1. Introduction

Cultural tourism is argued to be one of the biggest segments of global tourism. It is also often quoted as being one of the fastest growing tourism markets worldwide, even though evidence for this is lacking (^{Richards, 2021}). It is not surprising, therefore, that cultural tourism attracts a great deal of attention from both policymakers and academics. A recent bibliography lists over 1500 cultural tourism sources (Richards, 2025), with a particularly sharp increase in publications since 2016. As the cultural tourism literature has grown, many studies have also attempted to analyse the cultural tourism literature.

This growing body of literature indicates a pressing need to summarise and synthesise the current state of knowledge and the evolution of perspectives on cultural tourism, also in relation to other fields. The standard tool for such a task is a literature review. A recent review of work on Cultural and Creative Tourism in rural areas, for example, identified 13 literature reviews in the field, all of which had been published since 2018 (^{Richards et al., 2025}). Most of these literature reviews are structured reviews produced in very similar ways. They search sources on WOS or Scopus, or both, and then produce a bibliometric analysis that shows key themes, key authors, countries of publication and universities. It often appears that these reviews actually add little to our knowledge and understanding of the field. In addition, not an overwhelmingly quantitative approach, they often pay little or no attention to the context of cultural tourism. There is precious little mention of policy, of wider economic developments or cultural and social issues that might affect the literature being produced.

The current review therefore attempts to do something slightly different. It is not based on a quantitative bibliometric analysis, or algorithmic curation. This approach seeks to avoid the tendency to focus on the quantitative volume of research output and instead identify patterns and important outliers that can provide indications of fruitful future research directions.

Curation is a process of value creation through organisation and selection (^{Mars, Schau & Thorp, 2023}). In this case, the curation process is used to organise and select from the recent cultural tourism literature of the field. The key elements of this structure include a focus on literature reviews, which synthesise a large volume of previous research, books, which act as incubators of ideas in contrast to the more limited article format, and the inclusion of sources in languages other than English, which serves to broaden the cultural and intellectual view of the field (^{Richards et al., 2022}). The meta-review process has previously been employed by Richards et al. (2025) to construct a view of cultural tourism in rural areas.

The current review covers the period 2018-2025, ranging from the publication of a widely cited review of the field (^{Richards, 2018}) to the present. The intention is therefore to build on and extend previous research, rather than going over old ground. According to ^{Snyder (2019}), an integrative literature review should assess, critique, and synthesize the literature to enable new insights to emerge. This review aims to develop new insights from recent research on cultural tourism, highlighting new trends and research gaps.

The paper is structured as follows. Firstly, the methods used to identify suitable sources are described. The contextual factors affecting the recent development of cultural tourism are then briefly considered. A meta-analysis of previous literature reviews then outlines some of the major trends in the literature, and recent books on cultural tourism are also specifically considered. The paper concludes with some considerations for future research perspectives.

2. Methods

A search was conducted on Scopus in August 2025 to identify articles and books related to cultural tourism, and in particular literature reviews, published between 2019 and 2025. The titles and keywords of articles were searched for the terms “cultural tourism” or “cultural heritage tourism”. This generated a total of 844 items, which were screened for relevance. This further screening left 356 items, which were ranked in terms of relevance and citations before the selection was reviewed. The database was examined for books dealing with cultural tourism, which generated 13 titles. The search was repeated with the terms “literature review” or “bibliometric” to identify specific literature review studies. This yielded 70 sources, and after screening 30 literature reviews were retained for analysis. Additional searching was then conducted for the same terms on Google Scholar in order to identify potentially relevant sources not identified via the Scopus search, particularly in languages other than English (which accounted for 89% of results in Scopus).

Given the qualitative focus of the current paper, no specific bibliometric analysis was conducted.

3. The changing context of cultural tourism

Recent years have seen a number of important contextual developments for the study of cultural tourism. These include the effects of Covid, the virtual pivot in tourism and culture and other technological developments, the rise of Intangible Culture Heritage, and shifts in tourism and cultural policy.

4. Literature reviews on cultural tourism, 2019-2025

In recent years there have been many reviews produced on cultural tourism, reflecting a growing trend in academic research in general. We identified a total of 30 relevant literature reviews produced between 2019 and 2025 (Table 1).

Many of these literature reviews concentrate on cultural heritage tourism and ICH, which has become an increasing policy concern (^{Richards et al., 2025}). Some important themes are also highlighted within the overall cultural tourism field, including music and performing arts, rural areas, technology and digitalisation, gastronomy and cultural routes.

