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Over the past several decades, the ‘liveable cities’ concept has gained significant attention in academic research and policy discussions. While this development model has been debated particularly in fields such as urban studies and geography, growing awareness of complex realities that lie beneath its optimistic narratives raises critical questions about social inequalities and injustices. Tourism scholarship has recently begun to engage more deeply with the concept of liveability, however a comprehensive overview that synthesises contributions in this evolving interdisciplinary field is still lacking. In response, this scoping review aims to investigate the current state of knowledge on liveable cities and how it is framed within tourism studies.
Peer-reviewed journal articles across three databases of Scopus, Science Direct, and Emerald were collected. The search terms applied were “urban AND livability”, “urban AND liveability”, “tourism AND livability” and “tourism AND liveability” in the title, abstract, or keywords. The initial query produced 3,093 records, of which 134 articles published between 1980 and 2024 were retained for final examination.
The findings revealed five approaches that are key to understanding the research landscape on liveable cities and tourism. These are: liveability as a human-centric concept, the neoliberal turn and globalisation, critical approaches to liveability, tourism scholarship’s selective engagement, and the COVID-19 pandemic and liveable cities. Extant tourism studies on liveability are dominated by descriptive case studies that offer limited theoretical insight. The review highlighted several critical research avenues that require cross-fertilization of theory between urban studies and tourism, advancing a robust analysis of liveability in tourist cities for a just and sustainable future.
Keywords: liveable cities, scoping review, urban tourism
How to Cite: Belay, M. (2026) “Whose Liveable City? A scoping review of urban tourism and liveable cities debate.”, New Vistas. doi: https://doi.org/10.36828/newvistas.364