Curiosity in tourism: A review and future directions

Curiosity increasingly attracts attention in tourism research. However, the field remains conceptually fragmented around what curiosity is and how it works, often pointing to related yet different understandings of the concept. Drawing on an in-depth analysis of 61 peer-reviewed articles, we aim to build a more coherent agenda for future research by answering two core questions: how has curiosity been conceptualised and studied in tourism research, and what gaps and directions emerge from the literature? The analysis reveals that curiosity has been studied in four primary ways in tourism research: an innate motivational driver, a situational mediating state, an outcome state, and a basis for profiling tourist segments. The review also reveals a strong reliance on quantitative methods and limited methodological diversity. This review offers an integrated perspective on the role of curiosity in tourism and identifies opportunities for greater conceptual clarity, methodological breadth, and contextual nuance in future research. • Reviews literature to build a stronger conceptual base for curiosity in tourism. • Identifies four thematic clusters of how curiosity is framed in tourism studies. • Reveals the complexity beneath the intuitive appeal of curiosity in tourism. • Suggests future research paths for clarity, methods, and boundary conditions.