Crime research in hospitality and tourism

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to present a holistic literature review on crime research in the hospitality and tourism field. Design/methodology/approach This literature review included 109 crime-related academic papers in seven primary sources, namely, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost’s hospitality and tourism complete, Emerald Management eJournals, Sage Journals, Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science. Findings From the exploration and synthesis of 109 articles, the following categories of crime research in the hospitality and tourism field emerged as follows: classification of crime research in the hospitality and tourism field; diversity of tourists, crime and risk perceptions; the impacts of crime on the hospitality and tourism industry; and crime control from stakeholders’ papers. In addition, this study advances crime research by proposing six research priorities for future investigation. Practical implications Tourism stakeholders are advised to achieve better cooperation in crime control under the guidance of the crime prevention model. High-technology tools are encouraged to be applied to detect and track criminal activities. Meanwhile, diverse applications of the media should be used as useful tools to control criminal activities in the hospitality and tourism industry. Originality/value This paper fills a gap by presenting the first comprehensive overview of crime research in the hospitality and tourism field in the past few decades and proposing six priorities for this research stream.