From Waste to Wealth: A Bibliometric Mapping of Circular Economy Trends in Tourism (2001–2024)

The tourism and hospitality sector, vital to global economic growth, confronts significant environmental challenges due to its resource-intensive nature, generating substantial waste, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Circular economy (CE) principles offer a transformative pathway to enhance sustainability by promoting resource efficiency and waste minimization. This study conducts a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of 123 research articles from the Web of Science and Scopus databases (2001–2024) to explore the integration of CE principles in tourism and hospitality. Utilizing the Bibliometrix R package and Python visualization tools, the analysis traces the evolution of research trends, identifies key contributors, and maps thematic clusters. Findings reveal a marked increase in publications post-2015, peaking in 2024, driven by global environmental awareness. Dominant themes include sustainability, circular economy, and food waste management, with the USA, China, and Spain leading research output. Keyword and thematic analyses highlight robust interconnections between sustainability and CE practices, yet barriers to adoption remain underexplored. This study highlights the potential of CE to mitigate tourism’s environmental footprint and proposes future research directions, including the development of standardized CE indicators and post-COVID-19 recovery strategies, to foster a resilient and sustainable tourism ecosystem.