic can be summarized into three themes: markets (tourist demand and behavior), destinations (development and promotion), and development environments (policies and impacts). The scholarly research in this growing field has undergone a shift in emphasis from tourist demand and behavior to the promotion and development of destinations, and, more recently, to policies and impacts.

To attract more tourists, destinations should explore their potential for medical-health-wellness tourism. Accessibility, procedural options, treatment facilities, travel arrangements, safety guarantees, and government policies remain influential factors. In the development and promotion of this form of tourism, childhood vaccinations, oral health, legal frameworks, evaluation systems, entrance systems, and macro-policy continue to be areas of concern and where further research is required. Above all, meeting or exceeding tourist expectations and requirements is the most important consideration to promote medical-health-wellness tourism. Similarly, appropriate policy guidelines and frameworks are necessary to support this form of tourism. Importantly, medical-health-wellness tourism may result in negative impacts on the healthcare service provision for local residents in poorer countries, with tourists from richer countries benefiting to the detriment of local communities. However, if managed successfully, this form of tourism can also be a force for good in terms of fostering the economic development of countries delivering these services.

The results indicated that the research literature is spread across a range of different disciplines and there is not one single venue for publishing in this field. A better integration of the research and improved understanding of the overlaps among medical, health, and wellness tourism is required.

5.2. Future Research Trends

5.2.1. industrial perspective.

Medical-health-wellness tourism will, over time, integrate fully with other healthcare and wellness services. Similarly, medical challenges such as disease prevention and traditional medicine remain essential directions for the future of health tourism. This form of tourism will also integrate further with industries such as wellness culinary tourism, mindfulness tourism, active tourism (including adventure tourism), and even cosmetic surgery tourism, leading to a vast array of potential research avenues linked to health tourism destinations. These futures will greatly promote the physical and mental health of wellness tourists. This is another emerging direction for future medical-health-wellness tourism research.

5.2.2. Destination Development Perspectives

Medical-health-wellness tourism will become more significant forms of tourism and impact the development of different nations and areas. For example, this tourism will integrate with Chinese traditional culture. Traditional treatments and remedies will become more of an advantage and should be a topic for future medical-health-wellness tourism research, as well as in other countries with unique health cultures, treatments, and procedures.

Thailand, Malaysia, and other Southeast Asian countries are favored by tourists from developed countries due to lower costs. In the future, these areas need to focus more on tourism product design, health tourism marketing, community participation, and cross-cultural communication. Developed countries such as the USA, Japan, and South Korea, will use advanced technology and medical equipment to take the path to high-end, high value-added tourism development. This will lead to some new research opportunities.

5.2.3. Tourist Perspectives

Compared with other types of tourists, the needs of medical-health-wellness tourists will receive more attention. Based on previous research, the psychology and perceived value of these tourists are the focus of considerable research. In the future, more emphasis will be paid to people and especially to their psychological and physiological needs. Research on demand will become a more popular topic of this tourism research. Second, the current research on medical-health-wellness tourists is concentrated on the study of tourists in the USA and Canada. Future research should be more dispersed and diversified. Tourists from emerging countries such as Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa will receive more attention.

5.3. Limitations

This study, inevitably, has a number of limitations, including the relatively modest amount of articles collected. Only articles written in English were considered. The sample number is rather small to represent the general research trends in medical-health-wellness tourism from 1970 to 2020. Therefore, it is desirable to increase the number of publications and expand the time and language coverage of the research articles to gain more insights.

Although the research scope of medical-health-wellness tourism is vast, it lacks in-depth exploration. Current research is fragmented, lacks continuity and comprehensiveness, and therefore cannot be considered systematic. Also, the legal aspects of the development of this tourism, environmental capacity of medical-health tourism, wellness tourism management, and mechanisms of profit distribution for medical-health-wellness tourism are less frequently mentioned in research articles. Innovation in this field and international cooperation, and talent cultivation are also not sufficiently addressed. The methods used in medical-health-wellness tourism research are often simple. Scholars still use traditional descriptive statistics and related analysis methods. The theoretical foundation of medical-health-wellness tourism is still relatively weak. We are in the primary stage of this tourism research and in the development of related tourism products. People all over the world are eager for healthy lives. Medical-health-wellness tourism is likely to play a more important future role in travel medicine and tourism research. Beyond what has been done already, follow-up research should be focused on interdisciplinarity and based on the integration of industries. More theoretical research is necessary to support the future growth of medical-health-wellness tourism.

Author Contributions

Formal analysis, L.Z.; Funding acquisition, L.Z.; Investigation, L.Z.; Supervision, B.D.; Data collection and analysis, B.D.; Writing-original draft, A.M.M. and J.A.C.-S.; Writing—original draft, A.M.M.; Writing—review & editing, A.M.M., J.A.C.-S. and L.Y.; Data collection and analysis. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant no: 71673015); Ethnic research project of the National Committee of the people’s Republic of China. NO: 2020-GMD-089; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of Beijing Foreign Studies University, 2021JS001.

Institutional Review Board Statement

No human subjects were involved in this research and no institutional review was required.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable as there were no human subjects.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors have no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Souvenir in tourism research: a literature review and future agenda

Tourism Critiques

ISSN : 2633-1225

Article publication date: 14 June 2023

Issue publication date: 27 November 2023

Souvenirs have been repeatedly studied as both a subject and as a variable for other tourism-related phenomena, but research into this issue is fragmented. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to analyze souvenir in tourism to provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art review. Second, this paper contributes to identifying the directions for future search through reviewing existing literature. This study is one of the first papers to offer a systematic overview of the key themes in tourism souvenir research. In addition to the key themes, this paper also offers insights into future souvenir research.