The increased application of technology in cultural tourism is reflected in six reviews dealing with digital technologies and innovation. For example, ^{Quiroz-Fabra et al. (2022}) identify gamification and e-Learning as specific applications of technology in cultural tourism, including the development of serious games, and gamification techniques within varied scenarios. Gastronomy is highlighted as a major growth area by ^{Zhang and Guo (2022}), who see this as one of the most important sub-themes of cultural tourism research. Gastronomy also relates to increased attention for cultural tourism in rural areas, where food and food-related events provide an important basis for experiences (^{Fisker, Kwiatkowski & Hjalager, 2021}).

Most reviews are quantitative and bibliometric in approach, and they reveal some key trends in the literature. In their review of cultural tourism geographies, ^{Palermo, Chieffallo and Virgilio (2023}) identify a growing link between tourism and cultural heritage in the literature, with increased attention for intangible heritage. The tourism and heritage link is also reflected in the main keywords in the reviews. Chen et al. (2022) note that “cultural tourism”, “authenticity”, “sustainable development” and “protection (or conservation)” are common topics. De Santana, Maracajá and de Araújo Machado (2021) also found seven main themes, including tourism perspectives, identity, residents' and visitors’ perceptions, cultural tourism and social capital, and cultural conservation attitudes. More recently, they note the emergence of communication, authenticity, augmented reality and visitor experience.

A number of reviews deal with specific cultural tourism niches, such as music tourism, which ^{Mazlan, Abdullah, Nor Hashim and Abdul Wahid (2025}) argue contributes to cultural preservation, regional identity, and economic growth. They highlight the potential of augmented and virtual reality in music tourism, while also arguing the need for inclusive strategies to ensure authenticity and sustainability. Cultural routes are also attracting more attention, with two reviews on this topic. Vada, Dupre and Zhang (2023) suggest route-based tourism is becoming more personalised, and the use of technology is advancing rapidly. However, research on cultural routes has been largely confined to the global North, with less attention for emerging destinations.

Most literature reviews note the considerable growth of cultural tourism research (although none analyse this in relation to the academic literature as a whole). They also often note the leading position of China among the producers of cultural tourism research, which is reflected in six of the reviews having lead authors based in China. Chen et al. (2022) made a specific study of the Chinese literature, and found that “cultural tourism”, “authenticity”, “sustainable development” and “protection (or conservation)” were common topics. Chinese authors were particularly likely to focus on the relationship between ICH protection and tourism development, research on the development model, and stakeholder research in tourism development.

Chen et al. (2022) note that cultural tourism in China has developed rapidly in recent years, with an evolution from an emphasis on Cultural Heritage Protection to the Comprehensive Development of Cultural Heritage and most recently, more attention for consumer behaviour. Cultural tourism research in China has been stimulated by national policies driving the integration of culture and tourism. This is reflected in the literature by studies of Cultural Creative Tourism policies in China, which seeks to link Culture, seen as an expression of national identity, to Creativity, envisaged as a means of increasing tourists’ understanding of culture and their engagement with it (^{Zhang, Ruan & Yang, 2021}).

The main themes that emerge from the reviews include authenticity, sustainability, cultural heritage and identity, technology and gastronomy. Areas that seem to have received less attention include social aspects of cultural tourism, such as relationships between residents and visitors, and governance issues. The analysis of literature reviews reveals a fairly mechanistic and uncritical approach, based largely on quantitative, bibliometric analysis. The main findings often relate to the frequency of keywords, most prolific authors and clusters of themes and authorship. However, these findings are rarely contextualised, for example in terms of the policy frameworks in areas where research is being produced, or the disciplinary background of the authors. There is also little consideration of how trends in cultural tourism research map onto other areas of tourism research or link to other disciplines. There is also a fairly uncritical approach to cultural tourism and its various niches as growing areas of research. Although ^{Richards (2025}) provides empirical evidence for an increase in cultural tourism literature as a proportion of tourism research, none of the reviews analysed here consider the position of their subject matter within the wider field. As academic production as a whole has grown dramatically in recent years, it is to be expected that publications will also increase in most sub-fields.

As a number of reviews indicate, China is a major driver of this growth, spurred on by a growing number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS), intangible heritage designations and the integration of national tourism and cultural policies. This also reflects a wider global trend towards the democratisation of cultural tourism, which has graduated from being a niche tourism market for highly educated consumers to being a broad field composed of many distinct niches. Terminology has developed to take account of this change, with many new niches being identified and conjunct terms such as Cultural Creative Tourism emerging.

