Mapping and linking well-being, tourism economics, sustainable tourism and sustainable development: an integrative systematisation of the literature and bibliometric analysis

Tourism represents one of the world’s fastest growing and dynamic sectors. It is critical to plan and promote tourism in an intentional and sustainable manner, establishing a balance between a community’s environmental, economic, social and cultural aims. This study provides a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis to map the key findings and interconnections from research linking sustainable tourism, well-being, sustainable development, and tourism economics. A sample of 223 selected papers is analysed, using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol, and a bibliometric analysis using the Bibliometrix software is performed. The findings highlight the existence of three significant clusters: (i) sustainable tourism; (ii) tourism; and (iii) well-being; enabling the proposal of a new taxonomy for sustainable tourism, which contributes to the development of a more comprehensive concept of sustainable tourism. These findings contribute to advancing the still limited knowledge on the mapping and linking of emergent topics, such as sustainable tourism, well-being and sustainable development.