Literary tourism as a field of research over the period 1997-2016

Abstract

Although literary tourism is not a new concept, the academic research in this field has not been able to reach adequate level since it has not come to the forefront yet as a tourism type in many parts of the world. This study aims at examining literary tourism as a field of research and determining its situation within tourism studies through a literature review. 132 articles over the period 1997-2016 included in the study were analysed regarding the journals they were published, research methods, research areas, literary tourism types and research themes by using content analysis technique. Although the study found that literary tourism is a wide-range academic field with its eight types and its relations with many tourism types and other social sciences as an interdisciplinary field, it also revealed academic research is limited except many regions of Europe. Literary tourism studies demonstrate that literary tourism has high research potential as an academic field since the results of studies show that literary tourism research cannot be generalised and they can vary according to literary figures. The studies also point out that literary tourism provides numerous benefits to destinations when developed as a special interest tourism type.