Strategic leadership in the tourism industry: a systematic literature review

Purpose This study presents a systematic review of strategic leadership research in the tourism industry, identifying prevailing trends, theoretical foundations, methodological approaches and critical research gaps to guide future inquiry. Of 47 records screened, 21 met the inclusion criteria. Design/methodology/approach Guided by the PRISMA protocol, the review systematically searched and analyzed peer-reviewed articles from the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases. To mitigate indexing lag and missed variants, we conducted a manual complementary sweep one week after the automated search, including backward/forward citation chasing and target-journal checks. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to ensure relevance, quality and consistency of the selected literature. Findings The review reveals increasing scholarly attention to strategic leadership in tourism, with frequent application of the resource-based view, strategic leadership theory, and upper echelons theory. However, theoretical fragmentation remains, as frameworks such as goal contagion theory, leadership trait theory and Porter's national competitive advantage theory remain underutilized. Methodological inconsistencies also limit generalizability. Originality/value This review is the first PRISMA-aligned synthesis focused squarely on strategic leadership in tourism, offering a comprehensive synthesis of its theoretical and methodological landscape. The study clarifies boundary conditions, highlight blind spots (e.g. limited economics/finance and core-tourism engagement) and propose an integrative research agenda emphasizing theoretical pluralism, methodological breadth, and geographical expansion.