• Souvenir research
• Souvenir in tourism
• Literature review

Li, F.(S). (2023), "Souvenir in tourism research: a literature review and future agenda", Tourism Critiques , Vol. 4 No. 1/2, pp. 15-27. https://doi.org/10.1108/TRC-09-2022-0022

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Fangxuan (Sam) Li.

Published in Tourism Critiques: Practice and Theory. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

Over the past several decades, academic tourism research has focused frequently on the topic of souvenirs ( Swanson, 2014 ). Given the link between souvenirs and tourism shopping, souvenir is seen as a crucial component of the travel experience. Souvenirs refer to commercially tangible produced items that are purchased to remind visitors of their intangible travel experiences of destinations ( Kim et al. , 2011a , 2011b ; Swanson and Horridge, 2006 ; Swanson and Timothy, 2012 ). For tourists, souvenirs can help “locate, define, and freeze in time a fleeting, transitory experience, and bring back to an ordinary experience something of the quality of an extraordinary experience” ( Peters, 2011 , p. 235). The behavior of seeking souvenirs is usually perceived as a quest for authentic experiences ( Hitchcock and Teague, 2000 ). Due to the close relationship between tourism and souvenirs, the topic has been studied by scholars from different perspectives.

Souvenirs, which mark memories of tourists’ travel experiences in time and place, are universal artefacts of tourism ( Gordon, 1986 ). However, the types of souvenir items that are offered to tourists vary ( Swanson and Horridge, 2004 ), but the most popular ones include arts and crafts, gemstones, jewelry, leather goods, antiques, collectibles, postcards and local products such as food and clothing. Gordon (1986) , as one of the earliest scholars to categorize souvenirs, distinguished five major categories of souvenirs: pictorial images, symbolic shorthand souvenirs, piece-of-the-rock merchandise, local products and place markers. A new taxonomy of souvenirs has been developed by Swanson and Timothy (2012) and is divided into four categories: tourist commodities, symbolic reminders, other commodities and other reminders. Souvenirs play the role of commodities in trade among tourism providers and tourists ( Kong and Chang, 2012 ; Swanson, 2014 ; Swanson and Timothy, 2012 ). Kong and Chang (2012) summarized the significant commercial value of souvenirs, including gauging the favorability of a destination, enhancing local economic development, adding a valuable addition to the tourism portfolio and acting as a form of publicity. In addition to their economic value, tourists are exposed to the culture and history of a location through souvenirs, which are also exploited as commodities in the commodification of material culture ( Litirell et al. , 1994 ). Hence, souvenirs are universally associated with tourism ( Swanson and Horridge, 2006 ) and contribute to sustainable tourism development greatly ( Tosun et al. , 2007 ).

Despite the importance of souvenirs in tourism, “research into souvenirs has been a minor but consistent subtheme within the tourism literature for several decades” ( Trinh et al. , 2014 , p. 275). The body of literature on souvenirs is expanding; however, the existing literature related to this topic is fragmented, and few review articles are found ( Swanson and Timothy, 2012 ). Therefore, it is crucial to analyze the literature on souvenirs attentively and compile a comprehensive summary of it.

This study first selected 26 journals that have a direct link with tourism from the subject category of an SSCI database named “Hospitality Leisure, Sport, and Tourism” for an initial research. The authors then started to search for articles within selected journals by using keywords. To have a comprehensive result, the authors use not only the keywords souvenir but also other closely linked terms to souvenir research, such as craft and gift . The articles that include the keywords in the title, abstract or keywords from 2000 to 2020 were selected after an initial research. As a growing number of articles related to souvenir had been published after 2000, the year 2000 was chosen as the search’s starting point to find current subjects in souvenir research. After an initial research, the authors further read the abstract and the main part of the papers to determine the appropriateness of the selection. The samples are limited to full-length articles only. Therefore, the analysis does not include short communications, reports, comments or book reviews.

Finally, 47 publications related to souvenirs are chosen from 15 journals ( Table 1 ), including Tourism Management (TM), Annals of Tourism Research (ATR), Journal of Travel Research (JTR), Journal of Sustainable Tourism (JST), Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research (JHTR), Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing (JTTM), Tourism Geographies (TG), Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management (JHMM), Tourism Management Perspectives (TMP), Current Issues in Tourism (CIT), Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research (APJTR), Journal of Vacation Marketing (JVM), Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism (SJHT), Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change (JTCC) and Tourist Studies (TS).

Thematic analysis, as one of the most commonly used types of academic reviews, was adopted by this research to pursue a deeper understanding of existing literature on souvenir research. Thematic reviews not only can identify major themes emerging from existing relevant literature by providing a broad overview of what has been done but also provide a synthesis of key aspects of a topic ( Jin et al. , 2017 ). The thematic analysis of the current progress described the research produced in the area of souvenir in tourism research, summarized the emerging themes and identified gaps for future research simultaneously.

This section aims to synthesize key views and perspectives in existing work on souvenir in tourism research. Specifically, this section discusses the key themes in souvenir research. To trace the trends of the research in this field, the authors first analyzed the word frequency of the keywords. Based on the identified keywords ( Table 2 ), the authors summarized the papers thoroughly to indicate the research progress. The categories of themes used by this paper follow a similar category summarized by Swanson and Timothy (2012) . Some papers may include more than one theme or topic; therefore, the identified themes or topics are not mutually exclusive.

Souvenir shopping

At popular tourist spots, routine actions such as buying and selling souvenirs generate billions of dollars annually ( Swanson and Timothy, 2012 ). Due to its significant commercial value, the most popular topic in souvenir research is souvenir shopping. This paper identified three main sub-themes related to souvenir shopping: motivations, behaviors and satisfaction, by summarizing the existing literature.

Souvenir shopping motivations.

