tourists research paper topics

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.

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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Sustainability as a building block for tourism – future research: Tourism Agenda 2030

Tourism Review

ISSN : 1660-5373

Article publication date: 12 October 2022

Issue publication date: 7 April 2023

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the state-of-the-art about sustainable tourism. Despite the significant growth of publications exploring sustainable tourism, the debate on the relationship between tourism and sustainability remains open. In addition, the sector faces the challenge of the 2030 Agenda, as the authors have not yet managed to curb environmental degradation and social disparities. This research needs to be comprehensively addressed to inform future steps and to identify sustainable tourism practices that will advance the goals of this action plan.

Design/methodology/approach

This study applies a mixed methodology, using a bibliometric analysis performed by VOSviewer and SciMat software of 311 articles from the Web of Science. In addition, it includes an in-depth analysis of trending research topics in the field during 2019 and 2020.

After 20 years of research on sustainable tourism, there is still significant dispersion of studied topics, frameworks and applications. The results show the evolution of research towards the study and measurement of sustainable change, social and cultural aspects and the development of responsible governance models.

Research limitations/implications

New stakeholder relationships models require a methodological and technological framework. Further progress in sustainable tourism guided by the 2030 Agenda demands the establishment of worldwide recognised measurement indicators and policy frameworks.

Originality/value

With a mixed methodological approach and a special focus on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), this paper provides a “state-of-the-art” update to sustainability research in tourism. The results obtained have been associated with their contribution to achieving SDGs.

尽管探索可持续旅游业的出版物大幅增长, 但关于旅游业和可持续性之间关系的辩论仍然没有结束。此外, 该部门还面临着2030年议程的挑战, 因为我们还没有设法遏制环境退化和社会差异。这项研究需要全面解决, 以便为未来的步骤提供信息, 并确定可持续旅游的做法, 以推进本行动计划的目标。

本研究采用混合方法, 通过VOSviewer和SciMat软件对来自科学网的311篇文章进行文献计量分析。此外, 它还包括对2019年和2020年期间该领域的趋势性研究课题的深入分析。

经过20年的可持续旅游研究, 所研究的课题框架和应用仍然存在很大的分散性。我们的结果显示, 研究朝着研究和测量可持续变化、社会和文化方面以及发展负责任的治理模式的方向发展。

新的利益相关者关系模型需要一个方法学和技术框架。在2030年议程的指导下, 可持续旅游业的进一步发展需要建立世界公认的测量指标和政策框架。

通过混合方法和对可持续发展目标（SDGs）的特别关注, 本文为旅游业的可持续性研究提供了 “最先进 “的更新。获得的结果与他们对实现可持续发展目标的贡献有关。

A pesar del importante crecimiento de las publicaciones que exploran el turismo sostenible, el debate sobre la relación entre turismo y sostenibilidad sigue abierto. Además, el sector se enfrenta al reto de la Agenda 2030, ya que aún no se ha conseguido frenar la degradación medioambiental y las disparidades sociales. Esta investigación debe abordarse de forma exhaustiva para informar de los pasos futuros e identificar las prácticas de turismo sostenible que harán avanzar los objetivos de este plan de acción.

Diseño/metodología/enfoque

Este estudio aplica una metodología mixta, utilizando un análisis bibliométrico realizado por el software VOSviewer y SciMat con 311 artículos de la Web of Science. Además, incluye un análisis en profundidad de los temas de investigación de tendencia en el campo durante 2019 y 2020.

Después de 20 años de investigación sobre el turismo sostenible, sigue habiendo una importante dispersión de los marcos temáticos estudiados y de las aplicaciones. Nuestros resultados muestran la evolución de la investigación hacia el estudio y la medición del cambio sostenible, los aspectos sociales y culturales y el desarrollo de modelos de gobernanza responsable.

Limitaciones/implicaciones de la investigación

Los nuevos modelos de relaciones con los grupos de interés requieren un marco metodológico y tecnológico. Los nuevos avances en el turismo sostenible guiados por la Agenda 2030 exigen el establecimiento de indicadores de medición y marcos políticos reconocidos a nivel mundial.

Originalidad

Con un enfoque metodológico mixto centrado especialmente en los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), este trabajo proporciona una actualización del “estado del arte” a la investigación de la sostenibilidad en el turismo. Los resultados obtenidos se han asociado con la consecución de los ODS.

Sustainable tourism
Bibliometric analysis
Sustainable development goals
Research trends
Agenda 2030
析、可持续发展目标、研究
Turismo sostenible
Análisis bibliométrico
Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible
Tendencias de investigación

Alonso-Muñoz, S. , Torrejón-Ramos, M. , Medina-Salgado, M.-S. and González-Sánchez, R. (2023), "Sustainability as a building block for tourism – future research: Tourism Agenda 2030", Tourism Review , Vol. 78 No. 2, pp. 461-474. https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-12-2021-0568

Emerald Publishing Limited

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

1. Introduction

Sustainable development contemplates the need for the present development without prejudicing the development of future generations ( World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987 ). This is an international paradigm that has informed many social phenomena, such as tourism. The seminal studies of Nash and Butler (1990) and May (1991) coined the concept of sustainable tourism by evaluating the impact of tourism on the environment. This relationship captures the effects on the preservation of biodiversity and ecosystems. Besides, it considers human well-being by balancing economic, social and environmental aspects ( Ruhanen et al. , 2019 ; Pehin Dato Musa and Chin, 2022 ). Even so, authors such as Sharpley (2020) still recognise the value of socially and environmentally sustainable tourism, but not as sustainable development. He argues that institutions and the tourism industry should rethink new forms of production and consumption on a global scale.

Tourism is a service sector that uses high flows of natural resources, affecting communities in tourist destinations. Many of these impacts have been captured in the concept of overtourism ( Lew, 2020 ), giving a negative connotation to tourist activity. This phenomenon has prompted the industry to search for sustainable solutions and certification systems that give them legitimacy to operate. However, the multitude of current international sustainability certifications ( Spenceley, 2019 ) poses certain dilemmas for companies which assume the implementation of approaches such as triple bottom line (TBL) to ensure a certain degree of differentiation ( Tasci, 2017 ). The contribution of sustainability to tourism competitiveness is a topic currently under discussion. Recent studies highlight the importance of environmental concerns as a factor of choice for travellers. This could be a competitive advantage to be considered for destinations in emerging countries ( Fakfare and Wattanacharoensil, 2021 ). Sustainability is considered as a positive influence on tourism development, such as heritage tourism ( Chong and Balasingam, 2018 ) or destination economic growth ( Pulido-Fernández et al. , 2019 ).

However, while approaches such as TBL have brought together different activist currents to promote change, they have not succeeded in stemming degradation ( Lew, 2020 ). There is still a need to reduce the negative environmental impacts of tourism practices. It is essential to continue reducing CO 2 emissions – mainly generated by transport, deforestation, scarcity and consumption of natural resources and high concentrations of waste generated – ( Gross and Grimm, 2018 ). To be successful, the tourism industry must pursue sustainable practices by broadening the environmental perspective, following regenerative principles in production and changing consumption patterns ( Antimova et al. , 2012 ; Manniche et al. , 2021 ). Increasing tourist awareness of climate change is regarded in some studies according to sustainability benchmarks ( Tasci, 2017 ; Tasci et al. , 2021 ).

In this context, the research aims to understand the phenomenon of sustainability in tourism by relying on different conceptual frameworks. Some work argues for the importance of holistic approaches to dealing with sustainability. Because it is a complex systemic problem that cannot be tackled in a reductionist manner, Lew’s (2020) proposal advocates global awareness of sustainability. This is the idea behind research that has addressed the behaviour of tourism consumers, whether relying on approaches at the individual and interpersonal level ( Tasci, 2017 ) or at the community level, such as the social practices approach ( Antimova et al. , 2012 ; Verbeek et al. , 2011 ).

Other lines of research have a more managerial approach. They use the “Resource-Based View” to explain the use of resources and capabilities to design strategies and achieve competitive differentiation of tourism destinations ( Cavalcante et al. , 2021 ). However, these resources are not always owned by companies, so they must turn to their environment to obtain them. Based on the resource dependence theory, organisations are conditioned by transactions with their environment to obtain resources. In this way, the sustainable actions of organisations will be influenced by stakeholders that condition the obtaining of those resources ( Damian et al. , 2022 ). From this perspective of non-isolation, the “Stakeholder Theory” considers how companies’ purposes can affect their stakeholders as drivers towards sustainability, with the focus on tourists and residents, by sharing and creating value ( Lüdeke-Freund and Dembek, 2017 ; Su and Swanson, 2017 ; Chong and Balasingam, 2018 ).

This theoretical framework has been revolutionised by the adoption in 2015 of the Agenda 2030 and the sustainable development goals (SDGs). This Agenda was designed by the United Nations as a global plan of action for people, the planet and prosperity ( UNWTO, 2017 ). The importance of the sector in achieving the SDGs has led to the establishment of the term Tourism Agenda 2030. This reflects the contribution of tourism in the drafting of several of its goals, which can be an opportunity to achieve “new tourism”. To achieve such, tourism organisations should address the development of their strategies in relation to the SDGs ( Peter et al. , 2017 ). In this regards, there are two SDGs, such as SDG 11 – sustainable cities and communities – and SDG 12 – responsible consumption and production – to which tourism contributes directly. Yet it is also possible to identify indirect contributions. Tourism would foster economic growth and employment generation (SDG 8). The transition to renewable energy use and further development of recycling, reduction and reusing items ( Peter et al. , 2017 ) would help to meet SDG 7 – affordable and clean energy – and SDG 13 – climate change. Achieving these goals requires the development of all dimensions of sustainability and the engagement of all stakeholders.

Efforts have been made to develop increasingly well-founded studies. Although, there is still a large body of research based on scope limited studies. Many of them are applications in one tourism subsector, destination or specific sustainable problem. This leads to wide knowledge dispersion despite the significant increase in publications. Based on the research developed over the past two decades, a comprehensive overview of more recent research is necessary to contribute to the fulfilment of the Tourism Agenda 2030.

There are recent previous bibliometric analyses ( Rodríguez-López et al. , 2019 ; Cavalcante et al. , 2021 ). Their results reveal the need to jointly investigate the different variables or sustainability dimensions. However, they study sustainability related to specific concepts such as tourism in protected areas or tourism marketing. Only Ruhanen et al. (2019) has a general approach but reach as far as 2017, meaning it does not capture the outcomes of the most prolific years of this body of knowledge. Our study represents a step forward in providing a comprehensive overview of sustainability and tourism research, considering the most prolific years in the field and using different tools to achieve a more accurate analysis. Finally, it points out where research should be heading to be more useful for both the Academy and the tourism industry.

How is the knowledge network in the current literature about sustainability and tourism developed?

Which are the research topics and patterns in the field under study?

What are the future research lines according to the fulfilment of the Tourism Agenda 2030 and SDGs?

The paper is divided up as follows: after the introduction, the methodology is presented in Section 2. In Section 3, the bibliometric results are displayed according to the historical number of publications, the most representative journals and the thematic organisation. Thereafter, the most influential articles and research trends during the years 2019 and 2020 are analysed in Section 4. Finally, the discussion and conclusions are presented in Section 5.

2. Methodology

This paper adopts a mixed methodology to comprehend the impact of sustainability on tourism research through papers that consider this topic their main issue. A bibliometric procedure is used on a set of articles from 1998 to 2021. Following that, we carried out an in-depth review of the most cited articles in the years 2019 and 2020 to identify where the latest research has been heading and new research trends. The study is divided up into three phases, as shown in Figure 1 .

In the first phase, the Database chosen is Web of Science. The keywords “sustainability” and “tourism” were selected by theme, and 7,419 papers were acquired. Then filtering by title, the result was 964 papers. Selecting only Science and Social Citation Index obtained 456 results. Finally, citations from books and proceedings were excluded, resulting in a total sample of 311 articles.

The co-occurrences analysis technique match pairs of keywords to identify the relationships between items ( Choi et al. , 2011 ) and is fundamental to visualise and detect emerging trends and future research ( Pestana et al. , 2019 ). Hence, two software are used for co-word analysis in the second phase.

VOSviewer is frequently applied to display scientific maps of the co-word analysis ( Cavalcante et al. , 2021 ), so it was implemented first to get a general overview of the most demanded topics. In the VOSviewer output, the clusters’ size displays the strength of the concept (frequency) and the clusters’ network the relationship between co-occurrent terms.

SciMat is also commonly applied to construct scientific maps and visualise the development of the scientific area under investigation ( Cobo et al. , 2012 ). In contrast to VOSviewer, it enables visualisation of the evolution of the analysis field and provides a classification of the thematic networks identified in a specific period of analysis. It was applied next. The SciMat thematic networks are drawn following two criteria: density and centrality. Density is used to measure the internal strength of the network, and centrality is used to measure the degree of network interaction. Accordingly, themes are classified into motor themes with strong centrality and high density; basic and transversal themes that are not well developed but valuable for the research; emerging or disappearing themes that present low centrality and density; and the more developed but isolated themes, with internal strong links but external links weak ( Cobo et al. , 2012 ).

In the third phase, an analysis of the most cited articles between the years 2019 and 2020 was performed, outlining the dominant research trends and limitations and how they are playing a role in supporting or hindering the achievement of the SDGs.

3.1 Historical number of publications

Examining the evolution of publications in the research topic shows academic attention. Figure 2 displays the number of publications in the field of sustainability and tourism from 1998 up to May 2021. From the 1990s to 2015, the publication of articles is very scarce. This is beginning to reverse, due to increased awareness of sustainability, driven mainly by the publication of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. Highlighting the period between the years 2019–2020 as the most prolific, showing a growing concern in this aspect.

3.2 Representative journals in the field

Referent journals in sustainable tourism focus on hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism as a research area. As can be seen in Table 1 , Tourism Review (22 and 4) is among the top 20 journals in terms of influence and productivity in the field.

3.3 Thematic organisation in the field

Analysing VOSviewer results shows that from the total of 1,673 keywords, 40 meet the threshold, considering 8 as the minimum number of occurrences of a keyword. Figure 3 displays the different clusters whose themes will be analysed below. The cluster “models of responsibility” in red analyses models or frameworks for action and factors related to responsible governance. The green cluster “study and measurement of change” gather concepts about adaptation to change, conservation and the evolution of sustainability. This cluster also considers measurement management through the formulation of sustainable indicators. The yellow cluster “social sustainability” includes the main concepts of the different stakeholder groups, such as perceptions, satisfaction or attitudes. Finally, the cluster “cultural or heritage sustainability” in blue considers concepts associated with rural tourism, destinations and heritage.

Because SciMat algorithm identifies keyword subgroups with important associations, a range of a maximum of 12 keywords and a minimum of 3 were established to spot the thematic networks. To perform the analysis, the publications were divided into three periods: period 1, 1998–2008; period 2, 2009–2015 and period 3: 2016–2021. The third period is the most representative due to its higher number of publications on the subject and consequently was selected to generate the strategic diagram ( Figure 4 ).

In the strategy diagram, the themes that appear in the upper right-hand corner are those classified as motor, those in the lower right-hand corner are basic and transversal, in the upper left-hand corner are more developed and isolated, and in the lower left-hand corner are emerging or disappearing themes.

From the strategy diagram for period three ( Figure 4 ), different clusters have been obtained that represent a network of interconnected words, studied and observed but not shown in work. Regarding the most representative clusters of the study, we can observe the following results.

Considering motor themes, the node “environmental sustainability” indicates where the research is focused. There is a strong relationship between this node, “sustainable tourism” and “management system”, as well as other words such as “impact”, “destination”, “hotels”, “green” or “corporate social responsibility”. In the “climate change” cluster, there is a strong relationship with “efficiency”, “profitability” and “vulnerability” as key themes associated with phenomena. In terms of basic and transversal themes highlights “perceptions” cluster. Its relationship with “support” and “attitudes” is highlighted, as well as other words such as “resilience”, “issues” and “community”. The “innovation” node is also present, strongly related to words such as “companies”, “information-technology” or “system-dynamics”. In the emerging theme, “circular economy” node is presented, linked to China and Covid-19. Finally, the development theme, “energy consumption”, stands out, highlighting its relationship with “Co2-emissions”.

