Anime tourism: a scoping literature review

Anime tourism has received great interest from academics and practitioners worldwide. Despite this growing attention, comprehensive literature reviews on anime tourism remain scarce. This study conducted a scoping review based on Arksey and O’Malley framework to map the scope and trends of existing research on anime tourism. The research questions were formulated using the PCC (Population, Concept, and Context) mnemonic as the theoretical foundation. Based on predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, 36 English-language peer-reviewed articles published up to and including 2023 were selected from online databases. The findings are presented in two parts: descriptive and thematic analyses. The descriptive analysis revealed that most studies employed qualitative approaches, were East Asia-focused, and visitor-oriented, with anime location tourism (traveling to sites that appear in anime) emerging as the dominant subject. The thematic analysis identified seven key research themes: conceptual characteristics, destination image, visitors’ motivations, visitor activities, destination marketing, relationships with copyright holders, and impacts on tourist destinations. The study contributes by visually mapping the research trends in anime tourism studies and highlights significant research gaps, including conceptual ambiguities, methodological biases, and limited theoretical integration. Finally, it provides implications for advancing anime tourism research and destination marketing strategies.