There has been a large amount of study done on why people buy souvenirs. For example, Wilkins (2011) has identified gifts, memory aids and evidence as three motivations for purchasing souvenirs. Adapted from Wilkins’ (2011) souvenir motivation scale, Lin (2017) found that among three motivation dimensions, the strongest motivation for purchasing food souvenirs is acquiring gifts. In addition to the functions of souvenirs, Sthapit (2018) highlighted the importance of the characteristics of souvenirs and argued that the uniqueness drove tourists to buy souvenirs. Moreover, with the increasing popularity of augmented reality technology, App-based souvenirs have become a new way of enhancing tourists’ postvisit memories ( Lee et al. , 2017 ).

Wilkins (2011) argued that one of the core importance of souvenir purchase is to bring them back as gifts and seven measurement items related to the role of souvenirs as gifts were proposed by this study. The role of souvenirs as gifts for family members and friends was confirmed by Li and Ryan (2018) , who explored Chinese tourists’ souvenir purchase behaviors in North Korea. Lin (2017) explored tourists’ behaviors toward purchasing food souvenirs as gifts in Chinese culture. In the Chinese cultural setting, giving gifts is a social standard, a responsibility and a reciprocal behavior; hence, this study adds two items to Wilkins’ gift dimension (2011): “It’s obligatory to buy food souvenirs for family or friends after a trip” and “I buy souvenirs as thank-you gifts.” Park (2000) pointed out that gift-giving behaviors vary in different cultures by examining various similarities and differences between Japanese and Korean tourists’ gift-giving. This study discovered that both Japanese and Korean tourists used presenting gifts to foster relationships with others. This paper also illustrated the existence of differences in what and how souvenirs should be given as gifts for Japanese and Korean tourists. Specifically, Japanese tourists are more likely to purchase food souvenirs for friends compared to Korean tourists, while Korean tourists are more likely to purchase tangible souvenirs compared to Japanese tourists.

Previous research has found that tourists’ souvenir shopping motivations are influenced by various factors, including demographic characteristics ( Kim and Littrell, 2001 ; Wilkins, 2011 ; Yu and Littrell, 2005 ), perceived value ( Lin and Wang, 2012 ; Yu and Littrell, 2005 ), the perceived cultural difference ( Wong and Cheng, 2014 ; Park, 2000 ), souvenir attributes ( Lin, 2017 ), travel motivations ( Li and Ryan, 2018 ), shopping companions ( Yu and Littrell, 2005 ), personal habit ( Cheng et al. , 2010 ) and destination image ( Wong and Cheng, 2014 ). Below is a brief summary of existing literature related to the factors influencing souvenir purchase motivations.

Kim and Littrell (2001) have identified the relationship between demographic characteristics and intentions to purchase three categories of souvenirs, including a generic handcraft (placemat), a symbolic marker ( t -shirt) and an ethnic product (rug). They found that material status is related to souvenir purchase intention significantly. Married women’s purchase intention is higher than any other group. Moreover, Wilkins (2011) focused on investigating the impact of gender among demographical factors on the motivations for souvenir purchase. The findings indicated that the role of memory was not important for males to purchase souvenirs. According to Lin and Wang (2012) , who explored tourists’ souvenir-repurchasing motivations, souvenir-repurchasing intentions are influenced by perceived value according to their souvenir-repurchasing model. The two important determinants of perceived value are authenticity perception and hedonics. Yu and Littrell (2005) confirmed the finding and pointed out that tourists’ intentions to purchase handicraft souvenirs are affected by utilitarian value.

In terms of perceived cultural differences, Park (2000) investigated how social and cultural factors affect the motivations of souvenir purchasing by conducting a comparative study on Japanese and Korean tourists. On one hand, as Japanese and Korean have the same Asian cultural background, most motivations for purchasing souvenirs for Japanese and Korean are Chinese. On the other hand, this research also found that affection is more important for Koreans during the choice of souvenirs, while the obligation is more important for Japanese during the choice of souvenirs. Further research by Wong and Cheng (2014) revealed a moderating effect of perceived cultural differences in the link between visitors’ perceptions of heritage sites and their attitudes toward souvenir shopping.

In addition to the perceived cultural difference, food souvenir purchase motivations are significantly influenced by food souvenir symbol attributes such as authenticity and indigenousness ( Lin, 2017 ). Specifically, authenticity and indigenousness have positive influences on driving tourists to purchase food souvenirs. According to Cheng et al. (2010) , souvenir purchase motivations are also influenced by tourists’ personal habits. They investigated the attitudes of tea tourists and nontea visitors about drinking tea as well as their desire to purchase tea as a souvenir. The results showed that people were more likely to purchase tea as a souvenir the more tea they drank on a regular basis. Moreover, tourists’ souvenir-shopping attitudes are affected by destination image ( Wong and Cheng, 2014 ). Specifically, the perception that tourists have of a heritage site has a favorable and direct impact on how they feel about buying souvenirs.

The association between purchasing intentions and other key indicators, such as prior travel experience and attitude toward souvenirs, was also investigated by Kim and Littrell (2001) . It was found that the relationship is influenced by souvenir categories. For example, a greater travel experience has a detrimental impact on leisure travelers’ desire to buy a symbolic object and an ethnic product.

Souvenir shopping behavior.

Previous research has examined the souvenir-buying habits of travelers from a variety of angles, including the experience of souvenir purchasing ( Li and Ryan, 2018 ; Mossberg, 2007 ; Yu and Littrell, 2003 ), factors influencing souvenir purchase ( Lehto et al. , 2004 ; Li and Ryan, 2018 ; Oh et al. , 2004 ; Paraskevaidis and Andriotis, 2015 ; Swanson and Horridge, 2004 ; Swanson and Horridge, 2006 ; Swanson and Timothy, 2012 ; Wilkins, 2011 ) and souvenir shopper typologies ( Fairhurst et al. , 2007 ; Hu and Yu, 2007 ; Kong and Chang, 2012 ).