Referring to the co-word analysis carried out with VOSviewer, and its link with the SciMat results, the motor and transversal or basic themes are present. This is because VOSviewer considers the whole period, but SciMat analysis focuses on Period 3 (2016–2021). Hence, the emerging themes that appear in SciMat, such as Covid-19 or China, do not appear in VOSviewer.

3.4 Research trends 2019–2020

To examine research trends in sustainability and tourism, the main topics of the 20 most cited articles in the period 2019–2020, the years with the highest number of publications in the field, were analysed.

For almost five years since the publication of the Agenda 2030, only one paper ( Alarcón and Cole, 2019 ) makes direct reference to the SDGs. However, any of these papers could contribute to the achievement of these global sustainable goals. In this sense, Figure 5 provides an initial analysis of these works based on the main contributions of these 20 research papers and how they are aligned with the SDGs.

There is evidence of research bias towards issues related to the fulfilment of SDG 11, as this is directly linked to tourism. However, the second goal, also clearly associated with tourism (SDG 12), is overlooked by research in 2020 and 2021. It is also noted that the indirect targets (SDG’s 7 and 13), linked to environmental aspects, still need more attention to aid their fulfilment. In contrast, the contribution of tourism to economic growth and the measurement of sustainability is receiving more attention.

Regarding the conceptual models, two large blocks of work can be found. Those that attempt to comprehend the relationship between tourism and environmental sustainability either considering that tourism explains sustainability ( Akadiri et al. , 2019 ). Or on the contrary, that sustainability influences tourism ( Pulido-Fernández et al. , 2019 ). Or even that it influences the strategies of the companies ( Eckert and Pechlaner, 2019 ) and even in the destinations’ competitiveness ( Goffi et al. , 2019 ). And those that could be named “awareness-oriented”. These demonstrate how the stakeholders’ consciousness about sustainability determines their behaviour and has a positive effect on the achievement of sustainable tourism ( Garay et al. , 2019 ; Kornilaki and Font, 2019 ).

There is also a group of works that could be called “community-oriented”. They focus on aspects related to economic, environmental and social sustainability and its contribution to community-based or rural tourism development ( Lee and Jan, 2019 ; Khartishvili et al. , 2019 ; Randelli and Martellozzo, 2019 ; Su and Swanson, 2017 ).

Finally, we identify those works aimed at providing indicators or systems for measuring sustainability. Whether in the form of frameworks for assessing the economic sustainability of tourism ( Qiu et al. , 2019 ) or in the form of an evaluation protocol for tourism projects in a destination ( Asmelash and Kumar, 2019 ; Nesticò and Maselli, 2020 ). For the shortcomings pointed out in these studies, many of them limit the study to a specific region. Therefore, it would be desirable to broaden the geographical scope to compare and gain overall findings. In addition, the lack of data makes the accuracy of the studies difficult. It is essential to expand empirical studies in this field.

4. Discussion

Based on a review of the most cited articles and cluster analysis, this section provides a discussion to establish an interpretation of the results and their relationship to previous literature. State-of-the-art sustainable tourism provides information for the proposal of a research itinerary of great usefulness for both researchers and professionals. The words “Agenda 2030” and “SDGs” have not appeared in any of the clusters analysed and only in one of the most cited works of the past two years. How can this absence be interpreted? Is the Academy not highlighting the Agenda and its goals? Nevertheless, the concerns expressed in the UN action plan are shared by tourism research, as this study has shown. A driving theme focuses on reducing the sector’s impact on climate change ( Akadiri et al. , 2019 ) through efficient management without losing profitability (SDG 13).

One of the concerns about environmental sustainability is energy consumption, such as the impact of CO 2 emissions caused by transportation and accommodation ( Thongdejsri and Nitivattananon, 2019 ). Linking research on energy eco-management and the transition to renewable energy with emission reductions is crucial for the development of sustainable transport (SDG 11). However, not all tourism transport sectors are at the same stage of development regarding the use of renewable energy. A closer look at the reasons and incentives for the less developed sectors would help to achieve the target. Are companies and passengers willing to make the necessary effort to do so? How important is the environmental impact of transport on a traveller’s choice? ( Gross and Grimm, 2018 ). In addition, entrepreneurs and managers must be capable of determining their level of sustainability. This requires the establishment of sustainable indicators ( Asmelash and Kumar, 2019 ).

Studying how tourism and economic growth affect environmental degradation, new paradigms such as the circular economy (SDG 8) have been contemplated. A break must be made with mass consumption models, which lead to a depletion of the resources of tourist services. The sector must be committed to service production from a perspective of regeneration and a necessary decrease. Is the sector aware of the need to abandon mass services in those types of tourism or destinations traditionally related to this production? Tourism is beneficial for the economy, but destination stakeholders must promote tourism growth in line with sustainability, addressing the negative impacts it entails ( Pulido-Fernández et al. , 2019 ). This may result in a revulsive in the implementation of new economic and business models ( Galvani et al. , 2020 ).

However, sustainability goes beyond environmental or economic aspects and focuses on social aspects. There is a growing interest in the development of accountability models for good governance, which requires the establishment of appropriate guidelines and regulations. The study of social sustainability focuses on the perceptions, consumption patterns and needs of new tourists (SDG 12). Besides, the development of sustainable competences of their companies depends on the attitude of managers ( Kornilaki and Font, 2019 ; Ghoochani et al. , 2020 ). Beyond this, the impact on heritage and the host community must be considered if sustainable and long-lasting destinations are to be achieved ( Lee and Jan, 2019 ). Stakeholders may share the development of sustainability actions, but there is a diversity of perceptions among them ( Damian et al. , 2022 ). Is it possible to talk about cultural sustainability in close relation to social and environmental sustainability? The interaction between the three is essential for the sustainable development of cultural tourism or rural tourism (SDG 8).

The SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Tourism are not isolated elements. Eventually, to fully achieve the 169 targets of this global action plan, a joint development between several goals is needed.

5. Conclusions and limitations

Sustainable tourism as a complex system has been studied for decades from different theoretical standpoints and different methodologies. Knowing the existing research on sustainable tourism and establishing its current contribution to the SDGs allows for directing studies towards the gaps for the fulfilment of the Tourism Agenda 2030. This bibliometric analysis sheds light on state-of-the-art research, providing useful information for researchers and professionals in the sector.

The articles published in the field show that attention has increased on scientific production since the year 2016 ( RQ1 ), which coincides with the SDGs and the Agenda 2030 ( United Nations, 2015 ). According to the journals, the most representative are Tourism Management and the Journal of Sustainable Tourism. Tourism Review has a significant contribution to make to the theory building of sustainable tourism development.

In terms of RQ2 , among the basic but underdeveloped topics is the study of stakeholder perceptions ( Damian et al. , 2022 ). Following the recent crises that have hit the sector in 2020 and 2021. It is essential to understand concepts such as adaptation to change or the development of certain community attitudes. Hence, the study of community participation is a trending topic ( Lee and Jan, 2019 ). This requires further technological development and methodologies to model temporal behaviour in complex environments. Among the underdeveloped but growing topics are a new economic paradigm such as the circular economy ( Galvani et al. , 2020 ), a new step of sustainability in the tourism industry.

Answering RQ3, the most cited papers have focused on three main thematic blocks. The first one attempts to delve deeper into the relationships and causes between tourism and sustainability. Shedding light on the topic of sustainable tourism is fundamental given the dispersion of concepts, theories and applications in recent decades. A second block focuses on awareness as a factor to be considered in the success of sustainable tourism practices. Finally, the role and perception of the local communities are increasingly taken into consideration.

This paper provides both theoretical and practical contributions to the scientific literature. In terms of theoretical implications, this bibliometric analysis reveals a growing research interest in the construction of theoretical models of sustainable tourism management, in line with the greater emphasis on theoretical progression evidenced by Ruhanen et al. (2019) . However, despite the boom of the past few years, there is still conceptual dispersion and no specific theory of any relevance beyond the sustainable development paradigm. There are new currents from other areas, such as philosophy, which would facilitate the development of awareness or new habits. The incorporation of Institutional Theory or Neo-Institutionalism, for example, would facilitate the comprehension of the role those institutional contexts could play in changing the patterns of tourism production and consumption advocated by Sharpley (2020) .

There is a risk that research remains at a level of abstraction, which makes it difficult for the sector to apply in practice. Perhaps driven by this need to make sustainability more tangible, the sector is experiencing a certification fever ( Spenceley, 2019 ). The variety of certifications and linked regulations is generating more confusion than guidance among businesses and tourists. Recent trend publications offer indicators or tracking systems to track the level of sustainability achieved ( Asmelash and Kumar, 2019 ; Ghoochani et al. , 2020 ). Establishing consensual indicators recognised by the sector would make it possible to know both the level of sustainable performance achieved by the company and to compare it with the sector. In terms of practical actions related to environmental sustainability, the sector requires strategic planning on energy consumption and emissions reduction. Companies and their key stakeholders need to be aware of different choices for current energy uses and the benefits associated with them ( Antimova et al. , 2012 ; Kornilaki and Font, 2019 ). To this end, the cooperation role of public institutions with business sectors is essential. Meeting the goals of the 2030 Agenda can also be a differentiating aspect for business. But to incorporate the SDG targets into the company’s strategic objectives, they require specialised guidance. While consultancies seem to have taken up this task, academia is not incorporating the 2030 Agenda among its main focuses, as shown by the clusters analysed.

Most of the limitations have to do with the need for other databases to enlarge the sample analysed. The co-occurrence analysis is inevitably subjective. Thus, it is interesting to complement the bibliometric analysis with other methodologies, such as in-depth interviews with experts or questionnaires within tourism companies. Additionally, a differentiation by sub-sectors or geographical areas is necessary to customise the application of sustainable measures or indicators.

The clustering has provided an avenue for further work on sustainability and tourism. Future research should test the effects of sustainability actions with longitudinal studies. Decision-makers and consumers need to know whether lower-impact tourism is really being achieved. This is not the only challenge. Research should also aim at breaking certain inertia of the industry to work on sustainability actions in isolation. Tourism is an essential development vehicle for destinations, but not at the expense of the environment, heritage and people. In the development of tourism strategies, economic profitability is not enough if it is not accompanied by local community benefit. Achieving socially and environmentally responsible tourism requires cooperation between policymakers, companies and tourists.

Sustainability is not a typology of tourism, and its implementation requires specificity considering the particularities of any case. In addition, the dimensions of sustainability are permeable, and effects can be established between them. To reach a holistic view of the analysed problem, researchers must consider the fact that the relationships are complex. Hence, there is a requirement for different perspectives, models, tools and actors.

Methodology process

Historical evolution of publications in the field

Co-word analysis by VOSviewer

Strategic diagram by SciMat in period 3 (2016–2021)

Research trends contributions to SDGs

Journals by number of citations

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Acknowledgements

Funding : 5th Plan for the Promotion of Research of the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences, Rey Juan Carlos University. Grants for scientific publications for professors and researchers ‘Research Promotion and Development Programme’, Rey Juan Carlos University.

Corresponding author

About the authors.

Sara Alonso-Muñoz is based at Department of Business Administration (ADO), Applied Economics II and Fundaments of Economic Analysis, Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain

María Torrejón-Ramos, is based at Department of Business Administration (ADO), Applied Economics II and Fundaments of Economic Analysis, Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain

María-Sonia Medina-Salgado is based at Department of Business Administration (ADO), Applied Economics II and Fundaments of Economic Analysis, Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain

Rocío González-Sánchez is based at Department of Business Administration (ADO), Applied Economics II and Fundaments of Economic Analysis, Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain

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Investigating the impact of virtual tourism on travel intention during the post-COVID-19 era: evidence from China

Published: 29 November 2022

Cite this article

Dingyu Ye 1 ,
Dongmin Cho ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2328-9233 2 ,
Fufan Liu 3 ,
Zhengzhi Jia 5 &
Jianyu Chen 6

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This study explores the mechanism that contributes to travel intention in the field of virtual tourism. The overall research method is based on the “Stimulus-Organism-Response” theory. In the research model, the effects of content quality, system quality, and interaction quality in virtual tourism on tourism experience and travel intention are explored, as well as the role of virtual attachment and travel intention. A total of 390 respondents were invited to participate in a virtual tourism experience, and provide feedback through a questionnaire. SmartPLS 3.3.2 was used to validate the causal model, and most of the study hypotheses were supported. The findings show that virtual tourism significantly promotes travel intention. Specifically, content quality, system quality, and interaction quality positively affect tourists' travel intention through the complementary mediations of tourism experience and virtual attachment; and system quality even directly promotes travel intention. However, tourism experience does not affect virtual attachment. The present study extends prior studies on virtual tourism with SOR as a general model for field tourism experience research, while demonstrating the effectiveness of virtual tourism in promoting tourists’ travel intention. The results are useful in assisting governments with developing relevant policies and services, as well as helping tourism companies understand virtual tourism as an enhancement for tourist travel intention, thus contributing to the recovery of the tourism industry in the post-COVID-19 era.

Bridging Realities: Understanding the Factors Influencing Visitor Satisfaction and Authentic Experiences in Virtual Tourism

Charting the Smart Tourism Landscape: A Comprehensive Framework for Revealing the Impact of Destination Smartness on Tourism Experience and Perceived Value

Virtual Reality as a Travel Promotional Tool: Insights from a Consumer Travel Fair

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1 Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic was the most significant public health emergency with the most rapid spread and broadest infection range since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 [ 114 ]. During the outbreak, economic activities in China were basically at a standstill [ 79 ], except for certain industries that still functioned to meet the basic needs of the public. The outbreak significantly disrupted the entire tourism industry due to the allopatric and clustered nature of tourism activities [ 110 ], a series of activities undertaken by tourists who travel from the source to the destination via the tourism corridor. In response to COVID-19, Chinese cities have primarily closed communities and surrounding villages and towns to restrict the movement of people. As a result of this response, demand for tourism activities was passively reduced to zero. Travel agencies, which were the gateways, were asked to suspend their operations. In contrast, air carriers and railroads, the gateways, changed their usual "change and refund" policy and offered free refunds to passengers who had already purchased tickets. Accordingly, passenger traffic and revenue in the transportation industry plummeted during the pandemic [ 92 ]. In tourist destinations, tourist attractions were almost completely shut down. Hotels were either shut down, or provided temporary housing for medical staff or used as temporary isolation sites to receive patients [ 16 ]. Arguably, the tourism supply was essentially at zero.

The sudden onslaught of COVID-19 kept people at home [ 3 ], which was a big blow to the offline tourism industry. Since the pandemic was alleviated in China, the offline tourism industry still faces a significant challenge [ 25 ]. In this course, the tourism industry has also explored new ways of development, i.e., "virtual tourism [ 116 ]," "live-streaming tourism [ 80 ]," and other new ways of relaunching the tourism industry with the help of the internet and innovative technologies. The segmentation of "smart technology + tourism" is reflected in integrating virtual reality (VR) technology and tourism products [ 61 ]. The development of virtual reality technology has broken through past limitations, which could only simulate the natural environment through pictures or videos and provided participants with a better "immersion" experience [ 40 ]. As the influence of VR technology expands and its attention increases, academic research on VR technology is also increasingly available. The pioneering research mainly combines virtual reality technology with landscape design, medical education, and disease treatment from the research content. Nevertheless, a further literature search revealed that the existing literature on "VR and tourism" is sparse. Scholars have now focused on the marketing value of VR technology [ 57 , 60 , 87 ] and destination image building [ 4 , 12 , 59 ]. Although the methods used in these studies are relatively homogeneous and empirical studies are lacking, they still provide vital tools, methods, and mindsets for studying VR technology and tourism. The theory has guiding significance for practice, and VR technology, as a new communication medium, has an immeasurable impact on the tourism industry's development. Hence, it is imperative to strengthen academic research in virtual tourism.

