Tourism and Land Planning in Natural Spaces: Bibliometric Approach to the Structure of Scientific Concepts

Abstract

Tourism management involves using a systematic approach to spatial planning that involves multiple variables in land planning. However, it is common to find multiple approaches for the more negative aspects of tourism, such as its impact on natural spaces. On the other hand, the idea of including tourism in land planning finds unanimous support in academia. Although scientific research on tourism and land planning in natural areas is significant, many topics do not receive sufficient attention and the domain has not yet been subject to a systematic analysis, which is the purpose of the present study. To this end, bibliometric data is gathered from the Scopus database and analyzed through a bibliometric approach involving keyword analysis with Pearson correlation coefficient. The results indicate that development, landscaping, and management are the most researched topics, followed by community and system, natural/nature, and the local community. The results of the detailed analysis of the word “tourism” connected with planning in natural spaces reveal that research in the area defends sustainable management, economic growth, energy management and monitoring, and the adoption of a green economy model by the hospitality industry. By featuring the overall structure of research on tourism and land planning in natural spaces published in Scopus, this study provides helpful and timely information to researchers, scholars, destination managers, industry managers, and tourism and hospitality consultants.