Souvenir was found to be one of the important factors influencing tourists’ experience ( Mossberg, 2007 ). For example, Li and Ryan (2018) investigated the experiences of Chinese tourists buying souvenirs in North Korea. They identified souvenir purchase motivations and specific items purchased in North Korea. Yu and Littrell (2003) suggested a model of purchasing behaviors for handcrafted mementos that takes into account travel activities, beliefs about the authenticity of crafts, beliefs about the qualities of handcrafted products, attitudes regarding shopping experiences and intention to buy at venues.

The majority of souvenir shopping studies examined the socio-demographic factors influencing tourists’ souvenir purchase. According to Lehto et al. (2004) , sociodemographic traits and travel-related factors are associated with tourists’ purchasing preferences and spending habits. Specifically, the amount of shopping expenditure is influenced by travel motivation, travel style and demographic variables such as gender and age. Oh et al. (2004) confirmed this finding and found that demographic characteristics and trip typologies are useful indicators for predicting tourists’ souvenir shopping behavior. Wilkins (2011) also identified the differences between men and women in terms of souvenir items purchased. For example, women are more likely to buy various types of keepsakes, especially those that are destination-specific, whereas males are more likely to buy reduced and branded goods. Lee et al. (2009) investigated the differences between first-time and repeat festival-goers. Their study revealed that first-time visitors showed stronger relationships with souvenir than repeat visitors. However, Swanson and Horridge (2004) challenged this link between demographic variables and souvenir consumption. They discovered that whereas tourist demographics were unrelated to souvenir consumption, travel activities had a favorable impact on it. Apart from demographical variables, souvenir-shopping behavior is also influenced by travel motivations. For example, Swanson and Horridge (2006) discovered that the reasons why people travel affect the kind of souvenirs they choose, as well as the characteristics of the products and the stores where they buy them. Li and Ryan (2018) confirmed this finding and further pointed out that souvenir purchase is not only related to travel motivations but also the experience of the place. In addition, Paraskevaidis and Andriotis (2015) argued that tourists’ souvenir consumption is associated with four values of souvenirs, including use-value, exchange-value, sign-value and spiritual-value. Swanson and Timothy (2012) pointed out souvenir purchase behaviors are also influenced by travel experiences, destination identity and the depth of knowledge about the place. All of the literature explored shopping behaviors from the perspective of tourists; however, Swanson (2004) explored both retailers’ and tourists’ perceptions of souvenirs. The findings showed that there are commonalities between souvenir items, product qualities and store characteristics among retailers and tourists.

Previous studies have examined the souvenir shopping behaviors for different souvenir shopper typologies. Fairhurst et al. (2007) found that item purchases, sources of information used for selecting a shopping place and souvenir shopping behaviors are different for different tourist typologies (city individuals, historical individuals, active individuals, alone individuals and tour group individuals). Similarly, Hu and Yu (2007) explored visitors’ shopping-related beliefs and behaviors toward craft souvenirs. Based on their criteria for choosing crafts and their level of shopping involvement, three types of souvenir shoppers – shopping aficionados, lovers of shopping and indifferent shoppers – were differentiated. Moreover, Kong and Chang (2012) investigated how four visitor subgroups – experience seekers, nature seekers, familiarity seekers and relief seekers – shopped for souvenirs.

Souvenir shopping satisfaction.

Four satisfaction dimensions of souvenir shopping were identified by Oviedo-García et al. (2016) in their study on tourist satisfaction with souvenir purchases and its relationship to overall satisfaction with the destination: internal attraction, service differentiation, service provision and external attraction. Moreover, their study also indicated that service provision and external attraction affect overall tourist satisfaction rates. Vega-Vázquez et al. (2017) looked at the relationship between satisfaction with souvenir shopping and additional factors, such as shopping value, general tourist contentment and good word of mouth. The findings showed that while souvenir shopping satisfaction only slightly mediates the association between shopping value and good word-of-mouth, it totally mediates the relationship between shopping value and overall tourist satisfaction.

The study conducted by Suhartanto (2018) placed more emphasis on the souvenir shopping process and consumer behavior after making a purchase. The findings showed that tourists’ perceptions of their destination and their commitment to it are significantly influenced by their pleasure with their souvenir-buying experiences. The study further pointed out that store and collectability attributes are two important determinants of tourists’ satisfaction with the souvenir shopping experience. The association between option overload and pleasure with souvenir purchases has recently been studied by Sthapit (2018) . The results indicated that the absence of choice overload leads to no regrets and high satisfaction levels.

Authenticity

Torabian and Arai (2016 , p. 697) proposed four themes to describe the authenticity of souvenirs by examining travel blog posts based on constructivist grounded theory, including “using local materials at the destination, crafting by hand and produced locally by artist, displaying artist’s signature or hallmark, and uniqueness costing more, but higher quality and better design.” The key topics related to authenticity in souvenir research that have been explored by existing literature include authenticity perception ( Chang et al. , 2012 ; Hashimoto and Telfer, 2007 ; Lin and Wang, 2012 ; Trinh et al. , 2014 ; Xie et al. , 2012 ; Yu and Littrell, 2003 ), authenticity and marketing ( Fu et al. , 2018 ; Lin and Wang, 2012 ; Luscombe et al. , 2018 ; Xie et al. , 2012 ), the influence of inauthentic souvenirs ( Sthapit and Björk, 2019 ; Yang, 2011 ) and souvenirs and tourism geographies ( Hashimoto and Telfer, 2007 ; Peters, 2011 ).