The decisive intervention of virtual technology has given new connotations, characteristics, and forms to the relationship between people and places [ 28 ]. The traditional binary space of tourist and physical tourist places shifts into the ternary connections between virtual place, tourist, and real place. The interrelationship of such ternary spatial continuity has become an essential topic in the study of the people and the place in the digital era. At present, scholars have paid attention to constructing the ternary space [ 50 ]. However, the study of tourists' behavioral intentions in the ternary space still needs to be advanced. Virtual tourism may affect users' experiences, attitudes, and behaviors [ 20 , 43 , 98 ]. However, the way virtual tourism affects users' travel experience and emotional attachment, as well as the role of virtual tourism on future travel intention in the field, is still unclear. Therefore, starting from the SOR theory, this paper constructs a model of the influencing factors of virtual tourism experience (3D reconstruction of the real tourism place)—the inner psychology of users in the virtual tourism process—the travel intention in the field. We explore how virtual tourism uses digital technology to construct users' attachment to real tourism places and then influence their travel intention in the field.

This study, therefore, starts from the characteristics of virtual tourism, draws on the research theories and experiences of established social media platforms such as live streaming, short video, and online shopping, and introduces two mediating variables of tourism experience and virtual attachment based on the psychological perspective, with the “Stimulus-Organism-Response” theory (referred to as SOR model) as the theoretical framework, constructs a conceptual model of the impact of virtual tourism on tourists' travel intention, and carries out empirical analysis with virtual tourism to explore how virtual tourism affects their field travel intention through users’ intrinsic state. This study contributes to a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the new tourism human–ground relationship in the information age. It clarifies the mechanism of human-ground emotional attachment in virtual tourism. At the same time, the present study helps to clarify the mechanism of virtual tourism influence on users’ travel intention in the field, deepening the study of the human–place relationship in the ternary space. The results provide a feasible direction for promoting the integration of tourism locations and people in the information age. Furthermore, this study has important practical implications for the experience design of virtual tourism, tourism destination marketing innovation, and enhancement of tourist loyalty in the post-COVID-19 era. Therefore, this paper empirically examines the impact of virtual tourism on tourists' travel intention in the field through the questionnaire method, specifically by addressing the following research questions:

RQ1: Does the virtual tourism experience increase users' travel intention in the field?

RQ2: What factors contribute to tourists' travel intention in the field of virtual tourism?

RQ3: How do important influencing factors of virtual tourism experience (content quality, system quality, interaction quality), tourism experience, virtual attachment, and travel intention interact with each other?

2 Theoretical background and research hypothesis

2.1 stimulus-organism-response (sor) model.

The Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) model is a model of human cognitive behavior, first proposed by [ 63 ]. It reflects the “stimulus-perception-response” process of human behavior. The SOR theory model suggests that stimuli from the external environment influence individuals' behavioral decisions by affecting their emotions. The term "stimulus" refers to the factors that stimulate and cause individuals to act [ 85 ]. The term “organism” refers to an individual's interior psychological state [ 85 ]. The term "response" refers to the individual's numerous behaviors or behavior intentions in response to the stimuli and the organism [ 85 ]. In the SOR framework, the stimulus is generally used as the independent variable, the organism as the mediating variable, and the response as the dependent variable. SOR began as a cognitive model used in psychology and is now frequently utilized to examine Internet user behavior [ 14 , 46 , 99 , 118 ].

In tourism research, the SOR model was used to study travel experience [ 15 , 64 ], travel intention [ 64 , 91 , 97 ], and user engagement [ 2 , 96 , 111 ]. Researchers have found various factors capable of influencing tourist travel intention, including tourists' internal reasoning and the influence of certain external factors, such as tourists' reference information, personal perceptions, and perceived risks [ 69 ]. Various social, economic, and psychological factors may impact tourists' travel intentions. Among them, both the reference group and the individual's subjective perceptions play a vital role in forming travel intentions. The reference group of tourists and their subjective knowledge psychologically form emotional preferences and inherent impressions of a tourist destination, which affects the willingness and choice of tourists to travel to that destination. SOR theory suggests that the external environment stimulates the individual's perceptions and emotions, which affects the individual's behavior [ 88 ]. Therefore, in studies of consumer travel intentions or behaviors, giving subjects “ S ” (e.g., VR environment) stimuli before measuring “ R ” (e.g., questionnaire results) tend to reveal more valid findings when travelers use digital technology such as virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence (AI), and augmented reality (AR) to immerse themselves in a highly immersive virtual tourism experience. The process of content stimulation produces the individual's organism, i.e., psychological state. The content quality, system quality, and interaction quality of virtual tourism will directly impact the tourists' tourism experience and virtual attachment, which will affect the tourists' travel intention in the field.

2.2 The impact of virtual tourism experience on tourists' intrinsic state

According to previous research findings, content quality, system quality, and interaction quality are essential variables that entice tourists to use digital devices for virtual tourism experiences [ 43 , 67 , 90 ]. According to the SOR theory, tourists experienced content quality, system quality, and interaction quality of the virtual travel as stimuli in the experience process. The organism, i.e., the internal process that mediates the external stimulus and behavioral response received by the individual, is in this study expressed as the tourist experience and virtual attachment of tourists.

2.3 Virtual tourism and tourism experience

Experience is an objectively existing psychological need. Essentially, the tourism experience is an individualized feeling of an individual responding to certain stimuli [ 73 ]. Morrison et al. [ 68 ] discovered that physical environmental factors such as music, lighting, and facilities were positively associated with customer mood. Lee, park, and Han [ 56 ] found that the quality of online content affects user engagement and acceptance. Due to the attractiveness of the web, uploading high-quality images or videos can influence user satisfaction. Ghose and Huang [ 33 ] found that the higher the availability of modern technology, the more companies can promote product quality through personalized services and products. In this way, service quality is improved by increasing satisfaction. In the context of virtual tourism, its interaction quality mainly refers to the ability to provide personalized information, understand tourists' needs and preferences, and personalized interactions. Chang [ 13 ] designed an AR-based cultural heritage tour system. He found through a questionnaire that tourists had a strong experience with this system. Jung's [ 43 ] study found that the content of augmented reality technology, personalized services, and system quality affect tourists' experience and thus their satisfaction. Based on this, this study proposes the following hypotheses:

The content quality of virtual tourism positively affects the tourism experience;

The system quality of virtual tourism positively affects the tourism experience;

The interaction quality of virtual tourism positively affects the tourism experience.

2.4 Virtual tourism and virtual attachment

The specific and deep connections people make to a place by assigning meaning to it are called "place attachments" [ 71 ]. Attachment refers to "the human tendency to develop strong emotional ties to specific people and objects [ 7 ]." With the development of technology, an individual's attachment is not necessarily to a real place. However, it can be extended to a broader scope [ 81 ]. For example, with the rapid development of new media, people with common interests or experiences communicate and interact through computer networks, creating emotional attachments to the virtual communities they form [ 10 ]. When experiencing social isolation or loneliness, some users develop an emotional attachment to the Internet and social media [ 104 ].

Moreover, in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, virtual tourism rekindles tourists' travel confidence, helps them gain a sense of control and security, and regains their travel rhythm. Attachment arises from experience [ 35 , 42 ], and the perceived value of different experiences has different effects on attachment production [ 31 , 75 ]. When the virtual world is more realistic, the user's visual senses are more actively involved in aesthetic perception, resulting in a more memorable experience and encouraging attachment to virtual tourism [ 46 ]. In addition, the dual stimulation of content quality (virtual scenery) and interactive format (virtual experience) allows users to perceive the experience value of entertainment and enjoyment [ 71 ]. When users' own emotional needs are satisfied, they will have a positive emotional evaluation of the virtual scenery, which leads to the enhancement of virtual attachment [ 71 ]. This study contends that while utilizing digital devices for virtual tourism, tourists perceived positive content quality, system quality, and interaction quality would drive their connection to virtual tourism. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed in the present study:

The content quality of virtual tourism positively affects virtual attachment;

The system quality of virtual tourism positively affects virtual attachment;

The interaction quality of virtual tourism positively affects virtual attachment.

2.5 The impact of tourists' intrinsic state on travel intention

2.5.1 tourism experience and travel intention.

The organism is an internal cognitive process in response to external stimuli. In this process, the information generated by the organism as a result of the stimulus, such as sensations, perceptions, and emotions, will become the basis for subsequent travel intentions and travel behaviors. The emotions generated by an individual stimulated by the external environment will lead the user to approach or avoid behaviors toward the environment and mediate between environment and behavior [ 113 ]. Ekanayake [ 27 ] found that tourists' experiences positively influenced their travel intentions by studying tourists in the eastern province of Sri Lanka. Kim [ 47 ] studied tourists of virtual reality tourism based on the diffusion of innovation theory. He found that users' authentic tourism experience positively affects their travel intention. Kim and Jung studied the effect of tourists' authentic experience on their travel intention based on SOR theory. The study finds that tourists' behavioral intentions are influenced by their sense of authentic virtual reality tourism experiences [ 46 ]. Raouf Ahmad Rather [ 82 ] investigated the impact of experiential marketing activities on tourists' behavioral intentions in tourist destinations. It was found that tourists' experiences of marketing activities in tourist destinations affect their travel intention. Based on this, this paper proposes the following hypothesis:

H7: Tourism experience positively affects travel intention.

2.5.2 Virtual attachment and travel intention

The prior studies have found that with the intervention of network information, the traditional two-dimensional perspective of the human–territory relationship is extended to a three-dimensional space. New human-territory links and interaction forms of (real)person–(virtual)person, (virtual)person–(virtual)place, and (real)place–(virtual)place emerge [ 17 ]. The cognition, emotion, and behavior of virtual and real spaces influence each other and intermingle. Users' purchase intentions in the virtual world are consistent with those in the real world [ 93 ], and Ren et al. [ 83 ] demonstrated that attachment to virtual communities affects the frequency with which individuals visit virtual communities. Kim et al. [ 46 ] also found that their attachment to VR influenced VR tourism users' intentions to visit real places. Therefore, based on the above literature, this study argues that users' awareness and behavior in the virtual world somehow represent real-world awareness and behavior. Virtual attachment enhances tourists' desire for real-world travel destinations. Therefore, the virtual attachment will stimulate the travel intention in the field. Based on this, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H8: Virtual attachment positively affects travel intention.

2.5.3 Virtual attachment and tourism experience

Regarding the relationship between residents' activity participation and local attachment, many empirical studies point out that residents' involvement in local activities positively affects their local attachment [ 36 , 84 , 89 ]. Furthermore, through an empirical study, Kyle et al. and Hwang et al. [ 41 , 53 ] found that tourists' leisure activity participation had a significant positive effect on their place attachment. In the study on the relationship between the cognitive gap, affective experience, and place attachment, scholars also confirmed that affective experience positively affects place attachment [ 38 ]. The higher the quality of tourists' emotional experience, the higher their level of attachment. It is hypothesized that the higher the positive tourism experience, the greater the likelihood that the tourist will develop a virtual attachment to the destination. Based on this, the following hypothesis was proposed:

H9: Tourism experiences positively influence virtual attachment.

2.5.4 The mediating role of the tourists' intrinsic state

The SOR theory emphasizes the mediating role of the response between the stimulus and the individual's behavior. By comparing the results of prior studies, it was found that tourism experience and virtual attachment play a connecting role between various influencing factors and behavioral intention. Chae, Kuo et al. [ 9 , 52 ] found that service quality positively impacts customer recommendation and continued usage behavior. Wang and Chen found that the presentation of information systems positively affected consumers' intention to use them [ 101 ]. Jung [ 44 ] points out that the quality of content affects tourists' attitudes toward AR applications. N Zhang et al. [ 115 ] found that brand attachment exerts a partial mediating effect on the relationship between effective CC and brand commitment. Jenny Lee et al. [ 55 ] found a mediating effect between place attachment on satisfaction and loyalty. Based on this, the following hypotheses were formulated:

Tourism experience has a mediating role in influencing travel intention on content quality;

Tourism experience has a mediating role in influencing travel intention on system quality;

Tourism experience has a mediating role in influencing travel intention on interaction quality;

Virtual attachment has a mediating role in influencing travel intention on content quality;

Virtual attachment has a mediating role in influencing travel intention on system quality;

Virtual attachment has a mediating role in influencing travel intention on interaction quality.

3.1 Research model

In summary, this study employs SOR theory as the research framework. Content quality, system quality, and interaction quality of virtual tourism as the antecedent variables of tourism experience, virtual attachment, and tourists' travel intention in the field. The construction of a research model of the factors influencing virtual tourism on tourists' travel intention in the field, as shown in Fig. 1 .

Research model

3.2 Usability test design and data collection

Virtual tourism is a new type of tourism as well as a new industry. Currently, Chinese tourists have less exposure and knowledge about it [ 62 , 107 ]. With universal access to such new consumer technology, we implemented a real usage scenario to get participants actually and bodily experience virtual tourism in the field. The few users who already experience virtual tourism products were not directly selected for this study. In this way, researchers can measure users' temporal-sensitive experience and concurrent travel intention after the tourists have touched and used the virtual tourism device. The specific method can be referred to as "usability testing [ 26 ]." The concept of usability testing was first introduced in 1981 [ 49 ]. Usability testing evaluates the usability and unavailability of a product based on certain usability criteria. Usability testing is also a programmed process used to identify problems that may occur during user–product interaction. In a narrow sense, usability testing refers to user testing methods that allow a representative group of users to perform typical operations on a product. At the same time, observers and design developers observe, listen, and record. It is a process used to evaluate a product or system's external form, functional operation, and interaction patterns [ 26 ].

Previous studies investigated the research and application of usability tests from multiple aspects and dimensions in tourism research. Researchers discuss usability test methods and applications from different perspectives, including usability evaluation methods such as user testing [ 72 ], questionnaire survey [ 78 ], and eye-tracking technology [ 29 ]. And the researchers also make practical exploration of usability test research. We can consider usability tests an effective verification method for analyzing user behavior and experience. This lays an important theoretical foundation for this study.

3.3 Participants

Our research team obtained the research sample (Table 1 ) in two ways: First, we recruited virtual tourism experience participants (52% of the total number) through the online social media platform Sina Weibo. With over 300 million monthly active users, Sina Weibo is the largest public social media platform in China. The researcher recruited participants by posting recruitment posts on the Sina Weibo platform. The research team then used the Weibo-targeted promotion service to promote the recruitment posts to users who were potentially willing to participate in the virtual tourism experience. Second, the research team recruited users who were willing to participate in virtual tourism through offline in-person networks (48% of the total population). In the data collected, we found that the number of users aged 18–25 who had experienced virtual travel was higher than those in other age groups. This is consistent with Li and Chen's [ 58 ] findings. Therefore, we believe that the research sample obtained is highly credible, reliable, and reproducible in terms of feedback effects. Our research team was trained to strictly follow the test procedures to ensure data quality. The participants were also asked to follow the test procedures strictly.

SPSS 25.0 was used to perform descriptive statistical analysis on the sample data to investigate the sample's demographic characteristics, as shown in Table 1 . A total of 390 subjects were recruited to participate in the virtual tourism experience, of which 53.6% and 46.4% were male and female, respectively. In terms of age, users aged 18–25 account for the most significant proportion, 33.8 percent, followed by users younger than 18, accounting for 25.1 percent; in terms of education, bachelor's education is the mainstay, accounting for 64.6 percent.

3.4 Material and Procedure

Quan Jing Wang ( http://www.vra.cn/#/home ) has rich virtual tourism scenic spots resources and contains pictures, videos, texts, audio, and other forms. Therefore, we chose the virtual tourism of "VR Panorama of the Palace Museum" launched by Quan Jing Wang as the tourists' tour material, as shown in Fig. 2 . The usability testing process was broken down into four main steps, as shown in Fig. 3 . In the first step, the researcher introduced the participants to the content of this usability test and the VR equipment that they would need to use to conduct the virtual tourism. In the second step, the researcher showed the participants an instructional video on using the VR device for virtual tourism. In the third step, the researcher asked the participants if they had learned how to use the VR device for virtual tourism. If the participant answered yes, the participant moved on to the next step. If the participant answered no, the participant had to go back to the second step and continue learning until the participant learned to move on to the next step. In the fourth step, the participant begins to experience virtual tourism for 40 min. In the fifth step, the research team personnel collected feedback from all participants utilizing a questionnaire and randomly selected participants for a brief interview. In this way, the participants were urged to complete the test as required until the end of the test and start filling in the feedback questionnaire.

