Astrotourism as Special Interest Tourism: Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Astrotourism as special interest tourism is increasingly gaining attention from scientists and practitioners. The paper presents an overview of recent research in the field of this new form of tourism, which began as a kind of market niche, to become today a respectable form of tourism offer in many countries of the world. The overview provided in the paper should serve as a conceptual framework for considering the category of astrotourism and understanding its application in practice. It is expected that the current situation of pandemics will increasingly turn the motives and interests of the tourist market towards the scientific and ecological (more sophisticated) forms of tourist offer, and in this sense this paper gets in actuality.

Keywords

• astrotourism
• space tourism
• educational tourism
• eco tourism
• light pollution
• dark-sky parks