Authenticity perception is regarded as one of the determinants of perceived value ( Lin and Wang, 2012 ). According to Yu and Littrell (2003) , tourists’ beliefs about the authenticity of craft souvenirs are influenced positively by travel activities. Given the close link between the authenticity of heritage souvenirs and indigenous tourism, Chang et al. (2012) explored tourists’ perceived authenticity of aboriginal heritage souvenirs. The results indicated that tourists’ perceived authenticity of aboriginal heritage souvenirs varies between different stakeholders, including residents, tourists, governmental officers and tourism entrepreneurs. Similarly, from the standpoint of design, Xie et al. (2012) also investigated how tourists perceived the authenticity of indigenous goods. It was discovered that tourists see a modern design with indigenous marks as being more authentic than traditional design. Moreover, from the standpoint of geography, Hashimoto and Telfer (2007) investigated tourists’ perceptions of authenticity. In Niagara Falls, Canada, they looked at the ideas of geographical size and geographically displaced authenticity in relation to souvenirs. Purchasing a souvenir from a location other than the destination being visited is referred to as having “geographically displaced authenticity.” Trinh et al. (2014) focused on exploring souvenir retailers’ attitudes toward authenticity to fill the gap in the literature. The findings showed that souvenir shops source locally and nationally, but they also try to market souvenirs that are seen as being authentic to the local area. The study also showed that visitors might establish their own experiential authenticity as potential “prosumers.”

From the point of marketing, authenticity is an important strategy for the marketing of commodified punishment used by tourism operators ( Luscombe et al. , 2018 ). According to Lynch (2004 , p. 261), commodified punishment refers to transforming “something that previously had no particular economic value” (p. 261) into a product that can be bought and sold. In addition to commodified punishment, authenticity also plays an important role in souvenir purchase. For example, design authenticity has an impact on travelers’ inclination to buy souvenirs ( Xie et al. , 2012 ). Similarly, Lin and Wang (2012) found that tourists’ souvenir-repurchasing intention is associated with authenticity perception. In the context of experience consumerism, Fu et al. (2018) looked more closely at the connections between the authenticity of souvenirs, their perceived value and consumers’ behavior. It was discovered that authentic souvenirs have a stronger favorable impact on tourists’ behavioral intentions through perceived value in the context of experience consumption.

The literature above discussed the importance of authenticity in tourist perceptions and souvenir purchase, and some scholars have explored the influence of inauthentic souvenirs on tourist perceptions ( Yang, 2011 ) and souvenir purchase ( Sthapit and Björk, 2019 ). According to Yang (2011) , inauthentic souvenirs harmed tourists’ perceptions of cultural authenticity at an ethnic theme park. However, Sthapit and Björk (2019) found that a lack of authenticity is an attraction for tourists in purchasing souvenirs. For example, sometimes tourists buy “genuine counterfeit products” during their travel due to their lower prices.

Peters (2011) examined the relationship between souvenirs and tourism geographies and asserted that souvenirs provide a fresh paradigm for thinking spatially about tourism. According to the findings, owners believed that commonplace mementos like tea towels, bookmarks and food and drink that have little to do with a particular location and dilute its significance were genuine.

Souvenir meanings

Hunter (2012) explored the cultural meanings of souvenirs and pointed out that representations of indigenous destinations are commonly used as popular tourist destinations to promote tourism destinations. Due to the significant cultural meanings of souvenirs, Hunter (2012) further defined a good souvenir as the result of inventive marketing, sponsorship and careful cultural heritage protection. Cheng et al. (2010) explored the cultural meanings of tea for tea tourists who buy tea as souvenirs. In addition to the cultural meanings of souvenirs, Swanson and Timothy (2012) argued that different functional meanings are attached to souvenirs depending on who owns them. The main functional meanings of souvenirs are gifts, memory aids and evidence ( Wilkins, 2011 ). In terms of souvenirs as memory aids, Wilkins (2011) further pointed out that essential components of keepsakes that aid travelers in recalling their travel memories and motivating them to return to a destination include novelty, usefulness and practicality. Marschall (2012) agreed with Sthapit and Björk (2019) and argued that the choice of a tourist’s destination, their experience there and their desire to share their travels with others by purchasing souvenirs all depend heavily on memory. Marschall’s (2012) study was supported by Morgan and Pritchard (2005) . They looked at how people subconsciously use souvenirs as markers of memory, (re)creating polysensual tourism experiences, and self-awareness of their roles as “tourists.”

Different from Wilkins (2011) , Paraskevaidis and Andriotis (2015) looked at the meanings of souvenirs from the values of souvenirs as commodities. From a sociological angle, they added four values to the literature on tourism: use value, exchange value, symbol value and spiritual value. Apart from the significant meanings of souvenirs discussed above, the meanings of the souvenirs also played an important role in destination development. For example, Lund et al. (2017) found that souvenirs’ meanings and material make-up have a significant impact on how Icelandic Arctic landscapes are shaped. In addition, Lane and Waitt (2007) identified a strong link between the meanings of souvenirs and the location of producing and purchasing souvenirs. They believed that when keepsakes are taken away from the location where they were made or purchased, their significance is lost. However, this opinion was challenged and criticized by later studies.

This paper reviewed 47 souvenir papers in 15 SSCI tourism journals from 2000 to 2020. Research efforts manifested in several fields, such as souvenir shopping, authenticity, gift-giving and souvenir meanings. Among all the reviewed papers, only Paraskevaidis and Andriotis’s (2015) study has a theoretical basis (i.e. Marx’s use and exchange values, Baudrillard’s sign-value and the spiritual-value). Hence, the primary issue for the study of this subject has been determined to be a lack of theoretical frameworks. Overall, souvenir in tourism has not reached the maturity stage as an academic field, based on Weed’s (2009) commentaries of four markers:

“[…] a strong conceptualization of the field; the underpinning of empirical work by appropriate theory; the robust and appropriate application of methodology; and a clear community of scholars with a sustained interest in the field” (p. 625).