VR Panorama of the Palace Museum

Tourist experience process

This research focuses on virtual tourists' psychological processes and behavioral intentions. The question scale content was developed using correlation theories and a conceptual model. The questionnaire includes two parts: basic information about the subjects and feelings about using virtual tourism. The relevant scales in this study were all fine-tuned using mature scales or based on mature scales to fit this paper's virtual tourism research context. The stimulus factors were measured using the variables of content quality (three items), system quality (four items), and interaction quality (three items) adopted from [ 1 , 5 , 9 , 19 , 23 , 45 , 51 , 112 ]. The organism factors were measured using the variable of tourism experience (four items) and virtual attachment (five items) adopted from [ 43 , 44 , 65 , 70 , 76 ], 100 , 103 , 106 , 109 ]. The response factor was measured using the variable of travel intention (three items) adopted from [ 105 ].

To ensure the accuracy and scientific validity of the questionnaire, the research team first conducted a small-scale questionnaire pre-test. The test results were also given back to five researchers in virtual tourism, information behavior, and news communication. The questionnaire questions followed the Delphi method to adjust, correct, and calibrate the questionnaire repeatedly until the error was controlled within the appropriate range.

3.5 Descriptive analysis of demographic characteristics

SPSS 25.0 was used in this study to perform descriptive statistical analysis on the sample data to investigate the sample's demographic characteristics. According to demographic characteristics, as shown in Table 1 . A total of 390 subjects were recruited to participate in the virtual tourism experience in this study, of which 53.6% and 46.4% were male and female, respectively. In terms of age, users aged 18–25 account for the most significant proportion, 33.8 percent, followed by users younger than 18, accounting for 25.1 percent; in terms of education, bachelor's education is the mainstay, accounting for 64.6 percent.

4.1 Measurement model analysis

4.1.1 common method variance.

The question of common method variance in the sample was first tested for correlation. To prevent the effect of common method variance on the sample, we hid the names of variables and measurement items in the questionnaire beforehand and randomly assigned the measurement items in the questionnaire. The Harman one-way test for common method variance was used. The results of the unrotated factor analysis showed that there were five factors with characteristic roots greater than one, explaining a total of 75.598% of the variance variation. The first factor explained 36.722% of the method variance. Therefore, there is no significant common method bias problem.

4.1.2 Measurement model

This study performed structural equation modeling on 390 samples using "PLS-SEM." The SmartPLS 3.3.2 software settings were: "weighting scheme" using "path weighting scheme," "maximum number of iterations" = 300, and end criterion = 1*10 − 7. The Bootstrapping test for significance of each indicator: subsample = 5000, confidence interval method using Bias-Corrected and Accelerated (BCA) Bootstrap, test type using the two-tailed test, significance level = 0.05.

The reliability, convergent validity, and VIF values of the measurement models are shown in Table 2 : in terms of reliability, Cronbach's α were above the critical value of 0.7 [ 30 ], from 0.868 (SQ) to 0.931 (VA),the Composite Reliability is also more significant than the critical value of 0.7 [ 37 ], from 0.910 (SQ) to 0.948 (VA). Thus, the measurement model has good reliability. In terms of validity, the factor loadings ( λ ) for all measurement questions were more significant than the critical value of 0.7 [ 37 ], from 0.795 (SQ4) to 0.921 (CQ3). In addition, the AVE for all variables were more significant than the critical value of 0.5 [ 37 ], from 0.718 (SQ) to 0.822 (CQ). Thus, the measurement model has good convergent validity. In terms of VIF, the Outer VIF Value was all less than the standard value of 5 [ 37 ], from 1.821 (SQ4) to 3.629 (TE3). The Inner VIF Value was also less than the standard value of 5, from 1.217 (VA) to 1.531 (SQ), so the structural model did not have serious multicollinearity problems. The square root of each variable AVE is greater than the correlation coefficient of that variable with any other variable by the discriminant validity test, and the measurement model has good discriminant validity, as shown in Table 3 .

4.2 Structural model analysis

4.2.1 path analysis.

In terms of path analysis, as shown in Table 4 and Fig. 4 , CQ had a significant positive effect on TE with a path coefficient of 0.144 ( p < 0.05); SQ had a significant positive effect on TE with a path coefficient of 0.298 ( p < 0.001); IQ had a significant positive effect on TE with a path coefficient of 0.116 ( p < 0.05); CQ had a significant positive effect on VA with a path coefficient of 0.195 ( p < 0.05); SQ has a significant positive effect on VA with a path coefficient of 0.153 ( p < 0.05); IQ has a significant positive effect on VA with a path coefficient of 0.235 ( p < 0.001); TE has a significant positive effect on TI with a path coefficient of 0.577 ( p < 0.001); VA has a significant positive effect on TI with a path coefficient of 0.577 ( p < 0.001); SQ has a significant positive effect on TI with a path coefficient of 0.180 ( p < 0.01). Therefore, H1-H8 were established. On the other hand, there is no significant effect of TE on VA; there is no significant effect of CQ and IQ on TI. Therefore, H9 was not valid. Meanwhile, when performing model fitting and hypothesis testing, the researchers found that system quality also had a positive effect on travel intention to some extent. So, this study added hypothesis H16: System quality positively affects travel intention.

PLS results of the structural model. Note The dotted line indicates that the relationship is not valid. ** p < 0.001; ** p < 0.01; * p < 0.05

4.2.2 Mediating effect analysis

For the mediating effects, TE and VA acted as mediating variables in the relationship between the effects of CQ on TI, with indirect effects of 0.083 ( p < 0.05) and 0.045 ( p < 0.01) and total effects of 0.081 ( p < 0.001) and 0.043 ( p < 0.001), respectively; TE and VA acted as mediating variables in the relationship between the effects of SQ on TI, with indirect effects of 0.172 ( p < 0.001) and 0.036 ( p < 0.05) and total effects of 0.352 ( p < 0.001) and 0.216 ( p < 0.05), respectively. indirect effects of 0.172 ( p < 0.001) and 0.036 ( p < 0.05), respectively, and total effects of 0.352 ( p < 0.001) and 0.216 ( p < 0.001), respectively; TE and VA acted as mediating variables in the relationship between the effects of IQ on TI, with indirect effects of 0.067 ( p < 0.05) and 0.055 ( p < 0.01), with total effects of 0.082 ( p < 0.001) and 0.070 ( p < 0.001), respectively. Since all the above indirect effects were positive, the mediating effects were all Complementary mediation [ 37 ], and H10–H15 were established, as shown in Table 5 .

4.2.3 Predictive power assessment

The predictive power assessment showed R 2 = 0.201 for TE, R 2 = 0.566 for TI, and R 2 = 0.178 for VA. Q 2 was calculated based on Blindfolding, and Q 2 > 0 indicates that the structural model has predictive relevance for the endogenous variables and vice versa [ 37 ]. The calculated Q 2 = 0.158 for TE, Q 2 = 0.450 for TI, and Q 2 = 0.135 for VA, all of which are greater than 0. This indicates that the structural model has predictive relevance for TE, TI, and VA.

5 Discussion and conclusions

5.1 key findings.

This study adopts a psychologically-derived SOR theoretical framework to explore the impact of virtual tourism on tourists' travel intention in the field. The findings and implications are described below.

RQ1 was clearly answered (Does virtual tourism experience increase users' travel intention in the field?). This research revealed a significant positive relationship between content quality, system quality, and interaction quality of virtual tourism on tourists' tourism experience, virtual attachment, and travel intention through model testing and mediating effect testing, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies [ 33 ]. During home quarantine, the recurrence of the pandemic and the disclosure of various negative information led to a surge in stress and anxiety [ 108 ]. Many people were compelled to cancel their travel plans. With the intrinsic motivation to travel [ 22 ] and the negative information about the pandemic, people's psychological need to escape from the real world and be free from bondage is triggered to a great extent. The magnificent scenery of virtual tourism attractions provides people with the opportunity to have a short escape from reality. It brings a visual feast of beauty, thus facilitating the creation of virtual attachment. In addition, the quality of content, system quality, and interaction of virtual tourism [ 24 ] enable tourists to obscure the boundaries between the virtual and physical realities [ 6 , 24 ], which generates a higher degree of authenticity in the tourism experience [ 46 ]. In the virtual environment created by virtual tourism, tourists develop virtual attachments and experience unique tourism experiences distinct from natural tourism. These factors ultimately impact tourists' travel intention in the field. As a new type of tourism, virtual tourism has novel and unique characteristics that attract tourists and inspire their curiosity. As a result, virtual tourism strengthens tourists' intention to run to the destinations promoted in virtual tourism by providing immersive tourism experiences and realistic virtual attachments.

The following findings can be reported for RQ2 (What factors change tourists' travel intention in the field of virtual tourism?). Tourism experience and virtual attachment are critical variables that influence tourists' travel intention in the field and are crucial factors in whether virtual tourism can attract more tourists. This empirical analysis revealed that tourism experience and virtual attachment positively impact tourists' travel intention in the field. Tourism experience has the most significant impact on travel intention in the field, followed by virtual attachment, which is mainly relevant to the form and nature of virtual tourism. As a new form of tourism, the ultimate goal of virtual tourism is to provide tourists with an ideal tourism experience. Thus, virtual tourism will be designed to consider tourists' needs to meet the tourism experience. Tourists gain their desired experience in virtual tourism; therefore, the tourism experience has the most significant impact on the travel intention in the field. In addition, tourists may develop an emotional attachment to the actual tourist place through the interaction between the virtual space and the 3D reconstructed scenery, thus creating an emotional connection with the place they have not visited, which further influences the travel intention in the field.

The following findings can be reported for RQ3 (How do influencing factors of virtual tourism experience <content quality, system quality, interaction quality>, tourism experience, virtual attachment, and travel intention interact with each other?). System quality may directly and significantly affect travel intention positively. Tourism experience and virtual attachment play a complementary mediating role in influencing relationships of content quality, system quality, and interaction quality. As shown by the relative effect values of the mediating effects, the indirect effects are significant in proportion. Tourists' knowledge of the scenery presented in virtual tourism drives their travel intention while granting them real tourism experience and virtual attachment during the tour, further motivating their travel intention. In addition, there was no significant positive impact of tourism experience on virtual attachment. The results of this study contradict the findings of [ 36 , 89 ]. The emergence of virtual attachment requires a deeper connection between the tourist and the destination. The positive perceptions and memorability developed from a single or a few tourism experiences do not allow for the emotional connection and psychological identification with the destination that tourists accumulate to give rise to the virtual attachment. Therefore, tourism experiences and virtual attachment do not have a direct correlation.

5.2 Theoretical implications

This study's theoretical contributions are categorized into three parts.

First, we studied the three contributing dimensions of virtual tourism experience and travel motivation under the immersive "S-O-R" research design. Namely, content quality, system quality, and interaction quality [ 34 , 48 , 74 ]. Further, we expanded their meaning under the scope of VR tourism. Content quality refers to the intrinsic values, i.e., objectivity, credibility, and the amount of information the virtual tourism provides. System quality refers to the quality of the tourist's use of virtual tourism and its design in terms of structure, presentation, and connectivity. Interaction quality is the ability of virtual tourism to provide interactive features to tourists. With these delimitations, this study constructs a relational model which suggests a positive relationship between those qualities and tourism intention through the mediation of virtual content characteristics. Together, the results should be carefully considered in building virtual tourism interactions, providing information to tourists, and understanding tourists' preferences.

Second, prior Studies have conducted empirical tourism research for VR only in a limited number of areas: first, web-based visual images, such as 360°panoramic images [ 8 , 39 , 62 ]. Second, virtual environments are based on fictional worlds in VR games [ 21 , 32 ]. Third, virtual environments are displayed on a two-dimensional computer screen [ 18 , 95 ]. In addition, few tourism studies have used VR devices to conduct usability tests on live-action virtual tourism products. By focusing on the sensory stimuli evoked by VR technology-based virtual tourism for tourists, this work examines the psychological processes of tourists' travel experiences and reactions to virtual tourism products. Since VR technology is constantly evolving, this study will be a good reference paradigm for future usability studies of virtual tourism products based on VR technology.

Third, scholars' prior studies on travel intention have focused on influencing factors of travel intention [ 86 , 102 ], relationship studies [ 66 , 77 ], and place attachment [ 54 , 94 ]. Researchers' work on travel intention was first extended from social behavior, where it was generally accepted that "travel" is also social behavior. The research methods used by scholars for research in this area are mainly quantitative methods, such as factor analysis and constructive modeling. In terms of research content, scholars have expanded from the factors influencing its formation to the study of relationships. Later scholars have focused more on the emotional expression of individual tourists and explored the relationship between tourism intention and place attachment. This study builds on the prior studies and further explores a research model that is more consistent with Chinese tourists' travel intention to virtual tourism destinations in the post-COVID-19 era.

Finally, this study identified virtual attachment as an antecedent factor influencing tourists' travel intention in the field, rarely seen in virtual tourism research. The study revealed that virtual attachment is a prominent variable influencing tourists' travel intention in the field when users are experiencing virtual tourism. Virtual attachment differs from other variables because it incorporates more of the tourists' affective experiences. Virtual tourism is a new way of tourism; tourists' emotions are evident in their subsequent behavior of tourists. Tourists develop emotional attachments to real tourist places through interactions with three-dimensional reconstructions of scenic areas in virtual space, thus creating emotional connections to places they have not visited and further influencing their travel intention in the field. The findings empirically develop the ternary space theory of tourist places, i.e., the traditional two-dimensional perspective of the tourist-place relationship is extended to a three-dimensional ternary space, further illustrating the interrelated, interactive, and dynamic response characteristics of the ternary area [ 17 ]. Since the individual variability of tourist groups, the influence of virtual attachment on tourists' travel intention in the field cannot be neglected.

5.3 Practical implications

First, this study discovered that tourism experience positively impacts travel intention ( p = 0.001). The path coefficient of the variable of the tourism experience is 0.577, which is greater than other variables. This indicates the magnitude of tourists' perceptions of their experiences during virtual tours on their subsequent travel intentions in the field. Virtual tourism changes the way tourists visit a scenic area by providing them with more opportunities to interact, contextualize, and share with others. This study finds that content quality, system quality, and interaction quality can affect tourists' tour experience. Hence, three perspectives of content, system, and interaction can be adopted to enhance their experience.

From a system perspective, the system quality of virtual tourism impacts the tourist experience, virtual attachment, and travel intention. Hence, the design of the presentation form as the carrier of the system quality is essential. The current way of virtual tourism, in addition to the traditional AR, VR, as a powerful means of augmented reality—holographic projection technology also has a vast space for development. This technology is not unattainable, and holographic projection technology has been used in many scenarios, such as virtual idol concerts. However, holographic projection technology has rarely been used in the tourism industry. Future virtual tourism technology researchers can make this technology universal so that tourists' homes become distant scenic spots.

From an interactivity perspective, the interactivity quality affects tourists' tourism experience and virtual attachment, which affects their travel intention. Currently, virtual tourism has a lot of room for development in the interactivity aspect. Granted, the rise of the Internet has brought a completely different experience to virtual tourism interactivity than in the past. Tourists can communicate and interact through real-time voice and other means. When tourists travel in the field, on the one hand, they can interact with people; on the other hand, the interaction between people and scenery, people and things are also essential for tourists when traveling in the field. Photographing is usually one of how people interact with the scenery. Developers of virtual tourism can use cinematic stunts to allow users to pose for photos with scenes in virtual scenes. Techniques such as AR photography and photoshop (PS) can also increase tourists' engagement. In terms of human–object interaction, virtual tourism does not allow tourists to taste the specialties of the tourist destination as much as onsite tourism. Therefore, virtual tourism developers can incorporate the function of take-out recommendation in the course of the virtual tourism scenario setting. Tourists can order a local specialty dish at home, for example, Hangzhou dish, during virtual tourism in Hangzhou. In addition, developers can also add restaurant recommendations. For example, the system can recommend local Sichuan cuisine restaurants in Sichuan virtual tourism. Users can go straight to the restaurants in the tourist destination after virtual tourism to satisfy the tourists' desire for food, which is one of the most effective ways to increase tourists' travel intention in the field. Finally, future virtual tourism developers can optimize virtual tourism from other perspectives, such as growing tourists' olfactory or tactile experience.

