Abstract:
Tourism as a cultural ecosystem service within protected areas remains an under-researched
domain despite its pivotal role in supporting conservation and host communities around these
entities. This study used a bibliometric approach to review 116 articles from the Scopus database
related to tourism and cultural ecosystem services in protected areas. Citation, bibliographic
coupling, co-authorship, and co-occurrence analyses were conducted using VOS Viewer. The
findings showed few studies from the Global South, particularly in African countries. The extant
studies leaned towards ecology rather than tourism perspectives. The dominant themes were
assessments, mapping, supply and demand, land use planning, conservation, use of social media
research, human-nature interactions, climate change impacts and sustainable development. The
evident gaps for further studies in tourism were niche tourism products, climate change
adaptability and mitigation, impacts of tourism, stakeholder engagement and management,
payment for ecosystem services, using social indicators for assessments and efficacy of using
social media for tourism research. Empirical studies would be particularly key in providing
primary data to inform policy and practice. The study points out knowledge gaps and sets the
agenda for future studies.
