Self-congruity theory in tourism research: A systematic review and future research directions

Abstract

This study aims to generate future research directions by discovering how self-congruity theory has been applied in tourism research so far. The systematic literature review method was employed and 53 articles applying self-congruity theory published in 20 top-tier tourism journals between 1992-2019 were content analysed. Findings revealed that the most prominent journal in publishing self-congruity research was the Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, most of the relevant articles followed a quantitative research design and utilized the new method of measuring self-congruity which obviates the discrepancy scores problem of the traditional method by measuring self-congruity directly, actual self-congruity was the most considered self-congruity dimension and the theory was investigated mostly with regards to destinations. Future directions for self-congruity researchers were generated according to these parameters.