Mapping the Thematic Evaluation and Future Directions of Space Tourism Research

The concept of space tourism is more than two decades old, and business organizations are now configuring their plans to launch commercial services in this domain. Due to several challenges, extremely limited attempts have been made so far in this context; however, the global space tourism market is bound to develop in the near future. This article attempts to uncover the literary work available in the domain of space tourism by analyzing the trends and prophesying the potential future research directions. The bibliometric review and synthesis of relevant studies of space tourism research are used for delving into the valuable insights. Bibliographic information from the Scopus database (299 documents) from 1988 to 2024 has been considered for the further analysis with Bibliometrix package of R Studio and synthesis of 47 documents to summarize the insights. The results exhibited bibliographic information in the form of significant sources, authors, countries, references, institutions, and keywords. In addition, the outcome was obtained for impact evaluation of the authors along with the co-citation analysis. The findings further presented the thematic evaluation and potential future directions for significant themes that evolved from past research on space tourism. The scholarly gap in the area of space tourism is bridged through this study as it reviews the previous studies of space tourism in an elaborate manner. By uncovering the relevant themes, underlying trends, and suggesting future research directions, this study extends a foundational support to the academicians, researchers, and practitioners of the space industry for inducing the future growth to space tourism worldwide. This study precisely analyzes the inventive bibliographic information from the Scopus database and adds substantial value to space tourism research by soliciting valuable insights from synthesis of 47 documents to uncover the thematic evaluation and future research directions in the domain of space tourism.