Empirical Research on Creative Tourism: A Systematic Review

| The empirical research on creative tourism (CT) is expanding, having already reached considerable maturity. Nevertheless, there is no detailed "map" of the empirical research on CT, whicprovide us thorough information on various aspects that structure it, such as research methods, settingand participants, and main themes addressed in the conclusions. This systematic review aims to providsuch a "map", critically discussing it and making some recommendations for future research. Relevanpublications were searched in EBSCO, Web of Science, and Science Direct electronic databases on 3rof February 2021. All peer-reviewed, English, Portuguese and Spanish articles, published since 2000, reporting empirical studies explicitly focused on CT were included. Amongst them, 60 were eligible for thireview. The results shows that empirical research on CT still has some shortcomings that compromisits level of maturity. To reach higher levels of maturity, this research needs to overcome its excessivfocus on the management of CT, its fixation around the initial definition of CT, and to break witthe circumscription to urban and local settings and the scarce inclusion of artisans/artists and residentas research participants. From a methodological point of view, it is also important to invest in morcomplex/in-depth analyses.