Abstract
Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) can be a valuable tourism resource for both government and local communities. However, the complex definition and the massive and fragmented nature of ICH data make it hard to review and conclude research trends and future directions of ICH tourism. In this study, 85 keywords extracted from ICH definitions are input in the Web of Science database before collecting papers indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index, the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, and the Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Social Science and Humanities. Later, a systematic literature review of 418 ICH tourism studies from 76 countries published between 2000 and 2021 were conducted based on three groups of questions. The findings mainly illustrated that: (1) Currently research in ICH tourism is mainly composed of three themes: resource planning and sustainability, the impact of tourism development, and tourist behavior and destination marketing; (2) topics related to food tourism, sacred knowledge, traditional management systems, traditional management systems, legends, and myths can achieve high impact; (3) in the last five years, scholars have reduced using the official full name of ICH in tourism studies, while the category of “social practices, rituals and festive events” has become a hot topic since 2010; (4) ecotourism, culinary tourism, festival tourism, and religious tourism are the most discussed in ICH tourism research, and they will still be intensive topics in near future; (5) future directions in ICH tourism research are resultant of three vectors: place making, technology, and environment. The results present a comprehensive picture of current popular ICH topics and predict future directions in the field of ICH tourism. The systematic review of literature can help contribute to both theoretical construction, heritage preservation, and tourism practices.
Highlights
The significance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) has been widely recognized from the perspective of both cultural diversity and destination marketing
The literature review methodology was used to discuss the current status of ICH tourism research, and Web of Science (WOS) was chosen as the data source, which has the longest period of published scientific papers covering most scientific disciplines
This article solved the problem of defining vague domains and complex explanations of ICH by writing a literature review and taking a look into high-quality articles indexed in Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), A&HCI, and CPCI-SSH
Summary
The significance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) has been widely recognized from the perspective of both cultural diversity and destination marketing. China has registered most ICH in UNESCO, ICHs are classified into more specific catalogs in the list published by the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China (CPGPRC): traditional oral literature and the language as its vehicle; traditional art, calligraphy, music, dance, drama, folk art, and acrobatic; traditional technique, medicine, and calendar; traditional etiquette, festival, and other folk customs; traditional sport and entertainment; and other intangible cultural heritage [7] These domains are more applicable in tourism development with these descriptions, but it excludes some ICH types which are not suitable in economic practice
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