Limitations and future research direction

The discussions in this review demonstrate that each of these markers has not been achieved, and the research on souvenir in tourism is still at an early stage. This also suggests that there are many venues for future research, which can be summarized as the following five aspects.

First, conceptual and theoretical research of souvenir in tourism should be a key research element in future research. As discussed above, conceptual discussions are still rare among the existing studies. Developing scholarship has been conducted on souvenir in tourism from the practical perspectives, which are useful in particular cases or destinations. However, differing viewpoints continue to exist, and more conceptual study is required to compile the findings into a coherent body of knowledge. Hence, it is necessary to map different meanings of the term “souvenir” and to differentiate souvenir from tourist shopping. Cultural geographies of souvenirs may have consequences for future study as well as theoretical relevance.

The second research direction lies in combining with the theoretical basis. The above review demonstrates that yet studies explaining certain issues from the chosen cases or destinations dominate current literature, leading to a dearth of theoretical basis. In the academic literature, souvenir scholarship spans multiple disciplines, including but not limited to tourism: sociology, business, geography, marketing and consumer behavior. Hence, exploring souvenirs from multidisciplinary perspectives is an innovative way that promises to contribute to discussions in a range of different fields, including tourism, geography and culture. Moreover, this research only reviewed articles published in journals listed in the Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism subject SSCI database. Some highly relevant research published in books and conference proceedings is not included, which is a limitation of the study. The relevant research published in books and conference proceedings can be further reviewed by future research.

The third area of research that may be useful in the future is the influence of trends in retailing, shopping and tourism on souvenirs. Technology has been identified as one of the biggest impact factors on tourists’ behaviors and experiences ( Munar and Jacobsen, 2014 ; Wang et al. , 2016 ; Xiang and Gretzel, 2010 ). For example, some scholars have noticed the impact of the development of smart devices and online shopping on tourist shopping behaviors ( Hew et al. , 2018 ; Kim et al. , 2011a , 2011b ; Kim et al. , 2015 ). Given the deficiency of souvenir investigations in this respect, continued research on understanding online souvenir retailing is encouraged to move souvenir inquiry forward. There should be more concern about how the digital era has influenced souvenirs in tourism and related issues, such as tourists’ souvenir shopping behavior, tourist perception of souvenir authenticity, souvenir distribution channels, destination product portfolio, souvenir consumption and the commodification of material culture as well as the combination of indigenous cultures, traditional crafts and souvenirs.

Moreover, recent studies found that the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped consumers’ shopping behaviors ( Eger et al. , 2021 ; Kim and Im, 2022 ). This study examined findings derived from studies of souvenir purchases from 2000 to 2020, and consequently, given that time frame, the virus COVID-19 was not identified as an important theme determining souvenir selection. It remains to be seen if the pandemic may influence future souvenir buying, and this could be examined in future research if evidence emerges that it is a factor. Another potential determinant is the influence of virtual tourism, which Lu et al. (2022) identified as an important type of tourism occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. This, too, needs to be explored in future research and could consider nonfungible token. The following topics can be explored, such as the meanings of virtual souvenirs for tourists, factors influencing tourists to purchase virtual souvenirs and tourist satisfaction with virtual souvenirs.

Finally, a review of the literature indicated that the majority of existing souvenir studies adopted qualitative research methods, such as interviews and focus group. Some used the approach of structural equation modeling. However, both approaches possess potential deficiencies when identifying the cause and effect of variables when considering actual and intended behaviors and the role of emotional attachment to place and activity when buying a souvenir due to the complexity of the phenomenon. The experimental method is becoming more popular in tourism research due to its ability to identify the relationship between cause and effect and to verify prior findings ( Viglia and Dolnicar, 2020 ). Thus far, this approach is generally absent in the literature relating to souvenirs, and it is recommended that the experimental methodologies be adopted in future souvenir research to better understand tourists’ purchase behaviors.

Overall, the review of the 47 tourism souvenir articles selected from 15 SSCI journals presents a picture of the research progress in this field. While this study identifies that the research of souvenir in tourism is still at an early stage based on Weed’s (2009) indicators, many interesting perspectives have been explored by researchers, and insightful findings have been gained. Besides the articles reviewed, more research has been conducted in the forms of journal articles, research notes, books and news reports, which serve a thriving research community. These provide favorable conditions and solid foundations that future research can develop and flourish.

Number of articles by journal and time period

Source: Table created by author

Chang , J. , Wall , G. and Hung , J.C. ( 2012 ), “ Tourists' perceptions of aboriginal heritage souvenirs ”, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research , Vol. 17 No. 6 , pp. 684 - 700 .

Cheng , S.W. , Xu , F.F. , Zhang , J. and Zhang , Y.T. ( 2010 ), “ Tourists' attitudes toward tea tourism: a case study in Xinyang, China ”, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing , Vol. 27 No. 2 , pp. 211 - 220 .

Eger , L. , Komárková , L. , Egerová , D. and Mičík , M. ( 2021 ), “ The effect of COVID-19 on consumer shopping behaviour: generational cohort perspective ”, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services , Vol. 61 , p. 102542 .

Fairhurst , A. , Costello , C. and Holmes , A.F. ( 2007 ), “ An examination of shopping behaviour of visitors to Tennessee according to tourist typologies ”, Journal of Vacation Marketing , Vol. 13 No. 4 , pp. 311 - 320 .

Fu , Y. , Liu , X. , Wang , Y. and Chao , R.-F. ( 2018 ), “ How experiential consumption moderates the effects of souvenir authenticity on behavioural intention through perceived values ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 69 , pp. 356 - 367 .

Gordon , B. ( 1986 ), “ The souvenir: message of the extraordinary ”, The Journal of Popular Culture , Vol. 20 No. 3 , pp. 135 - 146 .

