Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the global economy, particularly the tourism sector, thus making the interplay of pandemics and tourism a prominent topic of research. This paper aims to provide an overview of scientific research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism and determine future research directions. The main research questions are: 1) Which research topics related to the impact of the pandemic on tourism have been addressed? 2) What are the bibliometric characteristics of published papers on these topics? 3) What are the directions for future research within this field? A qualitative method was applied to obtain answers by analyzing the scientific papers published between March 2020 and March 2021. By applying the PRISMA protocol, a total of 33 relevant articles were identified, which were subjected to bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer, and finally, content analysis was conducted. Thereby, the following key research areas were distinguished: The impacts and consequences of COVID-19 on tourism, the transformation of tourism and post-pandemic recovery strategies, the changes in behavior from the travelers' perspective, and the issues from the perspective of tourism enterprises. Based on the analysis, new research directions are proposed.