Innovations in sustainable tourism research: current trends and future research agenda

Abstract

The worldwide growing concerns towards the environmental issues encourage businesses to revise their strategies by adapting sustainability perspective. Changes in the business environment encourage also scientists and researchers to engage. Application of sustainability practices in business strategies requires constant changes and search for innovations. Considering the topicality of the issue, this research aims to indicate the existing trends in application of innovations for the enhancement of tourism sustainabilityand point out the main research vectors to be considered in the future. By adapting systematic literature reviewperspective, weidentifythe mainareasofattention,suggesttopicsand sub-topicsto beconsidered and further developed by researchers. Based on the thorough analysis of titles and keywords, seven research trends were detected. The analysis of the most-cited publications revealed the existence of three research trends: (1) management-focused, (2) sustainability-focused, and (3) smart/ITCs-focused. Moreover, the main future research themes were outlined and named under the area/scope the paperswere focussing on the most: (1) tourism in general, (2) sustainability in general, (3) management, (4) scope, (5) innovation, (6) smart, and (7) method. Theoretical identifications may serve as a substantial background for tourism businesses endeavouring relying their strategies on innovations in order to gain sustainability-based competitive advantages