Progress in space tourism studies: a systematic literature review

This study reviews the literature at the intersection between outer-space and tourism to obtain an overview of space tourism publications. A systematic literature review method was employed to retrieve and analyse relevant journal articles published in the past two decades. A total of 109 papers were identified based on the review protocol and analysed by the year of publication, journal distribution, research method, and leading author. Meanwhile, a hybrid thematic analysis was conducted to categorise all the articles according to tourism research domains. The results showed a rising trend of space tourism publications and an increasing emergence of studies in tourism-oriented journals. It was also found that existing studies are mostly conceptual papers while empirical studies are scant and limited to market research. The implications for ensuing studies were further discussed. This is the first systematic literature review that provides an overview of space tourism publications and the synthesis of research domains.