As in previous decades, the scope of culture engaged by cultural tourism has also expanded. In the last 20 years this has perhaps been most obvious in urban environments, where subcultures have provided a rich stream of cultural content for tourism in the form of street art, new gastronomic trends and creative clusters. As ^{Roberts and Townsend (2016}) note, however, cultural capital is also expanding in rural areas through contemporary creative processes, cultural routes, community arts, creative hubs and clusters, crafts and archives. They argue this provides a broader perspective than the cluster approach often found in cities towards a wider role for creatives in the community. This should also provide new opportunities for rural cultural tourism in the future.

5. Recent books on cultural tourism

There have been a number of significant book publications in recent years that have expanded and deepened our understanding of cultural tourism. Books often provide a more reflexive approach to their subject matter than articles, which are constrained by journal page limits and standardised formats. In this section we review the books we identified dealing specifically with cultural tourism since 2018.

The volume Cultural Heritage and Tourism: An Introduction by Dallen ^{Timothy (2020}) is the second edition of this comprehensive textbook. We are introduced to cultural heritage as “one of the most salient elements of the global tourism system”. Heritage tourism refers to travellers experiencing built heritage, living culture or manifestations of art, both tangible and intangible. Timothy recognises a large overlap between cultural and heritage tourism, which he argues is not confined to the past. The book covers the complexities of dealing with heritage and its interpretation, including issues of amnesia and contested heritage - now becoming all too topical with debates about diversity policies in the USA. As Timothy notes “there are few tourism resources that are as political as heritage.” He deals with a wide range of issues, including commodification, indigenous cultural tourism and the treatment of the industrial past. In concluding reflections on ‘The Future of the Past’ the book touches on many themes in recent literature reviews, including authenticity, the link with other tourism sectors, cultural routes and technology. He also identifies notable research gaps, including cross-border cultural tourism and the heritage of border.

Another updated publication is Cultural Tourism by ^{Du Cros and McKercher (2020}). Originally entitled Cultural Tourism: The Partnership Between Tourism and Cultural Heritage this revamped version still attempts to “bridge the gap between cultural tourism and cultural and heritage management” by adopting “an umbrella approach” to the field. It pays attention to the assets that form the basis of cultural tourism, including tangible and intangible cultural heritage, as well as the profile of cultural tourists, supported by ^{McKercher and Du Cros’ (2003)} cultural tourism typology. This revised edition provides new content on sustainability, climate change, the threat of de-globalization, overtourism and social media. There is also more attention for the development of economy through sections on experience creation, accessibility and inclusivity and the creative industries.

Rethinking Cultural Tourism (^{Richards, 2021}) provides an overview of cultural tourism research, structured through a social practice perspective. Richards argues that traditional systems of supply and demand are increasingly challenged by new technologies and cultural globalisation and localisation, such that a practice approach that breaks down the producer/consumer divide is ever more relevant. It provides an analysis of new practices and spaces of cultural tourism, including street art, “New Tourist Areas”, walking tours and the curation of cultural tourism experiences. This volume, as noted in a review by ^{Qu (2022}) retains an urban focus, which reflects the strong links between cultural and urban tourism (^{Richards,2022}). This volume links together many different themes in the cultural tourism field, employing practice theory and the model of Interaction Ritual Chains (^{Collins, 2004}). This can be contextualised by the ‘practice turn’ in the social sciences in general, and in recent tourism literature (Bargeman & Richards, 2020).

A monograph on Cultural Tourism and Cantonese Opera (^{Luo, 2022}) positions Cantonese Opera as a cultural product of the Greater Bay Area of southern China. Cantonese opera is a traditional Chinese art form combining music, song, martial arts, acrobatics and acting into a richly symbolic performance, which was designated as UNESCO ICH in 2009. This artform declined in recent decades, and tourism has been seen as one means of reviving the tradition. The book starts with a general introduction to the background of Cantonese Opera and analyses the development of Cantonese opera as heritage and the challenges of conserving the artform in the face of globalisation. A case study of Macau analyses how recent support for cultural heritage stems from a desire to diversify a tourism economy dominated by casinos.