From a content perspective, content quality affects tourists' tourism experience and virtual attachment, affecting their travel intention. At the beginning of the pandemic, virtual tourism took up a large amount of demand for outbound travel. While domestic travel in China has thawed after the pandemic has been alleviated, outbound travel remains ice-bound. Content quality has become almost the only growth area in the post-pandemic era that can increase tourists' travel intentions onsite. The quality of content for virtual tourism requires inspiring tourists and providing practical travel information, and generating real value for tourist attractions and local government departments for tourism. The pandemic has further deepened the importance of tourism content quality. From the perspective of tourists' needs, in the post-pandemic era, faced with new information gaps, tourists increasingly need tourism information related to COVID-19 precautionary measures, such as the need for Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test reports and unique business hours schedules for attractions. This information needs to be updated by virtual tourism operators in the first instance in the virtual tourism scenario. Virtual tourisms need to provide tourists with the fastest and most accurate information related to the pandemic.

Finally, virtual attachment directly and positively affects the travel intention, highlighting the importance of constructing a person–place emotional identity in virtual tourism [ 46 ]. When tourists develop heartfelt and emotional attachments (e.g., desire for spiritual purification and pilgrimage experiences [ 11 ]) to tourist places during virtual tours, and these needs are challenging to satisfy through the mirroring experience of virtual tourism, travel intention in the field are significantly enhanced in the future. In this regard, the virtual tourism design process should focus on the realistic simulation of beautiful scenery and stimulating tourists' spiritual resonance and emotional identification with the tourist destination, thus enhancing the effectiveness of virtual tourism as a marketing method. In addition, virtual tourism must not develop independently due to the inseparable relationship between online and offline. Specifically, virtual tourism will not wholly replace offline tourism because offline tourism is the root of virtual tourism. Without the development of offline tourism, virtual tourism will also lose the creative material. Although virtual tourism is not the pure auxiliary tool it used to be, an essential role of virtual tourism in the post-pandemic era is still to provide a reference for people to travel offline. After all, there is no substitute for offline travel that brings tourists a natural feeling.

5.4 Limitations and future research

There are some shortcomings in this research on the effect of virtual tourism on tourists' travel intention on site. First, the quantitative dimensions of virtual tourism can be further enriched and deepened. The quality of virtual tourism in this study was mainly manifested in three aspects: interactivity quality, content quality, and system quality. With the development of technology however, new quantitative dimensions of virtual tourism display are bound to emerge, so in future research, new quantitative dimensions of virtual tourism can be explored through methods such as grounded theory and big data mining. Second, since the data collection of this study was completed during the pandemic, the virtual attachment of virtual tourists may be affected by the pandemic. When there is a risk of infection during the trip, tourists in a housebound state may generate higher attachment levels than during the unusual period. In other words, attachment to the virtual tourism experience may be weakened when tourists are free to go out and experience the beauty of the travel destination firsthand. Therefore, the transformational relationship between tourists' virtual attachment and travel intention in the field when going out is unrestricted and can be further investigated in the future. Third, the data collected in this study come from virtual tourists in China. The high collectivism and high-power distance, and relational culture characteristics of China [ 117 ] may also impact interpersonal relationships and social interactions, which may be very different from the perceptions of virtual tourism by tourists in other countries and cultures. Therefore, considering the impact of cultural differences, cross-cultural comparisons can be enhanced in the context of future work, to fully understand the effects and impact mechanisms of virtual tourism on tourists from different cultural backgrounds.

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Ye, D., Cho, D., Liu, F. et al. Investigating the impact of virtual tourism on travel intention during the post-COVID-19 era: evidence from China. Univ Access Inf Soc (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-022-00952-1

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Present and prospective research themes for tourism and hospitality education post-COVID19: A bibliometric analysis

Dileep menon.

a Amrita School of Business, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India

b School of Commerce, NMIMS University, Hyderabad, India

Sangeetha Gunasekar

Saurabh kumar dixit.

c Department of Tourism and Hotel Management, North-Eastern Hill University, India

d Xavier School of Communication, Xavier University Bhubaneswar, Plot No. 12 (A), Nijigadakurki, Harirajpur, District- Puri, Odisha, 752050, India

Shantanu Mandal

e Department of Business Analytics, GITAM Institute of Management, GITAM (Deemed -to Be University) Rushikonda, Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh-530045, India

Academic research in tourism and hospitality sector adds value directly to the way the industry grows and develops. Scholars in this area struggle with the pressures to publish in high ranking journals. The present study attempts to help doctoral students and tourism educators in identifying emerging themes in the tourism and hospitality arising out after COVID-19 pandemic. Using bibliometric analysis, five broad areas of emerging research themes are identified. Such research would further help managers, tourism related state administrators, and firm owners to recover from the devastating impact of COVID-19 on the industry across the world.

1. Introduction

Given the pressures to ‘publish or perish’ for early career researchers ( Ertaş & Kozak, 2020 ) and for doctoral students to show a strong publication track record by publishing in high-quality journals before graduation ( Carr& Hayes, 2017 ) requires academically oriented research scholars to constantly stay relevant. This is no different for students of the hospitality and tourism industry. The most relevant research in the current scenario is studies related to COVID-19 impact. The outbreak of the current unprecedented pandemic has significantly impacted the tourism and hospitality sector ( Gössling, Scott, & Hall, 2020 ).

Scholars all over the world are trying to make sense of this pandemic and its impact on the hospitality industry ( Duarte Alonso et al., 2020 ), its changing trends ( Seyitoğlu& Ivanov, 2020 ) and future survival ( Kaushal & Srivastava, 2020 ). Gursoy and Chi (2020) point out that even when travel restrictions are lifted, customers may not feel comfortable enough to visit a destination, stay at a hotel or eat in a restaurant. Further research is needed to understand how these customers can be made to return as the industry's survival depends on increasing the demand for their services and products. Some studies like Higgins-Desbiolles, (2020) have pointed out the opportunities that this pandemic has given to rethink the tourism industry in terms of community-centered socialized tourism. To help researchers and practitioners understand the pandemic's impact on tourism and hospitality, the present study undertakes a systematic literature review of published articles related to the early wave of COVID-19 and the hospitality and tourism industry. The research questions addressed are as follows: What are the publication trends in the early wave of COVID-19 outbreak in tourism and hospitality research? What are the emerging research foci that the doctoral students in tourism and hospitality education research can focus on during and after the pandemic times?

COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the academic world, testing its ability to effectively move to remote learning ( Greenberg & Hibbert, 2020 ), with all teaching and learning core facets switching to online mode ( Coates, Xie, & Hong, 2021 ). Graduate scholars, driven partly by the institutional requirements and partly through their own career aspirations to pursue academic careers, are under pressure to establish their distinctive research identities through quality publications (VosViewer). Finding relevant research themes early on in their doctoral education improves their chances of getting a top-tier publication. Research indicates a positive relationship between doctoral student's research achievements and their early career earnings ( Marini, 2019 ). The current research is expected to help research students of hospitality and tourism academia narrow down their search for relevant research themes related to the pandemic. The study would also be helpful to practitioners in helping set a direction for the future of this industry.

The paper is organized as below. The next section details the systematic literature review methodology followed and data collected for the research followed by analysis results and discussion section. Future research directions and research limitations are highlighted next. Finally, research conclusions are drawn in the last section.

2. Methods and data

The study aims to review the research relevant to hospitality and tourism and COVID-19 research themes. A systematic quantitative method was applied to identify relevant literature, synthesise and review the past literature in a structured manner ( Kim, 2020 ; Rosalina et al., 2021 ). As a first step to identify relevant literature, the availability and suitability of databases were evaluated. The validity of a research paper depends on the database, as it should cover the research area being studied fairly well. Articles for the study were gathered from the Scopus database, a widely accepted comprehensive research database ( Booth, Chaperon, Kennell, & Morrison, 2020 ) which is among the largest curated bibliographic, abstract and citation databases today, with over 3 million new items being added to it every year ( Baas, Schotten, Plume, Côté, & Karimi, 2020 ). Other researchers have similarly used the Scopus database along with similar databases like Web of Science, Science Direct, Emerald, ProQuest, and Sage ( deMatos et al., 2020 ; Li, M., Yin, D., Qiu, H., & Bai, 2021 ; Agapito, 2020 ).The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology was adopted to select the relevant articles from the database. To increase the reliability of evidence produced by the review, specific steps are laid out under this methodology for the identification of the relevant articles from the database. The flowchart is given in Figure (1) indicates the criteria applied to include or exclude the articles for the study. A similar methodology has been widely used in Hospitality and Tourism reviews ( Booth et al., 2020 ; Li, M., Yin, D., Qiu, H., & Bai, 2021 ).

PRISMA diagram.

In the first step of identification, a series of keywords were used in combination to search in the Scopus database. To capture articles related to tourism and hospitality, the terms ‘tourism’ or ‘hospitality’ were used. Further to identify literature related to COVID-19, keywords included were ‘Corona’, ‘COVID’ and ‘pandemic’. The combination of these keywords was searched within article titles, keywords and abstracts. The search was restricted to the time period of Jan 2020 to April 2021 (downloaded on 10 th April 2021). Only journal (source type) articles (document type) written in English (language) were included in this study. The initial search yielded 744 articles across 316 journals from various disciplines. To enhance the overall quality of the literature review, only top-tier journals were considered based on the cite score ranking given in Scopus for 2019. Only those journals that were listed in the top 10 percentile were included for further analysis. The top-tier journals lead the research trends in academia with the most notable scientific findings ( Kim, 2020 ). This resulted in the narrowing of the journal list selected to 43 journals with a total of 229 articles. These were further refined by reviewing each of the article title and abstract to guarantee topic appropriateness. Only studies with a primary focus on the COVID-19 and hospitality and tourism were included for the in-depth analysis Articles like (titled) ‘COVID-19 lockdown improved the health of coastal environment and enhanced the population of reef-fish' were excluded. This resulted in the final set of 151 publications that were further synthesised.

2.1. Bibliometric and thematic analysis

In answering the first research question, the present study identifies the hospitality and tourism research trends in COVID-19 using the bibliometric method. The descriptive summary of the 151 articles is undertaken with a focus on leading contributors −authors, institutions, and countries. Data was exported from Scopus to do the analysis. Basic information of each searched article, including the authors’ information (names, countries, and institutions), publication years and journals, total citations, keywords and abstract, were saved to facilitate detailed analysis. Thematic analysis of the articles was further undertaken to identify the newly emerging themes in the study area and thus answer the second research question.

2.2. Thematic analysis

This is the last stage of the PRISMA technique, where synthesis of the findings is done to allow for the production of knowledge about the topic under review. For the 151 articles, based on the abstract, keyword and title of articles, broad categories of research areas were first identified by two authors independently. Altogether, they identified 11 research categories. These were then discussed with two independent experts who are experienced in the area of hospitality and tourism research. The experts helped in further grouping the research areas into 5 broad research categories. After identifying these research areas, each article was reviewed and coded into these categories by two authors separately to ensure objectivity and reliability of the assigning process. For studies that were assigned to different research categories by the two authors, further review was sought with other authors until consensus was reached for all studies. The research areas identified and the number of articles thus assigned to them are Economic impact and demand analysis (18 articles), Hospitality and tourism workforce (19 articles), Customer/tourist studies (35 articles), Crisis management, Resilience and Transformations in touristic industry (71 articles) and Hospitality & Tourism Education (8 articles).

These research categories are further analysed using cluster analysis. Clustering helps group the elements of a study according to their degree of similarity. Several visualization tools are available. We use VOSviewer, a professional visualization software, to undertake keyword co-occurrence network analysis. Since its development by van Eck and Waltman, 2010 , van Eck and Waltman, 2010b , this visualization software has been used by several studies, 1 including studies analyzing bibliographic data in hospitality and tourism research ( Palácios et al., 2021 ). The present study uses this software to analyse keyword co-occurrence clustering using author's keywords and index keywords from the studies.

In the visual maps created by the VOSviewer, the circles show terms with the size of the circle and text of the term, indicating the preference of the term in the study area. The larger the circle and the text, the more preferred the term in the field of study. The distance between the two terms indicates the robustness of the relationship, with a shorter distance indicating a higher relationship. Colours indicate grouping the terms by clusters. Details of keywords included in the clusters can also be derived from the software.

3. Results and discussions

The final corpus of articles for analysis consisted of 151 documents indexed in Scopus. As seen from Figure (2) , the publication of articles relating to COVID-19 and hospitality and tourism research were mostly published in journals related to Business, Management and Accounting (27.4%) and Social Sciences (26.9%). Other subject areas together are seen to contribute less than 50% of the overall number of articles published. Identifying the authors, affiliation and countries along with journals that contributed the most to the research area help future researchers identify important literature in their area of interest. Most researchers set document alerts for their relevant journals. Also, they are seen to follow authors from their area of research on various social platforms like Linkedin or google scholar. We describe the top contributors next.

Publication by subject area.

3.1. Distribution of authors, countries and affiliation

There were 426 authors who contributed to this area of study, of whom over 32 authors contributed at least 2 or more studies in the top tier journals. The five most contributing authors include Morrison A.M and Coca-Stefaniak J.A with 4 papers each, Hall C.M, Kock F and Filimonau V with 3 papers each respectively. The authors from several countries have contributed to the literature with United States (11.68%) contributing the most, followed by United Kingdom (11.34%), Australia (9.28%), Chine (7.90%) and Spain (3.44%). With regard to affiliation, the University of Johannesburg, University of Greenwich and Griffith University have contributed the most with 7 authors each, followed by Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the University of Surrey and the University of Macau with 6 authors each, respectively. Other universities across the globe have also contributed between the range of 1–5 authors. With regard to the number of co-authors for a paper, while the mean was at 2.5 authors per paper, the co-author numbers ranged from 1 (single author papers) to a maximum of 11 authors ( Ibn-Mohammed et al., 2021 ).

3.2. Journal contribution

The review found that the International Journal Of Hospitality Management contributed the highest to the 151 articles, with over 27.7 percent (41 articles) publications, followed by Current Issues In Tourism , with 17.6 percent (26 articles), Tourism Geographies with 16.89 percent (25 articles), Annals Of Tourism Research with 8.78 percent (13 articles) and International Journal Of Contemporary Hospitality Management with 8.11 percent (12 articles). The remaining 31 articles were published across 9 journals, with some indicating 9 articles while others were contributing only 1 article.

3.3. Thematic analysis to identify prominent themes under each area of research

Thematic analysis was undertaken whereby articles were grouped under the following five areas of research as Economic impact and demand analysis (18 articles), Hospitality and tourism workforce (19 articles), Customer/tourist studies (35 articles), Hospitality/tourism industry (71 articles) and Hospitality & tourism education (8 articles). Each research category is further analysed using VOSviewer to help identify the prominent themes emerging in the area of research.

Based on the keywords across the identified studies under each research category, keyword co-occurrences are analysed to identify the major emerging themes. The keyword co-occurrence network analysis results are shown in Fig. 3 , Fig. 4 , Fig. 5 , Fig. 6 , Fig. 7 for all the research categories, respectively. These are discussed in detail next. Further details of the themes identified based on the network analysis under each research area along with the studies that indicate these keywords, are given in Table 1 .

Network analysis diagram for Economic impact and demand analysis research area.

Network analysis diagram for Hospitality and tourism workforce related.

Network analysis diagram for Consumer perspective.

Network analysis diagram for Crisis management, Resilience and Transformations in touristic industry.

Network analysis diagram for Hospitality and tourism education.

Identifying research areas, cluster themes and grouping of studies.

Note: % indicates the percentage of articles in total number of articles under each research area identified.

3.3.1. Research area 1: Economic impact and demand analysis

For the research category of Economic impact and demand analysis , keywords with more than three occurrences were included. In all 18 studies were grouped under this research category. Fig (3) indicates 3 clusters that are identified for this research area. One of the cluster (blue colour) highlights the pandemic but does not reveal any emerging themes; hence this is not included in table(1) analysis. The two broad themes are identified as indicated in table (1) including economic impact contributing over 28% of articles to the area and demand analysis and tourism development with a contribution of 44%.

