Systematic Review and Future Direction of Neuro-Tourism Research

Abstract

Neuro-tourism is the application of neuroscience in tourism to improve marketing methods of the tourism industry by analyzing the brain activities of tourists. Neuro-tourism provides accurate real-time data on tourists’ conscious and unconscious emotions. Neuro-tourism uses the methods of neuromarketing such as brain–computer interface (BCI), eye-tracking, galvanic skin response, etc., to create tourism goods and services to improve tourist experience and satisfaction. Due to the novelty of neuro-tourism and the dearth of studies on this subject, this study offered a comprehensive analysis of the peer-reviewed journal publications in neuro-tourism research for the previous 12 years to detect trends in this field and provide insights for academics. We reviewed 52 articles indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) core collection database and examined them using our suggested classification schema. The results reveal a large growth in the number of published articles on neuro-tourism, demonstrating a rise in the relevance of this field. Additionally, the findings indicated a lack of integrating artificial intelligence techniques in neuro-tourism studies. We believe that the advancements in technology and research collaboration will facilitate exponential growth in this field.

Keywords

• neuroscience
• neuromarketing
• neuro-tourism
• artificial intelligence
• brain–computer interface
• electroencephalography