| dc.description.abstract | Female tourism is gaining momentum in the world. Thus, a review of female tourism is essential
to explore future research directions. The paper discusses the evolution of female tourism
research from the early 1980s to 2022 through different analytical methods. The 116 articles
published in the list of Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) journals were collected. A systematic
quantitative assessment of 116 articles was conducted using HistCite, and research themes were
identified using VOSviewer. Qualitative content analysis was conducted to trace the growth of
research, understand the past research development of each research theme, and identify research
gaps for further research. The results show that current female tourism research can be divided
into three research themes: motivation, risk, and sexuality. The motivations for young female
travellers, solo female travellers, and middle-aged female travellers are discussed. In the atmosphere
of gender equality, current female tourism research in risk and sexuality contains contradictory
viewpoints with past studies as a result of changing times. A research agenda in four
potential research areas is recommended. This review contributes to female tourism research by
providing researchers with literature to guide and support further research. | vi |
