Rural Tourism as a Transformative Service of Community Well-Being: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

This study aims to look at the pattern and focus of rural tourism research over the last two decades. How much current research on rural tourism has centered on the position of rural tourism as a transformative service industry, in particular. A rigorous search is conducted in the current scientific literature databases, integrating narrative review and bibliometric research, to evaluate this correlation as well as to assess the effect of rural tourism growth on the various actors in the ecosystem (i.e., local population, local service providers, local authorities, tourists). It also includes a narrative study of clusters of topics under the headings of rural tourism and community well-being. We conducted a systematic thematic and material study of our chosen literature in addition to bibliometric analysis. Finally, a critical analysis of the methodologies used in the field of rural tourism is conducted. Since the connection between tourism growth and local TSR is still being researched, this study uses well-being (and other related terms) as an inclusion criterion for all types of tourism in rural areas. The report also aims to assess research progress on terms related to rural tourism, such as eco-tourism, nature tourism, adventure tourism, and community-based tourism, from 2010 to 2020. Furthermore, the study examines the relationship between rural tourism and well-being before and after 2010. The choice of 2010 as the turning point reflects the fact that after 2010, the relation between TSR (or wellbeing) and rural tourism becomes more visible. By using title, citations, publication journal and year, author information, keywords (name, countries, and institutions analysis), and author information, this search provides us with an aesthetic nature of our research. This paper set an agenda for future research in the field. Future researchers will get a clear insight about literature gap in the field of tourism industry.