Hashimoto , A. and Telfer , D.J. ( 2007 ), “ Geographical representations embedded within souvenirs in Niagara: the case of geographically displaced authenticity ”, Tourism Geographies Vol. 9 No. 2 , pp. 191 - 217 .

Hew , J.J. , Leong , L.Y. , Tan , G.W.H. , Lee , V.H. and Ooi , K.B. ( 2018 ), “ Mobile social tourism shopping: a dual-stage analysis of a multi-mediation model ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 66 , pp. 121 - 139 .

Hitchcock , M. and Teague , K. ( 2000 ), Souvenirs: The Material Culture of Tourism , CABI , Wallingford .

Hu , B. and Yu , H. ( 2007 ), “ Segmentation by craft selection criteria and shopping involvement ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 28 No. 4 , pp. 1079 - 1092 .

Hunter , W.C. ( 2012 ), “ The good souvenir: representations of Okinawa and Kinmen islands in Asia ”, Journal of Sustainable Tourism , Vol. 20 No. 1 , pp. 81 - 99 .

Jin , H. , Moscardo , G. and Murphy , L. ( 2017 ), “ Making sense of tourist shopping research: a critical review ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 62 , pp. 120 - 134 .

Kim , N.L. and Im , H. ( 2022 ), “ Do liberals want Curbside pickup more than conservatives? Contactless shopping as protectionary action against the COVID‐19 pandemic ”, International Journal of Consumer Studies , Vol. 46 No. 2 , pp. 589 - 600 .

Kim , S. and Littrell , M.A. ( 2001 ), “ Souvenir buying intentions for self-versus others ”, Annals of Tourism Research , Vol. 28 No. 3 , pp. 638 - 657 .

Kim , M.J. , Chung , N. and Lee , C.K. ( 2011a ), “ The effect of perceived trust on electronic commerce: shopping online for tourism products and services in South Korea ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 32 No. 2 , pp. 256 - 265 .

Kim , S.S. , Timothy , D.J. and Hwang , J. ( 2011b ), “ Understanding Japanese tourists’ shopping preferences using the decision tree analysis method ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 32 No. 3 , pp. 544 - 554 .

Kim , M.J. , Chung , N. , Lee , C.K. and Preis , M.W. ( 2015 ), “ Motivations and use context in mobile tourism shopping: applying contingency and task–technology fit theories ”, International Journal of Tourism Research , Vol. 17 No. 1 , pp. 13 - 24 .

Kong , W.H. and Chang , T.Z. ( 2012 ), “ The role of souvenir shopping in a diversified Macau destination portfolio ”, Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management , Vol. 21 No. 4 , pp. 357 - 373 .

Lane , R. and Waitt , G. ( 2007 ), “ Inalienable places: self-drive tourists in northwest Australia ”, Annals of Tourism Research , Vol. 34 No. 1 , pp. 105 - 121 .

Lee , I.J. , Chen , C.H. and Su , C.Y. ( 2017 ), “ App based souvenirs and entry tickets: a new means of enhancing post visit memories: a case study from Taiwan ”, Tourism Management Perspectives , Vol. 24 , pp. 177 - 185 .

Lee , J.S. , Lee , C.K. and Yoon , Y. ( 2009 ), “ Investigating differences in antecedents to value between first-time and repeat festival-goers ”, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing , Vol. 26 No. 7 , pp. 688 - 702 .

Lehto , X.Y. , Cai , L.A. , O’Leary , J.T. and Huan , T.C. ( 2004 ), “ Tourist shopping preferences and expenditure behaviours: the case of the Taiwanese outbound market ”, Journal of Vacation Marketing , Vol. 10 No. 4 , pp. 320 - 332 .

Li , F. and Ryan , C. ( 2018 ), “ Souvenir shopping experiences: a case study of Chinese tourists in North Korea ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 64 , pp. 142 - 153 .

Lin , L. ( 2017 ), “ Food souvenirs as gifts: tourist perspectives and their motivational basis in Chinese culture ”, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change , Vol. 15 No. 5 , pp. 439 - 454 .

Lin , C.H. and Wang , W.C. ( 2012 ), “ Effects of authenticity perception, hedonics, and perceived value on ceramic souvenir-repurchasing intention ”, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing , Vol. 29 No. 8 , pp. 779 - 795 .

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 623RC444 and 721QN223).

Corresponding author

About the author.

Fangxuan (Sam) Li is a Professor from the School of Tourism, Hainan University. His research interests include tourist behavior, tourism marketing and travel experience.

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What's the problem with overtourism?

With visitor numbers around the world increasing towards pre-pandemic levels, the issue of overtourism is once again rearing its head.

When locals in the charming Austrian lakeside village of Hallstatt staged a blockade of the main access tunnel, brandishing placards asking visitors to ‘think of the children’, it highlighted what can happen when places start to feel overrun by tourists. Hallstatt has just 800 residents but has opened its doors to around 10,000 visitors a day — a population increase of over 1,000%. And it’s just one of a growing number of places where residents are up in arms at the influx of travellers.

The term ‘overtourism’ is relatively new, having been coined over a decade ago to highlight the spiralling numbers of visitors taking a toll on cities, landmarks and landscapes. As tourist numbers worldwide return towards pre-pandemic levels, the debate around what constitutes ‘too many’ visitors continues. While many destinations, reliant on the income that tourism brings, are still keen for arrivals, a handful of major cities and sites are now imposing bans, fines, taxes and time-slot systems, and, in some cases, even launching campaigns of discouragement in a bid to curb tourist numbers.

What is overtourism?

In essence, overtourism is too many people in one place at any given time. While there isn’t a definitive figure stipulating the number of visitors allowed, an accumulation of economic, social and environmental factors determine if and how numbers are creeping up.

