A Conceptual Evaluation of Revenge Tourism

Abstract

Travel after the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected the whole world, has created a phenomenon called "revenge tourism" combined with people's desire to make up for missed vacations. The psychological tension, pressure, and distancing from the daily routine experienced by individuals due to Covid -19 have given rise to this trend. Since the person engaging in revenge tourism behaves in a way that indicates a willingness to spend more money and stay longer, this form of travel will be crucial for capturing pre-pandemic global tourism data. In this study, international articles, papers, book chapters, and research notes written in the academic field were examined by systematic review method in order to examine revenge tourism more closely. Since it is a conceptual study, the systematic review method was adopted, with the  goal of comprehensively evaluating the studies on the issue. In this context, 73 publications were accessed from Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar databases, and 31 publications were evaluated within the scope of certain inclusion and exclusion criteria. While the year 2022 ranked first with 15 publications in terms of the distribution of publications by year, articles (15) ranked first in terms of type, and qualitative (19), quantitative (10) and mixed (2) methods were preferred in terms of methodology, respectively. In line with the publications examined; it was determined that negative emotions such as exhaustion, anxiety, and fear caused by the epidemic triggered revenge tourism, and destination preferences shifted towards nature and open-air areas. In addition, it has been revealed that the overtourism problem caused by revenge tourism is an issue that needs to be addressed by tourism stakeholders. In this context, sectoral incentives for the implementation of sustainability strategies and in-house programs to raise awareness of tourists can be recommended. Due to the demand for nature-based tourism, this issue can be emphasized in destination promotions.