Non-timber forest products and ecotourism: A bibliometric review of Scopus-indexed literature (1994–2025

Abstract

This bibliometric review examines how tourism links non-timber forest products (NTFPs) to livelihood and conservation outcomes in an emerging and dispersed research domain. Using a Scopus-indexed corpus of 58 English-language documents published between 1994 and 2025, the study applies Biblioshiny and VOSviewer to map publication patterns, keyword structures, and thematic linkages. The findings show that the literature is dispersed across multiple outlets and has grown more visibly since the mid-2010s. Keyword patterns centre on ecotourism, NTFPs, tourism, and ecosystem services. The synthesis identifies three mechanism-based pathways: portfolio shifts, product-market conversion, and valuation or bundling. Governance acts as a crosscutting filter through tenure clarity, enforcement legitimacy, and benefit-sharing rules. Practically, forest enterprises and NTFP cooperatives should strengthen product upgrading, quality control, traceability, and fair benefit-sharing. Policymakers and protected area managers should align tourism promotion with harvest rules, tenure clarity, and monitoring systems to avoid intensified resource pressure.