Regenerative tourism through a dual-lens ADO-TCM systematic literature review: a behavioral-structural framework and wellness research agenda

Regenerative tourism has grown rapidly but remains conceptually diffuse and empirically thin. This review develops a behaviorally specified conceptual framework and proposes wellness tourism as an under-examined demand-side bridge for future inquiry. Following the SPAR-4-SLR protocol, 45 Scopus-indexed articles in ABDC 2025-listed journals were synthesized through an integrated Antecedents–Decisions–Outcomes and Theories–Contexts–Methods (ADO-TCM) framework. Screening agreement was near-perfect (Cohen’s κ = 0.858); extraction was double-coded and reconciled to consensus. The corpus reveals a coherent but lopsided structure: six antecedent families act through mediating mechanisms, chiefly regenerative mindset and experience quality, to shape regenerative behavior and five outcome families. The field is richly theorized through Living Systems Theory but lacks demand-side behavioral theory, concentrates on Global North, supply-side contexts, and relies overwhelmingly on qualitative designs. As among the first integrated ADO-TCM syntheses of regenerative tourism, this paper proposes a behavioral-structural model anchoring Living Systems Theory and, as an abductive extension, Self-Determination Theory, and sets a demand-side, emerging-economy research agenda. The framework offers tourism managers and marketers evidence-anchored directions for stewardship-oriented governance, cultivating regenerative visitor behavior, and capacity sharing, guiding destinations beyond promotion toward regeneration.