Landscape and Tourism: Evolution of Research Topics

Abstract

Tourism and landscape are broad and complex scientific research fields, as is the synergy between them has given rise to a volume of articles diverse in nature, subject matter and methodology. These difficulties mean that, at present, there is no complete theoretical framework to support this tourism and landscape research, nor complete knowledge of its structure and organization. This motivates the present work, which constitutes the first attempt at mapping this research topic by applying bibliometric techniques using VOSviewer and Science Mapping Analysis Software Tool (SciMAT) software. A total of 3340 articles from journals indexed in Web of Science were analyzed. The results obtained confirm that interest in the study of these concepts has been growing, especially in the last decade. The main contribution of this work lies in the identification of work themes that were basic to the construction of the field but that are currently in decline, such as “cultural heritage” and other themes important to the field that should continue to be dealt with, such as “national parks” or “geotourism”. The transversal nature of sustainability that appears in the network of keywords related to currently emerging themes, such as “planning” and “environment”, is also highlighted and reinforced.

Landscape and Tourism: European Expert Views on an Intricate Relationship

“…As has been broadly recognized (e.g., [28]), tourism and landscape are both vast and complex fields of scientific research, in which there has been a recent rise in volume, subject matter, approach and methodology from various scientific disciplines. Among them, a growing interest in landscapes of tourism has been especially evident in recent years.…”

“…Nevertheless, interest in it has grown, especially in the last decade, as is reflected in the increase of publications in this field and in research topics dealing with landscape and tourism. However, there are few (teams of) researchers specializing and conducting research consistently in this field, while such publications tend to be widely dispersed among relevant publication outlets [28].…”

Landscape valuation of historical tourism site in Northern Iran: A case study from Sheikh-Zahed Tomb

“…Landscape denotes the first and most long-term medium of interaction between traveler and prospective or consumed place of travel (Terkenli 2000). There are many aspects and trends in studies related to landscape and tourism but cultural heritage, geotourism, planning, sustainability and environment are common themes in these studies (Jimenez-Garcia et al 2020). Landscape valuation focused on tourists' welfare and utility, by combining keywords like tourism sustainability and environment in landscape preservation.…”

A model of factors affecting domestic tourist satisfaction on eco-tourism service quality in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

“…Therefore, it can be said that the tourism scene is an important tourism engine, affecting tourist satisfaction. Research by Jiménez-García et al (2020) has shown a positive relationship between the tourism landscape and tourist satisfaction. The above arguments lead to hypothesis H 2 : H 2 : Nature destination landscape correlates to domestic tourists' satisfaction with the quality of ecotourism services in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.…”