3.3.1.1. Theme: Economic impact

COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the tourism economies of almost every country across the world, and this is highlighted in the studies of researchers who have focused on the economic impact of the first wave of the pandemic, in particular on employment ( Pharm et al., 2021 ) and lockdown strategy impact on the revival of the tourism economy ( McCarteny et al., 2021 ). While studies have found the individuals willingness to pay is high to maintain public health and reduce the risk of the tourism sector ( Qiu et al., 2021b , Qiu et al., 2021a ), others recommend government support for the recovery of tourism and hospitality sector ( Phan et al., 2021 ). The revival of tourism economies are also analysed using diverse economic frameworks ( Cave & Dredge, 2020 ; Ibin et al., 2021 ). Ibin-Mohammed et al. (2021) further point out using circular economic framework analysis that economies should leverage the chance that COVID-19 pandemic exit strategies like lockdown have given to build a more resilient, low-carbon economy. These studies indicate the short term impact of the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic and highlight the need to analyse these impacts more deeply in follow-up studies.

3.3.1.2. Theme: demand analysis and tourism development

This theme includes studies that have forecasted the post-COVID tourist arrivals ( Kourentzes et al., 2021 ; Liu et al., 2021 ; Qiu et al., 2021 ) and the economic impact of COVID-19 on hospitality firm performance ( Crespí-Claderaet al., 2021 ). While Kourentzes et al. (2021) , using the time series forecasting method, have estimated the international tourist arrivals for 20 destinations, Liu et al. (2021) , using scenario-based two-steps mixed method including time series analysis, Artificial intelligence and judgmental forecasting, estimate tourist arrivals across 20 countries to suggest that strong relationship between the speed and intensity of recovery and destinations dependency on long-haul markets. Qiu et al., 2021b , Qiu et al., 2021a , using statistical and judgemental forecasting methods, estimates tourist arrivals across 20 Asia Pacific countries. Wickramasinghe and Ratnasiri (2020) , using monthly data on tourist arrivals and google trends, estimate the foregone tourist expenditure for Srilanka. Gallego and Font (2020) , using big data analytics with Skyscanner data on air passenger searches and traffic light dashboard analysis, predict the willingness to travel by air passengers, thus indicating recovery strategies for tourist markets from the impact of the pandemic. Analysing the firm-level impact of the COVID pandemic on Spanish hospitality firms using the Logit model and solvency stress test, Crespí-Claderaet et al. (2021) find firms with low operating leverage to be in a better position to survive the crisis. While studies above estimate the loss to the tourism and hospitality sector due to falling demand for inbound tourists, they also forecast a reactivation of the tourist markets that would help these sectors bounce back. Studies confirming or refuting these forecasts would go a long way in better understanding the economic impact on this sector.

3.3.2. Research area 2: Hospitality and tourism workforce

There are 19 studies that are seen to focus on the issues faced by the workforce of the hospitality and tourism sector. With the keyword threshold of 2 Fig (4) indicates 4 clusters. The threshold is reduced due to the small number of studies included in this research area. Among the clusters identified by the network analysis, one cluster (yellow colour) includes only the hospitality keyword; hence this is excluded from further analysis. The 3 remaining clusters indicate the themes Organizational trust & resilience, which contributes over 28% to the research area, Job performance & life satisfaction with 28% contribution and Turnover intentions contributing 16%. The remaining studies (28%) could not be included specifically in any of the themes hence are listed under the others category in table (1).

3.3.2.1. Theme: Organizational trust & resilience

Studies under this theme highlight the impact of manager's communication on employee's organizational trust ( Guzzo, Wang, Madera, & Abbott, 2021 ), the importance of employees in building organizational resilience ( Ngoc et al., 2021 ) and the importance of CSR activities in augmenting the psychological capital of employees and increasing trust ( Mao et al., 2020 ). Further, Salazar(2020), focusing on tourism-related labour mobility, highlights the ‘nexus between migration and tourism’ and social sustainability that has thrown up new challenges following the pandemic. While Ngoc et al. (2021) used in-depth interviews as means to collect their data, questionnaire-based survey was used by others( He, Mao, Morrison, & C.-S, 2020 ; Mao et al., 2020 ).

3.3.2.2. Theme: Job performance & life satisfaction

Studies under this theme highlight the stress and mental health of the workforce in the hospitality and tourism sector. Research indicates that unpredictable downsizing during the pandemic has increased the stress levels of surviving employees in the hospitality industry, impacting their performance ( Tu et al., 2021 ). The study further argues that social support (through family) can help to reduce the negative effect COVID-19 related layoff for the employees. Similar results were found by others ( Aguiar-Quintana, Nguyen, Araujo-Cabrera, & Sanabria-Díaz, 2021 ; Karatepe, 2021 ) for hotel employees where, the pandemic was seen to impact the mental health of hotel employees, further bringing down their performance. Further studies by Kim et al. (2021) show organizational safety climate to boost employee's safety motivation, while the reduction in perceived job insecurity is seen to improve the performance of employees ( Vo-Thanh et al., 2020 ).

3.3.2.3. Theme: Turnover intentions

Yu et al. (2021) using mixed methodology study employees' attitudes and behaviour towards the hospitality industry due to subjective stress and negative emotions due to negative work events such as COVID-19 the pandemic. The study finds that the industry level impact of the pandemic has made several employees uncertain about their future careers in the hospitality industry, and subjective stress is seen to increase their intentions to quit the industry and also result in negative word of mouth. The authors further point out that while the unprecedented layoff in the hospitality industry cannot be avoided during the COVID pandemic, the negative emotions felt by the employees maybe reduced through rebuilding trust and proper communication. These areas of future research are much needed for the industry to understand fully the impact of the pandemic on the employees and help find ways to motivate them to continue to work in this sector, thus reducing turnover ratios. Bajrami et al. (2021) further, in understanding the impact of COVID-19 on work related attitudes and turnover intentions of the employees in the hospitality industry focuses on job insecurity, employees’ health complaints during isolation, risk-taking behavior at workplace and changes in the organization. Using the data collected from hospitality workers from Serbia, the study finds that job insecurity and changes in the organization have a negative impact on both work-related attitudes and turnover intentions of the employees.

Studies under the Other category are seen to focus on the managers use of digital technologies to perform their job during COVID-19 ( Chadee, Ren, & Tang, 2021 ), the impact of hotel safety leadership on employee safety behaviour ( Zhang et al., 2020 ), the impact of COVID-19 on the life of hospitality employees ( Baum, Mooney, Robinson, & Solnet, 2020 ), and perceptions of tourism employees towards COVID-19 ( Park et al., 2020 ).

3.3.3. Research area 3: customer/tourist studies

The research area of customer studies (or tourist related studies) includes 35 articles. Fig (5) indicates three clusters based on the keywords from these articles. These are Consumer risk perception, Tourists changing behaviour and Travel behaviour, contributing 20%, 17% and 34% respectively to the research area as seen from the table(1). Studies that are not grouped under these themes are included as others in table (1).

3.3.3.1. Theme: consumer risk perception

Zahn et al., (2021) conducted a study on Chinese residents travelling to Wuhan after the pandemic and developed a risk perception scale that concluded that occupation and place of residence are the most important factors of risk. Studies have also highlighted the holiday risk and impact of COVID-19 ( Pappas, 2021 ), health and safety risks as a reason for travel demotivations ( Aebli et al., 2021 ). Further studies ( Bae & Chang, 2021 ) have found customer's attitude to be moderating their risk perception and behavioural intentions. Studies also suggest that post-pandemic visits of customers to restaurants would be influenced by their trust in the restaurants ( Foroudi, Tabaghdehi, S, & Marvi, 2021 ) and governments ( Dedeoğlu & Boğan, 2021 ).

3.3.3.2. Theme: tourist changing behaviour

Perceived health risk and avoidance behaviour of tourists have significantly affected the international tourists' air travel and tourism industry ( Chua et al., 2020(b) ). Sánchez-Pérez et al. (2021) examines the behaviour change among tourists during COVID-19 and highlight the importance of linking the health risk perception of tourists to their behavioural intention. Zhang et al. (2020) in their study of find tourists travelling during the COVID-19 are more risk-averse, and this magnifies their negative emotional reactions towards disadvantaged tourism-related prices. Chua et al. (2020(a)) find that destination attachment is critical in post-pandemic tourists’ travel choices, and this will be impacted by perceived response efforts and health preventive behaviour during COVID-19.

3.3.3.3. Theme: travel behaviour

Studies indicate that COVID-19 has resulted in a significant increase in travel risk perception among tourists ( Neuburger&Egger, 2021 ), resulting in increased psychological resilience among travellers who display cautious travel behaviours ( Zheng et al., 2021 ). The cautious behaviour has lent itself to a higher willingness to pay for additional safety measures ( Sánchez-Cañizares et al., 2021 ), like the preference of renting full flats rather than single hotel rooms to maintain physical distancing norms ( Bresciani et al., 2021 ), travelling in their own vehiclesto reduce the risk of pandemic ( Bresciani et al., 2021 ; Ribeiro et al., 2021 ). It is further suggested by studies (O' Connor &Assaker, 2021 ) that post-pandemic travel behaviour will be pro-environmental, and tourists would be looking beyond hygiene attributes to select hospitality services Hu et al. (2021) .

Other studies include articles that focus on the use of electronic media for information sharing during the pandemic ( Nilashi, 2021 ), the use of virtual reality ( Schiopu et al., 2021 ), low consumption due to safety concerns ( Li et al., 2021 ), use of robot-staffs in room service ( Kim et al., 2021 ), post-COVID increase in local tourism ( Jeon & Yang, 2021 ) and quarantine lodging experience ( Wong & Yang, 2020 ). All the studies are related to understanding the consumer perspective of the hospitality and tourism sector.

3.3.4. Research area 4: Crisis management, Resilience and Transformations in touristic industry

For the research category of the Crisis management, Resilience and Transformations in touristic industry, 71 studies were included. The clustering network analysis from Fig (4) indicates 3 clusters with studies relating to Crisis management and sector resilience contributing 35% as indicated in table (1), studies focusing on Industry transformation and tourism development contributing 16% and Sustainable development contributing over 11%. Studies that could not be specifically grouped under these clusters are highlighted in the others category in table (1). These include studies that focus on the impact of COVID-19 on customer experience ( Bonfanti, Vigolo, & Yfantidou, 2021 ), cleanliness ( Magnini&Zehrer, 2021 ), destinations ( Foo, Chin, Tan, & Phuah, 2020 ; Isaac, 2021 ) and destination residents’ attitude ( Kamata, 2021 ). Studies have looked at new developments like robotics adoption in the hospitality and tourism industry ( Seyitoğlu & Ivanov, 2021 ; Zeng et al., 2020 ).

3.3.4.1. Theme: Crisis management and sector resilience

With the global lockdown during the COVID-19, the hospitality and tourism industry is seen to undergo unprecedented crisis like situation globally ( António& Rita, 2020 ). Studies analyse the crisis faced by managers of hospitality business ( Japutra & Situmorang, 2021 ) and highlight the importance of the resilience of managers of these businesses to overcome it ( Giousmpasoglou et al., 2021 ). Few others have also focused on the impact of the public health crisis in the hospitality industry ( Shapoval et al., 2021 ), suggesting innovative business models to create new revenue streams to better manage future crisis situations ( Breier et al., 2021 ) and improve resilience in the sector ( Duarte Alonso, 2020 ). Varied methodologies have been used to understand the crisis faced by the hospitality and tourism industry, including the case-study approach ( Hu et al., 2021 ; Smart et al., 2021 ), questionnaire survey ( Sobaih et al., 2021 ) and forecasting methods ( Zhang et al., 2021a , Zhang et al., 2021b ).

3.3.4.2. Theme: Industry transformation

Hospitality and tourism industry transformation need studies to focus on new ways of developing this sector. Tourism managers have to understand the impact of pandemics like COVID-19 and should build capabilities to forecast recovery path ( Škare, 2021 ), focusing more on local travellers more than the global networks ( Tomassini &Cavagnaro, 2020 ). It is further suggested by Carr, 2020 that such sectoral plans should have an inclusive approach. The managers should not look at returning to the pre-COVID demand, instead, look at the emerging economic transformation and plan for recovery ( Prideaux et al., 2020 ) with a focus on overall societal wellbeing and sustainability ( Everingham & Chassagne, 2020 ).

3.3.4.3. Theme: Sustainable development

Being an enabler for economic development, sustainable tourism has been the context of research for many years. Researchers underthe Sustainable development theme have focused on various aspects of sustainability, including sports tourism (Cooper & Alderman, 2021), tourism infrastructure ( Sheller, 2020 ) and tourists’ awareness ( Galvani, Lew, & Perez, 2020 ; Stankov et al., 2020 ) during the pandemic period. While Filimonau (2021) looks at alternative uses of food and plastic waste from the tourism industry, Niewiadomski (2020) looks at COVID-19 as an opportunity to re-boot the tourism industry with the tenets of sustainability. Other researchers like Cheer (2020) focus on the concept of human flourishing to understand the post-COVID tourism landscape. Studies under this theme suggest a faster recovery of the hospitality and tourism sector, also suggesting ways to reduce the severity of any future COVID like pandemics in this sector. Tsai (2021) predicts medical tourism and leisure to be the areas of importance post-COVID-19, indicating that future researchers must focus on these areas of tourism.

3.3.5. Research area 5: Hospitality and tourism education

Academic research has a prominent role in tourism education, as research-based learning adds more value to tourism and hospitality education by supporting sustainable development ( Espinoza-Figueroa, Vanneste, Alvarado-Vanegas, Farfán-Pacheco, & Rodriguez-Giron, 2021 ). Though touristic education began in vocational secondary schools, due to the prominence this sector gained in the economy and employment, it has increased its prominence in schools and universities. Tourism education helps to increase touristic competitiveness and plays a key role in the growth of tourism sector in any country ( Renfors et al., 2020 ). Tourism education research has been a well-researched area in the past. 1 The changing focus on emerging areas of tourism developmet will open new areas for education research in tourism also.

The criteria of the top 10 percentile cut off for inclusion of journal articles under a theme was relaxed for this theme due to very small number of articles falling in this criteria (5 articles). The inclusion percentile was increased to include journals up to top 20 percentile in Scopus list. This resulted in 8 articles being selected under this theme. While the network diagram indicates 3 clusters, one of the clusters was related to thematic analysis and systematic review. Dropping this cluster results in 2 clusters, namely Transformational education and Hybrid education & blended learning .

3.3.5.1. Theme: Transformational education

Edelheim (2020) highlights the need for the value-based education system and points out that COVID-19 pandemic may be the much needed impetus to revisit the travel, tourism, hospitality and event higher education sector. While the pandemic has brought to the forefront the idea that the past and present cannot help us plan for the future, Edelheim points out that with transformation in the higher education sector towards value-based education, students would be more equipped towards transformative practices in the industry.

Experiential learning through internships have become the norm of hospitality education and COVID-19 has brought a new dimension to it. The industry is preparing to provide a new customer experience and the tourism academics also should quickly adapt so that the students become competent to handle any such future eventualities. Empirical research during COVID-19 should be able to provide a new approach to tourism internships so as to provide better insights to students compared to pre-COVID period ( Zopiatis et al., 2021 ).

Hayes (2020) analysed the tourism taught master's programs and found that these programs are offered as more of vocational content and less of liberal arts. He argues that such programs are intended to produce leaders in tourism industry and there should be a balance of vocational and liberal arts content as the industry needs philosophic practitioners to bring disruptive changes to create a better resilient tourism and hospitality industry.

3.3.5.2. Theme: Hybrid education & blended learning

Griffin (2021) in discussing the future of hospitality education points towards practices that could become necessary for educators to adapt to the changes forced upon us by COVID pandemic. He also points out that educators in this ever challenging industry should help future leaders (current students) to with the required tools to help them adapt to any change. The article also discussed the importance of creative use of online media like interactive course content with a hybrid approach to education, integrated industry forums and mentorship for creating entrepreneurial skills, project-based learning across the curriculum, real-world industry exposure for students through industry partnership in problem-solving, and accelerated short courses instead of traditional semester-based courses. The paper reflects on “creating a radically new hospitality program that benefits student learning and industry-academia collaboration”. Smith (2021) also highlights the creative utilization of technological tools, software, and platforms to facilitate online learning in hospitality education.

