Apitourism Researches: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Apitourism is a form of tourism that encompasses activities such as observing, experiencing, and tasting honeybees and beekeeping products. The increasing interest in apitourism has also caught the attention of the scientific community, this situation constitutes a current research area for the scientific world. When evaluated in terms of beekeeping practices, Turkey holds a highly advantageous position among world countries. It ranks among the top in terms of hive populations, honey production, and beekeeping product production. To facilitate better positioning of tourism stakeholders in the apitourism market in Turkey, it is necessary to follow the planning and implementation of apitourism and to monitor and evaluate international scientific studies addressing these issues. This study aims to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of international scientific studies on apitourism, determine their focal points, and assess the accumulated knowledge based on specific criteria. In line with the study objectives, scientific studies were evaluated conceptually and statistically after passing through specified criteria. This research, conducted using the systematic literature analysis technique under qualitative research, examined the focal points of relevant publications, their methods, databases in which they were found, abstracts, keywords, and other evaluation criteria. The findings indicate that apitourism is beginning to attract attention in the scientific and tourism worlds, with studies conducted in the last four years constituting 62% of the total studies; it is predominantly qualitative methods that are used in these studies; it was focused on health, culture, development, gastronomy, education, and destination management; the rankings of countries show that Turkey, Bulgaria, and Spain are among the top in terms of research activity in this field.