Tourism

Tourism is the temporary movement of people to destinations outside their usual environment for leisure, business or other purposes, together with the range of activities and services supporting that movement. As one of the largest global economic sectors, tourism generates employment, stimulates infrastructure investment and fosters cultural exchange, while also shaping urban planning and rural development. Tourist behaviour encompasses motivations, decision making and emotional responses from trip planning through post-travel reflection, blending hedonic pleasure seeking with quests for meaning and self-development. Visitor experience emerges from the interplay of environmental stimuli, service quality and participatory interactions, giving rise to memorability, place attachment and behavioural intentions. Yet tourism can provoke pressures on local services, heritage sites and ecosystems, with overtourism and climate change posing significant risks to social well-being and environmental integrity. Contemporary research addresses these challenges through ecosystem-service valuation, spatial risk mapping and governance frameworks, alongside technological innovations—such as biometric feedback, immersive media and smart hospitality—that promise more personalised, adaptive and sustainable approaches. Balancing economic opportunity with social equity and environmental stewardship is central to securing tourism’s net-positive impact worldwide.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Analyses of soundscape perceptions in an historic rural town demonstrate that natural audio cues—such as bird song and flowing water—produce stronger flow states and more vivid memories than human-made sounds, thereby boosting intentions to revisit and endorse the destination. A qualitative investigation of family cruise travel in Taiwan identifies three distinct experiential stages—anticipation, participation and recall—and reveals how elements like ports of call, onboard entertainment and culinary offerings jointly drive emotional fulfilment and loyalty throughout the journey. Complementing these insights, a comprehensive model of rural tourism contributions outlines four key dimensions—economic, sociocultural, environmental and educational—confirming that, while economic gains are most pronounced, sociocultural engagement and environmental stewardship represent underexploited avenues for policy-makers aiming to foster inclusive community development.

Tourism publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in tourism across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Soundscape: The combined acoustic environment of a destination, including natural and human-made sounds that influence visitor immersion and memory.

Servicescape: The physical and sensory setting in which tourism services are delivered, encompassing design, ambience and technology.

Co-creation: The collaborative process by which visitors and providers jointly design, personalise and enrich tourism offerings.

Memorable Tourism Experience (MTE): A consciously encoded travel encounter recalled positively over time that influences future behaviour.

Place attachment: The emotional bond and sense of belonging that visitors form with a destination, fostering loyalty and advocacy.

Overtourism: A state in which visitor numbers exceed a destination’s ecological, social or infrastructural capacity, degrading quality of life and environmental integrity.

References

1. The soundscape and tourism experience in rural destinations: an empirical investigation from Shawan Ancient Town. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2024).
2. Exploring motivation via three-stage travel experience: how to capture the hearts of Taiwanese family-oriented cruise tourists. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2023).
3. The benefits of tourism for rural community development. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2023).
4. Experience-driven well-being: the case of unmanned smart hotels. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (2024).
5. Memorable wildlife tourism experience: Evidence from the Mole National Park. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management (2024).
6. Tourism memory, mood repair and behavioral intention. Annals of Tourism Research (2022).