Though YouTube is being used for blended learning, research and online classes widely, the use of this channel is limited in tourism academia ( Tolkach & Pratt, 2021 ). They suggest that use of YouTube channels like ‘Travel Professors’ can be used for blended learning in Tourism education during COVID-19 and beyond. Qiu et al., 2020b , Qiu et al., 2020a suggested that the effectiveness of tourism education during the COVID-19 period can be increased by including MOOCs and SPOCs in the pedagogy.

While many studies talk about the need for blended learning and research in tourism education and advocate for improving online teaching effectiveness, Tavitiyaman et al. (2021) studied the impact of online classes on personality of hospitality students. They suggest that the instructors should increase their support to students in online classes and this will enhance motivation levels of the students and helps in a higher level of perceived learning and reduced learning anxieties and eventually, increase student satisfaction levels.

4. Future research directions

It is well-acknowledged fact that PhD students need to have a publication record in high-ranking journals to get an academic job ( Carr and Hayes, 2017 ). Staying relevant and publishing on topics that are current and have future potential can help them get a good publication. The present bibliometric study is aimed at providing an overview of the current literature relating to COVID-19 and the hospitality and tourism industry, one of the most relevant topics for future research. While studies in each area identified have highlighted the current crisis, its impact and crisis management, several studies have given directions to help future researchers choose their area of research with relevance.

Tourism has evolved as a major economic activity across regions employing both skilled and unskilled labour. Prior to COVID-19, travel and tourism industry accounted for 25% if the new jobs created globally (WTCC). Its importance and share in any country's economic activity chart have increased over the decades. A similar expression of increased interest is seen in academic research ( Wilson, 1998 ) with improved methodology in estimating the tourism demand across tourist destinations ( Song et al., 2012 ). Being an important industry in several countries, continuous economic assessment of tourism industry and its contribution to economic development and progress is essential ( Comerio & Strozzi, 2019 ). The pandemic and following lockdown and travel restrictions have economic impacts across all countries in the world particularly related to employment ( Phan et al., 2021 ), on hospitality firm performance ( Crespí-Claderaet al., 2021 ), on tourist arrivals and hence demand impacts ( Kourentzes et al., 2021 ; Liu et al., 2021 ; Qiu et al., 2021 ). While all these studies have indicated the impact and effect of the crisis, what needs to be further studied is the sector wise impact of tourism demand and employment on the short term, medium term and long-term economic growth and development of economies. Such studies must focus on strategies specific to reviving of the tourist markets and helping the sector recover from the pandemic in terms of tourism demand recovery leading to increasing employment, better firm performance in this sector and promotion of sustainable practices for future crisis handling. These areas of research would benefit from academic debates and have direct implications on the industry recovery. Hence hospitality scholars must focus in these areas of future research.

Being a labour-intensive industry, tourism and hospitality sector like other similar sectors have faced employee-employer related issues like job performance and job satisfaction, work-life balance and life satisfaction, labour turnover, building organization trust and such others. The Unpredictable closure of many tourist destinations and all related businesses has resulted in increased stress levels in employees ( Aguiar-Quintana et al., 2021 ; Karatepe, 2021 ; Tu et al., 2021 ) impact their mental health and performance ( Vo-Thanh et al., 2020 ). While some of the countries have opened its tourist destinations, several countries are still in favour of partial or full travel restrictions with new strands of corona virus emerging across the world. While currently, the sector is more in damage control mode, it is the post-pandemic years when the real impact of mental health on hotel employees would be seen. It is imperative that these areas be researched from several different angles of causes, impact, effect, recovery and sustainability to help the sector employees stay healthy and perform better in the coming decades. Health of the employees is most important to increase productivity and efficiency of any organization and tourism being an experiential service sector has a high interaction level between employees and customers. Thus, future research scholars of this area must focus on understanding the pandemic impact on employee's mental health and performance, find ways to support them to recovery and formulate strategies to help build organization trust and resilience. These are some important areas of research related to tourism-hospitality sector employees that would have long-term implications for the industry as well.

Customer satisfaction is the most important driving force for service sector profitability. Motivation to travel to a particular destination and the experiences that the consumers experience at the destination results in revisit, recommendation and customer loyalty ( Huang & Hsu, 2009 ). These factors impact firm profitability ( Petrick, 2004 ). COVID-19 has impacted tourists’ travel preferences, destination choice ( Li et al., 2021 ) and their risk perception ( Pappas, 2021 ; Zhan et al., 2020 ), with health and safety risk impacting their travel motivation ( Aebli et al., 2021 ; Bae & Chang, 2021 ; Chua et al., 2020(b) ). The changing behaviour of tourists post pandemic highlight some interesting areas of research like changing travel motivation, destination choice, expectations from the hospitality and tourist service providers, demand for better health and safety norms among consumers. These changes also lead to new ways of customer assessment of service providers and hence academic research in these areas can lead to high-quality publications for research scholars. These potential research areas are also of high implications to practitioners, including hotel, restaurant, travel agency managers and governments across the world that are interested in fast recovery of this sector.

Though the cash-driven resilient nature and employee resilience of the tourism industry is well studied in the past ( Wieczorek-Kosmala, 2021 ), COVID-19 has opened up a new stream of resilience studies in the tourism and hospitality industry, like resilience of business owners ( Pathak & Joshi, 2021 ), managers ( Japutra & Situmorang, 2021 ) etc. Public health crisis during COVID-19 ( Shapoval et al., 2021 ) have necessitated the creation of new and innovative business models in tourism that can better address any future crisis ( Breier et al., 2021 ) and improve resilience in the sector ( Duarte Alonso, 2020 ). Future research in tourism, hospitality and leisure should suggest innovative business models that are more resilient and sustainable so that the sector is equipped to face challenges raised by any crisis. Medical tourism and leisure are expected to be the focus of tourism industry in future ( Tsai, 2021 ).

Academic research has a prominent role in tourism education, as research-based learning adds more value to tourism and hospitality education by supporting sustainable development ( Espinoza-Figueroa et al., 2021 ). Though touristic education began in vocational secondary schools, due to the prominence this sector gained in the economy and employment, it has increased its presence in schools and universities. Tourism education helps to increase touristic competitiveness and plays a key role in growth of the tourism sector in any country ( Renfors et al., 2020 ). Many of the education related studies during the COVID-19 is of qualitative nature with views from one set of stakeholders like either teachers or students etc and the future studies including multiple stakeholders as respondents using quantitative or mix method will give more insight into the effectiveness of the use of technology in touristic education ( Qiu et al., 2020 ). The use of technology would increase the possibilities of blended learning in touristic education, including the increased use of social media like YouTube etc ( Tolkach & Pratt, 2021 ) and would bring in a new dimension to experiential learning by including real life challenges in tourism internships ( Zopiatis et al., 2021 ).

5. Implications and limitations

Considering how the tourism and hospitality sector has suffered in an unpreceded manner due to COVID-19, it is vital for tourism academics to envision the future for their field and to identify potential related issues and opportunities ( Wassler & Fan, 2021 ). These areas are full of potential for future PhD students to publish their work. It is a well-acknowledged fact that PhD students need to have a publication record in high-ranking journals to get an academic job ( Carr and Hayes, 2017 ). Staying relevant and publishing in topics that are current and have future potential can help them get a good publication. The present bibliometric study is aimed at providing an overview of the current literature relating to COVID-19 and the hospitality and tourism industry, one of the most relevant topics for future research. While studies in each area identified have highlighted the current crisis, its impact and crisis management, several studies have given directions to help future researchers to choose their area of research with relevance.

Additionally, the study results also help practitioners develop curricula both for academe and for training programs to help the current and future industry workforce stay relevant. The study has practical implications. In that, it is imperative for managers to be well informed of an issue and understand all aspects of it before taking an informed decision. The present review highlights the emerging issues related to COVID-19 and the hospitality and tourism industry, highlighting some of the bigger issues and providing a future outlook on several others.

The study has several limitations. First, the data was collected only over a short period of duration and from one source Scopus database. Future studies can collect data from other well-known databases as well. Future studies can also include more detailed keywords like hotel, restaurant, sports and other tourism-related words to search for the relevant literature. Also, the source of studies only included journal articles while excluding conference papers and other book chapters. These could be included in future studies to better understand the field of research. More advanced bibliometric analysis tools can be used by future studies to draw deeper insights into the literature.

1 for details of all applications see www.vosviewer.com/publications .

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88 Tourism Management Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best tourism management topic ideas & essay examples, 🔎 good research topics about tourism management, 📝 most interesting tourism management topics to write about, ❓ tourism management research questions.

Human Resource Management in Tourism In his research, Nickson points out that the human resource management in the tourism incorporates the management principles to integrate with the specific needs in the tourism industry.
The Facility Management in the Tourism Industry In understanding the role of technology in any industry, it is important to master the basic elements of the industry in terms of its area of specialization, services and goods offered to customers. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
Destination Marketing and Destination Management in Tourism The purpose of this task is to discuss reasons why misunderstanding of the concepts of destination marketing and destination management leads to poor sustainable tourism planning and management of tourism impacts.
Service Management of Innovation Tourism Industry Innovation taking place in tourism industry is resulting into new ideas, services, and products to the marketplace and as part of overall changes taking place in the industry, innovation in the industry is leading to […]
Revenue Management in the Tourism Industry To predict the behavioural patterns of customers, the availability of the product in the market is optimised with a hope of maximising on revenues.
Tourism Disaster Management In this phase, the main element of the management strategies for the disaster that is going on is assessment of the impacts and reconstruction.
Tourism Destination Management and Development Tourism destination development and management is a key factor to the success of the tourism industry in any given region. The regional bodies come in with professionalism that is key to the success of the […]
VisitBritain’s Marketing Strategy for the 2012 Olympic Games and Diamond Jubilee The VisitBritain campaign is significant in helping Britain realize economic growth before, during, and after the 2012 Olympic Games as well as the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
“Coolness” of the City in Tourism Management The ‘coolness’ of the city and its culture is a powerful instrument in advancing the city’s attractive features, infrastructure, and business.
Contemporary Tourism and Hospitality Management I have always enjoyed visiting other countries, and Europe remains one of my favorite destinations since I see it as a small corner of the planet connecting a great variety of cultures.
Yield Management and Tourism Industry in Saudi Arabia Thus, the hospitality industry of the country can rely on the support of the state, and this factor can contribute to the development of the hospitality industry.
Tourism Management as an Ethnographic Theme Thus, as it is stated in some of the interview, tourists generally expect the attitude of obeisance towards them, and the workers of the tourism sphere feel themselves as the obedient servants.
Sustainable Hospitality Management The paper will clear some concepts of Hospitality Management and Sustainable Hospitality Management, Assessment of Operational Efficiency of Hospitality Organizations, Critical analysis of Hospitality Parameters, Critical evaluation of Principles and Procedures Involved in Environmental Management […]
Sustainable Tourism Development Management It includes the air, the climate of the place, the water bodies, the landscape, the animals, the birds and other life forms habiting the place, the plants and its overall beauty.
Service 2020: Hospitality and Tourism Management Technology will change the view of service management and customer relations. This end of the market will be driven by technology, performance, and design.
Tourism Management of the National Parks and Heritage The National parks are credited for being major tourist attraction sites as compared to national heritage and promotion of the tourism industry as they have what the tourist wants to see, that is, the beauty […]
Home Exchange and Implications for Tourism Management A listing refers to a list of people who are also interested in exchanging a home from a particular country and the quality of their homes is also given.
Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism’s Conflict Management The concept of Sulha, although not directly outlined in the organization’s code of conduct, is the main driving instrument of internal conflict resolution in the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism.
Tourism Industry: Emergency and Crisis Management The technological and scientific breakthrough that has been witnessed over the past several decades has created the foil for the rapid development of the tourism industry. What are the primary causes of emergencies and crises […]
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A new way to detect radiation involving cheap ceramics

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Jennifer Rupp, Thomas Defferriere, Harry Tuller, and Ju Li pose standing in a lab, with a nuclear radiation warning sign in the background

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The radiation detectors used today for applications like inspecting cargo ships for smuggled nuclear materials are expensive and cannot operate in harsh environments, among other disadvantages. Now, in work funded largely by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with early support from the U.S. Department of Energy, MIT engineers have demonstrated a fundamentally new way to detect radiation that could allow much cheaper detectors and a plethora of new applications.

They are working with Radiation Monitoring Devices , a company in Watertown, Massachusetts, to transfer the research as quickly as possible into detector products.

In a 2022 paper in Nature Materials , many of the same engineers reported for the first time how ultraviolet light can significantly improve the performance of fuel cells and other devices based on the movement of charged atoms, rather than those atoms’ constituent electrons.

In the current work, published recently in Advanced Materials , the team shows that the same concept can be extended to a new application: the detection of gamma rays emitted by the radioactive decay of nuclear materials.

“Our approach involves materials and mechanisms very different than those in presently used detectors, with potentially enormous benefits in terms of reduced cost, ability to operate under harsh conditions, and simplified processing,” says Harry L. Tuller, the R.P. Simmons Professor of Ceramics and Electronic Materials in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE).

Tuller leads the work with key collaborators Jennifer L. M. Rupp, a former associate professor of materials science and engineering at MIT who is now a professor of electrochemical materials at Technical University Munich in Germany, and Ju Li, the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor in Nuclear Engineering and a professor of materials science and engineering. All are also affiliated with MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory

“After learning the Nature Materials work, I realized the same underlying principle should work for gamma-ray detection — in fact, may work even better than [UV] light because gamma rays are more penetrating — and proposed some experiments to Harry and Jennifer,” says Li.

Says Rupp, “Employing shorter-range gamma rays enable [us] to extend the opto-ionic to a radio-ionic effect by modulating ionic carriers and defects at material interfaces by photogenerated electronic ones.”

Other authors of the Advanced Materials paper are first author Thomas Defferriere, a DMSE postdoc, and Ahmed Sami Helal, a postdoc in MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Modifying barriers

Charge can be carried through a material in different ways. We are most familiar with the charge that is carried by the electrons that help make up an atom. Common applications include solar cells. But there are many devices — like fuel cells and lithium batteries — that depend on the motion of the charged atoms, or ions, themselves rather than just their electrons.

The materials behind applications based on the movement of ions, known as solid electrolytes, are ceramics. Ceramics, in turn, are composed of tiny crystallite grains that are compacted and fired at high temperatures to form a dense structure. The problem is that ions traveling through the material are often stymied at the boundaries between the grains.

In their 2022 paper, the MIT team showed that ultraviolet (UV) light shone on a solid electrolyte essentially causes electronic perturbations at the grain boundaries that ultimately lower the barrier that ions encounter at those boundaries. The result: “We were able to enhance the flow of the ions by a factor of three,” says Tuller, making for a much more efficient system.

Vast potential

At the time, the team was excited about the potential of applying what they’d found to different systems. In the 2022 work, the team used UV light, which is quickly absorbed very near the surface of a material. As a result, that specific technique is only effective in thin films of materials. (Fortunately, many applications of solid electrolytes involve thin films.)

Light can be thought of as particles — photons — with different wavelengths and energies. These range from very low-energy radio waves to the very high-energy gamma rays emitted by the radioactive decay of nuclear materials. Visible light — and UV light — are of intermediate energies, and fit between the two extremes.

The MIT technique reported in 2022 worked with UV light. Would it work with other wavelengths of light, potentially opening up new applications? Yes, the team found. In the current paper they show that gamma rays also modify the grain boundaries resulting in a faster flow of ions that, in turn, can be easily detected. And because the high-energy gamma rays penetrate much more deeply than UV light, “this extends the work to inexpensive bulk ceramics in addition to thin films,” says Tuller. It also allows a new application: an alternative approach to detecting nuclear materials.

Today’s state-of-the-art radiation detectors depend on a completely different mechanism than the one identified in the MIT work. They rely on signals derived from electrons and their counterparts, holes, rather than ions. But these electronic charge carriers must move comparatively great distances to the electrodes that “capture” them to create a signal. And along the way, they can be easily lost as they, for example, hit imperfections in a material. That’s why today’s detectors are made with extremely pure single crystals of material that allow an unimpeded path. They can be made with only certain materials and are difficult to process, making them expensive and hard to scale into large devices.

Using imperfections

In contrast, the new technique works because of the imperfections — grains — in the material. “The difference is that we rely on ionic currents being modulated at grain boundaries versus the state-of-the-art that relies on collecting electronic carriers from long distances,” Defferriere says.

