Mapping Creative Tourism Research: Reviewing the Field and Outlining Future Directions

Abstract

This study presents a bibliometric review of creative tourism literature aimed at understanding the main research topics and approaches, theoretical foundations, and the most recent areas of investigation. Sixty-four articles on creative tourism were selected and analyzed using co-citation analysis, content analysis, and bibliographic coupling. Findings reveal that creative tourism is a well-defined field of studies with three main research topics; namely, Tourist Experience and Co-Creation, Creativity in Tourism, and Cultural Tourism and Events. Furthermore, several theoretical approaches can be applied to a different set of empirical contexts, among which co-creation and experience economy play a major role. An analysis of the most recent publications identifies five promising research trends and allows some conclusions about the opportunities for future research to be drawn.