There are the wide-reaching effects, such as climate change. Coral reefs, like the Great Barrier Reef and Maya Bay, Thailand, made famous by the Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Beach , are being degraded from visitors snorkelling, diving and touching the corals, as well as tour boats anchoring in the waters. And 2030 transport-related carbon emissions from tourism are expected to grow 25% from 2016 levels, representing an increase from 5% to 5.3% of all man-made emissions, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). More localised issues are affecting locals, too. Renters are being evicted by landlords in favour of turning properties into holiday lets, and house prices are escalating as a result. As visitors and rental properties outnumber local residents, communities are being lost. And, skyrocketing prices, excessive queues, crowded beaches, exorbitant noise levels, damage at historical sites and the ramifications to nature as people overwhelm or stray from official paths are also reasons the positives of tourism can have a negative impact.

Conversely, ‘undertourism’ is a term applied to less-frequented destinations, particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic. The economic, social and environmental benefits of tourism aren't always passed on to those with plenty of capacity and, while tourist boards are always keen for visitors to visit their lesser-known attractions, it’s a more sustainable and rewarding experience for both residents and visitors.

What’s the main problem with it?

Overcrowding is an issue for both locals and tourists. It can ruin the experience of sightseeing for those trapped in long queues, unable to visit museums, galleries and sites without advance booking, incurring escalating costs for basics like food, drink and hotels, and faced with the inability to experience the wonder of a place in relative solitude. The absence of any real regulations has seen places take it upon themselves to try and establish some form of crowd control, meaning no cohesion and no real solution.

Justin Francis, co-founder and CEO of Responsible Travel, a tour operator that focuses on more sustainable travel, says “Social media has concentrated tourism in hotspots and exacerbated the problem, and tourist numbers globally are increasing while destinations have a finite capacity. Until local people are properly consulted about what they want and don’t want from tourism, we’ll see more protests.”

A French start up, Murmuration, which monitors the environmental impact of tourism by using satellite data, states that 80% of travellers visit just 10% of the world's tourism destinations, meaning bigger crowds in fewer spots. And, the UNWTO predicts that by 2030, the number of worldwide tourists, which peaked at 1.5 billion in 2019, will reach 1.8 billion,   likely leading to greater pressure on already popular spots and more objection from locals.

Who has been protesting?

Of the 800 residents in the UNESCO-listed village of Hallstatt, around 100 turned out in August to show their displeasure and to push for a cap on daily visitors and a curfew on tour coach arrivals.

Elsewhere, residents in Venice fought long and hard for a ban on cruise ships, with protest flags often draped from windows. In 2021, large cruise ships over 25,000 tonnes were banned from using the main Giudecca Canal, leaving only smaller passenger ferries and freight vessels able to dock.

In France, the Marseille Provence Cruise Club introduced a flow management system for cruise line passengers in 2020, easing congestion around the popular Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde Basilica. A Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) spokesperson said, “Coaches are limited to four per ship during the morning or afternoon at the Basilica to ensure a good visitor experience and safety for residents and local businesses. This is a voluntary arrangement respected by cruise lines.”

While in Orkney, Scotland, residents have been up in arms at the number of cruise ships docking on its shores. At the beginning of 2023, the local council confirmed that 214 cruise ship calls were scheduled for the year, bringing around £15 million in revenue to the islands. Following backlash from locals, the council has since proposed a plan to restrict the number of ships on any day.

What steps are being taken?  

City taxes have become increasingly popular, with Barcelona increasing its nightly levy in April 2023 — which was originally introduced in 2012 and varies depending on the type of accommodation — and Venice expects to charge day-trippers a €5 fee from 2024.

In Amsterdam this summer, the city council voted to ban cruise ships, while the mayor, Femke Halsema, commissioned a campaign of discouragement, asking young British men who planned to have a 'vacation from morals’ to stay away. In Rome, sitting at popular sites, such as the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, has been restricted by the authorities.

And in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, meanwhile, the Narok County governor has introduced on-the-spot fines for off-roading. He also plans to double nightly park fees in peak season.

What are the forecasts for global tourism?  

During the Covid pandemic, tourism was one of the hardest-hit industries — according to UNWTO, international tourist arrivals dropped 72% in 2020. However, traveller numbers have since been rapidly increasing, with double the number of people venturing abroad in the first three months of 2023 than in the same period in 2022. And, according to the World Travel Tourism Council, the tourism sector is expected to reach £7.5 trillion this year, 95% of its pre-pandemic levels.

While the tourism industry is forecast to represent 11.6% of the global economy by 2033, it’s also predicted that an increasing number of people will show more interest in travelling more sustainably. In a 2022 survey by Booking.com, 64% of the people asked said they would be prepared to stay away from busy tourist sites to avoid adding to congestion.

Are there any solutions?  

There are ways to better manage tourism by promoting more off-season travel, limiting numbers where possible and having greater regulation within the industry. Encouraging more sustainable travel and finding solutions to reduce friction between residents and tourists could also have positive impacts. Promoting alternative, less-visited spots to redirect travellers may also offer some benefits.

Harold Goodwin, emeritus professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, says, “Overtourism is a function of visitor volumes, but also of conflicting behaviours, crowding in inappropriate places and privacy. Social anthropologists talk about frontstage and backstage spaces. Tourists are rarely welcome in backstage spaces. To manage crowds, it’s first necessary to analyse and determine the causes of them.

Francis adds: “However, we must be careful not to just recreate the same problems elsewhere. The most important thing is to form a clear strategy, in consultation with local people about what a place wants or needs from tourism.”

As it stands, overtourism is a seasonal issue for a small number of destinations. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, a range of measures are clearly an option depending on the scale of the problem. For the majority of the world, tourism remains a force for good with many benefits beyond simple economic growth.

Related Topics

• OVERTOURISM
• SUSTAINABLE TOURISM

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