Says Rupp, “It is remarkable that the bulk ‘grains’ of the ceramic materials tested revealed high stabilities of the chemistry and structure towards gamma rays, and solely the grain boundary regions reacted in charge redistribution of majority and minority carriers and defects.”

Comments Li, “This radiation-ionic effect is distinct from the conventional mechanisms for radiation detection where electrons or photons are collected. Here, the ionic current is being collected.”

Igor Lubomirsky, a professor in the Department of Materials and Interfaces at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, who was not involved in the current work, says, “I found the approach followed by the MIT group in utilizing polycrystalline oxygen ion conductors very fruitful given the [materials’] promise for providing reliable operation under irradiation under the harsh conditions expected in nuclear reactors where such detectors often suffer from fatigue and aging. [They also] benefit from much-reduced fabrication costs.”

As a result, the MIT engineers are hopeful that their work could result in new, less expensive detectors. For example, they envision trucks loaded with cargo from container ships driving through a structure that has detectors on both sides as they leave a port. “Ideally, you’d have either an array of detectors or a very large detector, and that’s where [today’s detectors] really don’t scale very well,” Tuller says.

Another potential application involves accessing geothermal energy, or the extreme heat below our feet that is being explored as a carbon-free alternative to fossil fuels. Ceramic sensors at the ends of drill bits could detect pockets of heat — radiation — to drill toward. Ceramics can easily withstand extreme temperatures of more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit and the extreme pressures found deep below the Earth’s surface.

The team is excited about additional applications for their work. “This was a demonstration of principle with just one material,” says Tuller, “but there are thousands of other materials good at conducting ions.”

Concludes Defferriere: “It’s the start of a journey on the development of the technology, so there’s a lot to do and a lot to discover.”

This work is currently supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office. This support does not constitute an express or implied endorsement on the part of the government. It was also funded by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

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About 1 in 4 u.s. teachers say their school went into a gun-related lockdown in the last school year.

Twenty-five years after the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado , a majority of public K-12 teachers (59%) say they are at least somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting ever happening at their school. This includes 18% who say they’re extremely or very worried, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to better understand public K-12 teachers’ views on school shootings, how prepared they feel for a potential active shooter, and how they feel about policies that could help prevent future shootings.

To do this, we surveyed 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers from Oct. 17 to Nov. 14, 2023. The teachers are members of RAND’s American Teacher Panel, a nationally representative panel of public school K-12 teachers recruited through MDR Education. Survey data is weighted to state and national teacher characteristics to account for differences in sampling and response to ensure they are representative of the target population.

We also used data from our 2022 survey of U.S. parents. For that project, we surveyed 3,757 U.S. parents with at least one child younger than 18 from Sept. 20 to Oct. 2, 2022. Find more details about the survey of parents here .

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

Another 31% of teachers say they are not too worried about a shooting occurring at their school. Only 7% of teachers say they are not at all worried.

This survey comes at a time when school shootings are at a record high (82 in 2023) and gun safety continues to be a topic in 2024 election campaigns .

A pie chart showing that a majority of teachers are at least somewhat worried about a shooting occurring at their school.

Teachers’ experiences with lockdowns

A horizontal stacked bar chart showing that about 1 in 4 teachers say their school had a gun-related lockdown last year.

About a quarter of teachers (23%) say they experienced a lockdown in the 2022-23 school year because of a gun or suspicion of a gun at their school. Some 15% say this happened once during the year, and 8% say this happened more than once.

High school teachers are most likely to report experiencing these lockdowns: 34% say their school went on at least one gun-related lockdown in the last school year. This compares with 22% of middle school teachers and 16% of elementary school teachers.

Teachers in urban schools are also more likely to say that their school had a gun-related lockdown. About a third of these teachers (31%) say this, compared with 19% of teachers in suburban schools and 20% in rural schools.

Do teachers feel their school has prepared them for an active shooter?

About four-in-ten teachers (39%) say their school has done a fair or poor job providing them with the training and resources they need to deal with a potential active shooter.

A bar chart showing that 3 in 10 teachers say their school has done an excellent or very good job preparing them for an active shooter.

A smaller share (30%) give their school an excellent or very good rating, and another 30% say their school has done a good job preparing them.

Teachers in urban schools are the least likely to say their school has done an excellent or very good job preparing them for a potential active shooter. About one-in-five (21%) say this, compared with 32% of teachers in suburban schools and 35% in rural schools.

Teachers who have police officers or armed security stationed in their school are more likely than those who don’t to say their school has done an excellent or very good job preparing them for a potential active shooter (36% vs. 22%).

Overall, 56% of teachers say they have police officers or armed security stationed at their school. Majorities in rural schools (64%) and suburban schools (56%) say this, compared with 48% in urban schools.

Only 3% of teachers say teachers and administrators at their school are allowed to carry guns in school. This is slightly more common in school districts where a majority of voters cast ballots for Donald Trump in 2020 than in school districts where a majority of voters cast ballots for Joe Biden (5% vs. 1%).

What strategies do teachers think could help prevent school shootings?

A bar chart showing that 69% of teachers say better mental health treatment would be highly effective in preventing school shootings.

The survey also asked teachers how effective some measures would be at preventing school shootings.

Most teachers (69%) say improving mental health screening and treatment for children and adults would be extremely or very effective.

About half (49%) say having police officers or armed security in schools would be highly effective, while 33% say the same about metal detectors in schools.

Just 13% say allowing teachers and school administrators to carry guns in schools would be extremely or very effective at preventing school shootings. Seven-in-ten teachers say this would be not too or not at all effective.

How teachers’ views differ by party

A dot plot showing that teachers’ views of strategies to prevent school shootings differ by political party.

Republican and Republican-leaning teachers are more likely than Democratic and Democratic-leaning teachers to say each of the following would be highly effective:

Having police officers or armed security in schools (69% vs. 37%)
Having metal detectors in schools (43% vs. 27%)
Allowing teachers and school administrators to carry guns in schools (28% vs. 3%)

And while majorities in both parties say improving mental health screening and treatment would be highly effective at preventing school shootings, Democratic teachers are more likely than Republican teachers to say this (73% vs. 66%).

Parents’ views on school shootings and prevention strategies

In fall 2022, we asked parents a similar set of questions about school shootings.

Roughly a third of parents with K-12 students (32%) said they were extremely or very worried about a shooting ever happening at their child’s school. An additional 37% said they were somewhat worried.

As is the case among teachers, improving mental health screening and treatment was the only strategy most parents (63%) said would be extremely or very effective at preventing school shootings. And allowing teachers and school administrators to carry guns in schools was seen as the least effective – in fact, half of parents said this would be not too or not at all effective. This question was asked of all parents with a child younger than 18, regardless of whether they have a child in K-12 schools.

Like teachers, parents’ views on strategies for preventing school shootings differed by party.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

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‘Back to school’ means anytime from late July to after Labor Day, depending on where in the U.S. you live

Among many u.s. children, reading for fun has become less common, federal data shows, most european students learn english in school, for u.s. teens today, summer means more schooling and less leisure time than in the past, about one-in-six u.s. teachers work second jobs – and not just in the summer, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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100+ Tourism Research Topics: Trends and Future Directions
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 ...
Research in tourism sustainability: A comprehensive bibliometric
The most productive journal was Sustainability, and although this journal does not exclusively focus on tourism topics, a total of 745 papers have been published on this topic. Similarly, it also produced the highest growth and considering the journal only published its first article on this topic in 2013, this achievement is rather significant ...
Tourism and its economic impact: A literature review using bibliometric
Then, starting from the first paper published in 2002 by Balaguer and Cantavella-Jordà, the so-called 'tourism-led growth hypothesis' (TLGH) and its reciprocal 'economic-led tourism hypothesis' (ELTH) have become two most predominant topics in tourism literature, with a proliferation of empirical studies (Perles-Ribes et al., 2017).
(PDF) Tourism Impacts on Destinations: Insights from a Systematic
This paper aims to systematically review and analyze the current research on tourism impacts on destinations during 2016-2020. The Scopus database was used to search for tourism impact studies ...
Frontiers in Sustainable Tourism
Animals as dark tourism attractions: experiences, contexts, and ethics. VALERIE SHEPPARD. David Fennell. Jose-Carlos Garcia-Rosell. 2,742 views. 3 articles. Provides evidence-based research for academics and researchers, industry leaders, policymakers, and consumers to achieve sustainable forms of tourism.
Tourism destination research from 2000 to 2020: A ...
Popular research topics from 2000 to 2020 (frequencies of co-wording are more than 20 times). ... Papers that link unrelated concepts can be seen as bridges between the literature that play an ... Currently, the most studied research topics concern tourist engagement, perception, experience, satisfaction, decision-making, and response behaviors ...
Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research: Sage Journals
Established in 1976, the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research (JHTR) plays a major role in incubating, influencing, and inspiring hospitality and tourism research.JHTR publishes original research that clearly advances theoretical development and offers practical value for hospitality and tourism ecosystems.JHTR strives to publish research with IMPACT...
Tourism and Hospitality Research: Sage Journals
Tourism and Hospitality Research (THR) is firmly established as an influential and authoritative, peer-reviewed journal for tourism and hospitality researchers and professionals. THR covers applied research in the context of Tourism and Hospitality in areas such as policy, planning, performance, development, management, strategy, operations, marketing and consumer behavior…
Progress in Sustainable Tourism Research: An Analysis of the ...
Sustainable tourism must maintain a high level of customer satisfaction, raise awareness of sustainability concerns, and spread sustainable tourism practices among them. Several earlier studies have measured sustainable tourism in various regions of the world, but a thorough review of it is rare. Thus, the study is founded on a comprehensive literature review to evaluate the current research ...
International Journal of Tourism Research
The journal welcomes papers in any area of tourism and travel, including additional topics of interest such as economics, marketing, sociology and statistics. Online publication from 2024 International Journal of Tourism Research will be published in online-only format effective with the 2024 volume.
Sustainability as a building block for tourism
In addition, it includes an in-depth analysis of trending research topics in the field during 2019 and 2020.,After 20 years of research on sustainable tourism, there is still significant dispersion of studied topics, frameworks and applications. ... This paper adopts a mixed methodology to comprehend the impact of sustainability on tourism ...
Ecotourism and sustainable development: a scientometric review of
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 ...
Past, present and future: trends in tourism research
This research attempts to understand the gaps of tourism research to draw in trends that should be emphasized in and out of tourism community. Based upon a collection of 63,176 papers that is all the papers published in Scopus journals, social network analysis is applied to unveil countries, journals, and authors' expertise as well as ...
Tourism research after the COVID-19 outbreak: Insights for more
Particularly, a bibliometric analysis was conducted of publications on COVID-19 and tourism by means of SciMAT software to shed light on the current scope, features, and topics of interest with regard to the impact of COVID-19 on the tourism sector. The current paper makes headway in research on COVID-19 and tourism, as it presents a deep ...
Tourism and COVID-19: Impacts and implications for advancing and
The paper does not aim to provide a fully comprehensive and inclusive analysis of all the impacts, theories, topics and tourism stakeholders that COVID-19 tourism research can examine. Instead, it aims to provide practical and theoretical implications on how to better research, understand, manage and transformative valorize COVID-19 tourism ...
Journal of Travel Research: Sage Journals
Journal of Travel Research (JTR) is the premier research journal focusing on travel and tourism behavior, management and development. As a top-ranked journal focused exclusively on travel and tourism, JTR provides up-to-date, high quality, international and multidisciplinary research on behavioral trends and management theory.JTR is a category 4 ranked journal by the Association of Business ...
Tourism research after the COVID-19 outbreak: Insights for more
The current paper makes headway in research on COVID-19 and tourism, as it presents a deep analysis of the research and proposes a way forward in tourism research and practice. Regarding RQ1, the study revealed a corpus of 1303 manuscripts on COVID-19 and the hospitality and tourism sector published between 1 December 2019 and 31 March 2021 ...
Investigating the impact of virtual tourism on travel ...
This study explores the mechanism that contributes to travel intention in the field of virtual tourism. The overall research method is based on the "Stimulus-Organism-Response" theory. In the research model, the effects of content quality, system quality, and interaction quality in virtual tourism on tourism experience and travel intention are explored, as well as the role of virtual ...
Present and prospective research themes for tourism and hospitality
2. Methods and data. The study aims to review the research relevant to hospitality and tourism and COVID-19 research themes. A systematic quantitative method was applied to identify relevant literature, synthesise and review the past literature in a structured manner (Kim, 2020; Rosalina et al., 2021).As a first step to identify relevant literature, the availability and suitability of ...
20 Topics and Ideas for Tourism Research Paper
However, this person has mixed tastes and would love to try living in a tent but with some benefits of civilization. The research may study whether it is possible operationally and beneficial for business. 23. Space tourism. For sure, among other tourism research paper topics, this one is the most exotic.
Tourism and Hospitality Research
Abstract. This study aims to examine the impact of hotels' pandemic response strategies (service automation, downsizing, restructuring, health protection, and training) on talent retention intentions with the mediation of talent satisfaction and moderation of job ... Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published November 24, 2022pp. 187-202.
88 Tourism Management Essay Topic Ideas & Examples
To predict the behavioural patterns of customers, the availability of the product in the market is optimised with a hope of maximising on revenues. Tourism Disaster Management. In this phase, the main element of the management strategies for the disaster that is going on is assessment of the impacts and reconstruction.
A new way to detect radiation involving cheap ceramics
In the current paper they show that gamma rays also modify the grain boundaries resulting in a faster flow of ions that, in turn, can be easily detected. And because the high-energy gamma rays penetrate much more deeply than UV light, "this extends the work to inexpensive bulk ceramics in addition to thin films," says Tuller.
About 1 in 4 public school teachers experienced a ...
Research Topics . Topics. ... (82 in 2023) and gun safety continues to be a topic in 2024 election campaigns. Teachers' experiences with lockdowns. About a quarter of teachers (23%) say they experienced a lockdown in the 2022-23 school year because of a gun or suspicion of a gun at their school. Some 15% say this happened once during the year ...
Food tourism value: Investigating the factors that influence tourists
As Mak et al. (2017) state, some studies have observed that tourists' interests in and preferences for local food value in a destination can have a pivotal function in affecting destination choices (Cohen and Avieli, 2004; Robinson and Getz, 2016; Sharples and Hall, 2004).The different contributions of local food consumption, which are emotive, functional, epistemic, and social, inspire ...

100+ Tourism Research Topics: Trends and Future Directions

Key Trends in Tourism Research

Technology in Tourism

What is the Importance of Tourism Research for Students?

Academic Enrichment

Skill Development

Industry Insights

Career Opportunities

Contributions to Sustainable Practices

Global Perspective

Problem-Solving Skills

Personal Growth

100+ Tourism Research Topics: Category Wise

Challenges and Opportunities in Tourism Research

Globalization and Tourism

Future Directions in Tourism Research

Post-Pandemic Tourism

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Originality/value

Diseño/metodología/enfoque

Limitaciones/implicaciones de la investigación

Originalidad

1. Introduction

2. Methodology

3.1 Historical number of publications

3.2 Representative journals in the field

3.3 Thematic organisation in the field

3.4 Research trends 2019–2020

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions and limitations

Further reading

Acknowledgements

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1 Introduction

2 Theoretical background and research hypothesis

2.2 The impact of virtual tourism experience on tourists' intrinsic state

2.3 Virtual tourism and tourism experience

2.4 Virtual tourism and virtual attachment

2.5 The impact of tourists' intrinsic state on travel intention

2.5.2 Virtual attachment and travel intention

2.5.3 Virtual attachment and tourism experience

2.5.4 The mediating role of the tourists' intrinsic state

3.1 Research model

3.2 Usability test design and data collection

3.3 Participants

3.4 Material and Procedure

3.5 Descriptive analysis of demographic characteristics

4.1 Measurement model analysis

4.1.2 Measurement model

4.2 Structural model analysis

4.2.2 Mediating effect analysis

4.2.3 Predictive power assessment

5 Discussion and conclusions

5.2 Theoretical implications

5.3 Practical implications

5.4 Limitations and future research

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Present and prospective research themes for tourism and hospitality education post-COVID19: A bibliometric analysis