Asia is also the setting for the book Cultural tourism in the Asia Pacific: heritage, city and rural hospitality (^{Wong, See & Milligan, 2024}). This edited collection reviews many aspects of cultural tourism, including nature and rural conservation policy and conflicts, ethnic minority heritage and folklore traditions and performances, and urban tourism activities. It highlights the unique features of cultural tourism in the Asia Pacific region in both rural and urban settings, although the contributions mainly focus on China and Malaysia.

^{Trono, Castronuovo and Kosmas (2024}) edited a volume on Managing natural and cultural heritage for a durable tourism, which examines the challenges of ‘neoliberal tourism’ and the prospects for tourism degrowth. It argues there is a need to integrate cultural and natural heritage to increase the durability of tourism and attempts to develop a theoretical framework to this end. There is notable coverage of tangible (WHS) and intangible heritage, as well as the link between cultural and natural heritage. The global perspective includes much attention for cultural routes, mountain areas including the Alps and the Auvergne, cross-border areas, cultural landscapes, Buddhist Cultural Heritage in India and natural and marine sites. Innovative approaches are highlighted, including Virtual Heritage and Immersive Technologies in Jordan, Gamification and the Playable City and Artistic Hosting “an emergent urban artistic practice and hyper-local, micro residency model embedded in the private home settings, often the artists own.” This volume is notable for its emphasis on “the need to ‘govern’ tourism, imposing controls and seeking to attract moderate flows of quality tourists, including less affluent tourists, who are attentive to the environment”.

The book Cultural Tourism Perspectives, Opportunities and Challenges edited by ^{Korstanje and Catenazzo (2024}) also includes many diverse perspectives, including revisiting the work of Marc Augé, the Appropriation of Rural Culture, Maritime Tragedies and the intangible cultural heritage of the Elaphite Islands in Croatia (curiously included twice). However, the book contains no introduction or conclusion.

The monograph edited by ^{Borowiecki, Fresa and Martín Civantos (2025}) on Innovative cultural tourism in European peripheries derives from the INCULTUM EU-funded Horizon 2020 project. It analyses innovative business models such as ecosystem services contracts and digital narrative platforms, as means to enhance the sustainability and economic development of peripheral regions. This envisages the expansion of cultural tourism from a consumer product to a social tool. Contributions to this volume cover innovative business models, water heritage, cultural routes and cultural memory, but there is unfortunately no concluding chapter to tie these strands together.

A recent edited volume on The Future of Cultural Tourism examines different future scenarios for cultural tourism (^{Matteucci, Moretti, Calvi & Weber-Sabil (2025}). This examines the underlying theme of authenticity from a variety of perspectives, including Posthumanist Cultural Tourism, Slow Cultural Tourism and cultural tourism in the Metaverse. In the final chapter ^{Moretti and Matteucci} conclude that cultural tourism has become vaguer and more porous, now so fluid that it is difficult to chart clear futures. They conclude that the future of cultural tourism is most likely to be heterotopian rather than utopian or distopian. This perspective reflects the growing power struggles over heritage and its meaning.

The Handbook of Research on Cultural Tourism and Sustainability (Ribeiro de Almeida, Martins, Gonçalves, ^{Quinteiro & Gasparini, 2022}) provides sections dealing with Concepts and Methodologies, Stakeholder analysis and Case studies. The first section pays a lot of attention to sustainability, the second on various stakeholder groups, including the creative sector, and the third offers diverse case studies, including literary tourism, pilgrimage and favelas.

In the volume Nuovo turismo culturale: Il marketing delle emozioni (New cultural tourism: The marketing of emotions) ^{Croci (2024}) argues that mass cultural tourism is at risk of becoming a frustrating and unsatisfying experience in the face of rising digital expectations. The ‘new cultural tourism’, in contrast, involves a more thoughtful form of travel to create authentic connections between people and places. She emphasises Sustainability, Authenticity, Empathy and respect as being central to this process.

The growing range of books and research monographs on cultural tourism is at least partly related to recent EU-funded cultural tourism research, which also shows a pivot from urban to rural and remote areas (^{Richards et al., 2025}). EU Horizon projects include large numbers of researchers and therefore favour the production of multi-author edited volumes. These have the advantage of being able to develop and sustain a line of argument, although not all take this opportunity.

One of the important themes that emerge from these books is the need to analyse the governance structures and processes that influence cultural tourism. This has become more important as cultural research has shifted from urban to rural and peripheral areas, and as intangible heritage has taken on a more important role in cultural tourism production and consumption. These volumes also underline the growing range of approaches to cultural tourism research, which is increasingly focusses on rural and peripheral areas, and the range of cases now available in different global regions.

