Mapping the Evolution of Buddhist Tourism Research: Trends, Key Themes and Future Directions

Year 2025, Volume: 11 Issue: 1, 73 - 93, 30.07.2025

Parul Thakur

https://doi.org/10.26650/jot.2025.10.1.1594782

Abstract

Buddhist tourism represents a dynamic and multifaceted domain within the broader field of religious and cultural tourism, gaining prominence for its socio-cultural and economic implications. Despite its growing importance, a comprehensive understanding of its scholarly landscape remains limited, necessitating an in-depth exploration of existing research. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of literature pertaining to Buddhist tourism, with the primary objectives of understanding the evolving scholarly landscape, identifying key trends, seminal works, influential authors, and emerging research areas. A systematic bibliometric analysis was conducted using English-language articles indexed in Scopus, with a curated dataset of 236 articles analysed to uncover publication patterns, thematic clusters, and scholarly collaborations. Qualitative insights were integrated to complement the quantitative f indings, offering a holistic perspective. The analysis reveals significant insights into the structure and evolution of Buddhist tourism research, including a steady growth in publications with a notable surge in recent years, identification of prominent themes such as sustainable tourism, cultural heritage, and ethical practices, recognition of influential journals like the International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage and prolific authors such as Keji Huang and Chris Ryan, and emerging research areas focused on sustainability, cultural authenticity, and the interplay between religion and tourism. This study contributes to advancing the understanding of Buddhist tourism by mapping its scholarly trajectory and highlighting areas for future research. Policymakers and tourism stakeholders can leverage these insights to foster sustainable and culturally sensitive tourism practices. This research offers a rigorous, systematic analysis of Buddhist tourism literature, providing fresh insights that enrich scholarly discourse and inspire further exploration in this dynamic field.

Keywords

Buddhist tourism , Bibliometric analysis , Citation , Co-citation analysis , VOSviewer

Project Number

2

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