Forest bathing and tourism: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The shinrin-yoku activity, or forest bathing, is inspired by a Japanese therapeutic tradition that involves spending time in the forest to improve health. This activity offers various applications for scientific research in different fields such as health, therapy, psychology, or tourism. This work aims to analyze both the current state and the evolution of scientific research on forest bathing activity. Specifically, to discuss the potential of this activity in the dimension of sustainable tourism. For this purpose, using the VOSviewer software, papers published in the Web of Science and Scopus databases between 2008 and 2023 were analyzed. The main results of this research support that forest bathing activity is experiencing progressive growth in the scientific literature, especially from the perspective of health and medicine. However, it is an activity that is little explored from the tourism perspective. The above would be especially interesting in those natural spaces located in rural areas where good tourism management of this activity could be another business opportunity that combats depopulation, socioeconomic underdevelopment, and natural disasters such as fires.