Although sustainable livelihoods (SL) have received attention in academia, the understanding of their applications to tourism research remains fragmented. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to provide a holistic understanding of SL in tourism research by analysing the framing and operationalisation of SL from the perspective of its historical development. This study adopts a hybrid literature review approach and incorporates articles published in both English and Chinese for analysis. The findings reveal the dominant themes in existing research, including tourism livelihoods in response to risks, tools for growing livelihood capital, the introduction of tourism activities, and the livelihood outcomes of tourism. This review also identifies these main themes associated with opportunities and challenges to achieve SL. By incorporating proposed potential solutions to address the challenges, this review develops a new framework. This framework has five distinct advantages, expanding the applications of the SL approach in tourism settings. Six key future research areas and associated specific research questions are also proposed, serving as a significant reference for researchers interested in pursuing this area.
Liu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.