6. Conclusions

The current review concurs with many recent studies in identifying a growing and diversifying body of cultural tourism research. ^{Richards (2025}) concludes that cultural tourism research is growing more rapidly than tourism research in general, even though the share of cultural tourism in international tourism flows remains stable. The effects of cultural tourism, as many studies indicate, go far beyond the number of tourists or volume of spend, because they include qualitative effects on local culture, the experience of place and the ‘atmosphere’ of the destination. A growing number of studies also recognise that cultural tourists have the potential to make important links with local residents, challenging the current antipathy towards ‘mass cultural tourism’ in some areas (Croce, 2024).

One of the most striking features of cultural tourism research in recent years has been the focus on technological change, particularly the growth of social media. Digital platforms and their users have a growing influence on travel decisions, highlighted by the flooding of small villages by sudden flows of tourists and the formation of ‘TikTok queues’ in cities such as Amsterdam. The growing volume of digital content creates a need for curation to support user choices (Richards, 2024). This is also changing the relationships between consumers, producers and a range of new intermediaries, which are now beginning to be investigated (^{Concha, 2019}).

The new digital landscape of cultural tourism is also stimulating demand for brands and labels, most notably the UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) and Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) designations. The effects of these brands are now the subject of extensive research, particularly related to tangible cultural heritage, but also increasingly to ICH. This movement also seems to be stimulating an analytical shift away from culture in general towards heritage, and from cultural tourism to cultural heritage tourism. However, cultural heritage tourism is not only rarely defined or distinguished from cultural tourism, but it also currently lacks a sound theoretical basis (^{Mzembe, Koens & Calvi, 2023}). This is clearly a gap that will need consideration in future research. There are also interesting parallels between current debates and those which emerged in the 1980s surrounding ‘heritage’. At that time, ^{Hewison (1987}) linked the preference for heritage over culture to Thatcherite discourse, which viewed ‘culture’ in a negative light. We might well be seeing a return to such positions with the rise of populism.

The growing centrality of heritage in the cultural tourism literature also calls for an assessment of the effects of this. For example, will this decrease attention for culture in the broader sense, and the issues linked to this (such as cultural rights, for example)? Will a heritage emphasis privilege more traditional readings of culture over more contemporary ones? This is particularly important given the increasing digitalisation of culture and the growth of hybrid cultures stimulated by migration, which might complicate the supposed link between communities and ‘local’ culture.

On a global scale, it is encouraging that a previously Anglo-Saxon centred field is now being enriched by a copious stream of research from China and to a lesser extent from other Asian countries. This has introduced new perspectives on cultural tourism, most notably the concept of ‘Cultural Creative Tourism’ linked to national policy in China. There is a danger that the previous hegemony will be replaced by a parallel development of research agendas in the West and China, with other world regions largely marginalised. This tendency is strengthened by the linguistic barriers in research (^{Richards et al., 2022}).

7. Future research perspectives

The broadening and fragmenting field of cultural tourism research presents us with a challenge of connecting the different streams of research in a way that develops better insights rather than silos of knowledge. We not only need to connect the different streams within the tourism literature, but we also need to link tourism research with work in cultural studies, regional studies and other fields. We should engage more actively with the urban and rural development literature, also considering the role of governance structures on the development of cultural tourism.

The shift towards intangible culture and the rise of creativity in tourism also presents a number of new perspectives, for example on the role of the ‘creative class’ in cultural tourism and the use of creativity as an attraction for tourists. One area that has gained increasing attention is the role of ‘coolness’ in making places more attractive to visit, and this in turn generates more attention for the role of youth as ‘coolseekers’ and creators. This may suggest that future cultural tourism attractions will not only have to be ‘authentic’, but also rebellious, original and vibrant (^{Pai, Liang, Chen & Zhang, 2025}). The circulation of ‘cool’ places on social media also places more emphasis on the role of new technology in cultural tourism markets. The previous idea of cultural supply being packaged and distributed by the travel industry is changing - particularly through algorithmic and social curation of places.

The new-found concern with governance in cultural tourism is welcome, but it tends to concentrate on a relatively limited range of stakeholders. Local residents and tourists, for example, are not seen as stakeholders, even though they are impacted by tourism activity. The shift from destination management to place management (^{Friel, 2024}) may broaden this approach, as tourists and residents are seen as placemaking actors who can initiate change in the destination.

Declaration of competing interest

None