Methodological landscapes in tourism crisis management: A systematic mapping review of research designs, 2007–2025

Type of the article: Research ArticleAbstractThis study systematically reviews methodological approaches in tourism crisis management research, examining 374 peer-reviewed articles indexed in Scopus and published between 2007 and 2025. Following PRISMA guidelines, 411 records were identified through a structured Scopus search, and 37 were excluded during screening (15 not substantively addressing crisis management in tourism and 22 falling outside the 2007–2025 window), yielding a final sample of 374 articles. Each article was classified along two dimensions: crisis type (COVID-19/health, war/political/terrorism, natural disaster, financial/economic, or general) and research methodology (paradigm, specific methods, analytical techniques). Classification drew on titles, abstracts, and author keywords rather than full texts; findings should be interpreted accordingly. Because the search string required at least one methodology-related term, the corpus represents the methodology-signaling segment of the literature, and reported shares should be read within that scope. The findings reveal a corpus dominated by qualitative research (56.4% of articles), led by interviews (34.2%) and surveys (21.7%). COVID-19 and health-related crises account for 57.2% of the corpus, confirming a strong post-2020 concentration. Experimental designs appear in 0.8% of articles and longitudinal designs in 2.7%. In comparison, mixed methods research remains at 5.9%, indicating persistent gaps in designs best suited to causal inference and to tracking crises over time. The study contributes a five-category crisis typology, an evidence-based diagnostic of methodological strengths and gaps, and a research agenda for methodological diversification. Practically, stronger and more diverse methodologies improve the evidence base for tourism organizations, destination authorities, and public administrators making decisions under uncertainty.