To consolidate academic consensus, promote the development of an independent knowledge system in tourism studies in China, and support the advancement of a strong tourism nation, the research team systematically reviewed the literature, conducted academic discussions, identified ten major academic hotspots in tourism research for 2025, and provided in-depth commentary on related topics. The findings reveal that (1) as of 2025, tourism research topics in China are more closely aligned with national strategic orientations and practical governance needs, demonstrating significantly enhanced problem awareness; (2) the research content increasingly highlights the integration of culture and tourism, digital technology empowerment, and the reconstruction of new consumption scenarios, reflecting a distinct interdisciplinary trend; and (3) the research approach places greater emphasis on refining theories with Chinese characteristics, building an independent knowledge system, and contributing to international discourse, indicating a shift from empirical summarization to theoretical advancement and from practical tracking to systematic development in tourism research. This study contributes to understanding the distribution of research hotspots and emerging frontiers in tourism studies from an annual perspective, providing a valuable academic reference for advancing the construction of an independent knowledge system and fostering innovation in the tourism discipline.

The theory of the Chinese path to modernization, characterized by five core features, provides theoretical guidance and clarifies the strategic positioning of tourism in the new era to promote high-quality economic development in China. As an imported concept, the definition and connotation of ecotourism require refinement and deeper contextualization to align with China’s unique patterns of localized development. Grounded in the theory of the Chinese path to modernization and the contemporary context, this study redefines ecotourism based on China’s national conditions and practical development as a landscape system centered on the fundamental pursuit of harmony between humanity and nature, guided by the core principles of respecting, revering, and protecting nature. This system integrates native natural landscapes and ecological environments, autochthonous natural-cultural ecosystems, and allochthonous restored and optimized environmental governance sites. Its developmental objectives include advancing public ecological education, achieving common prosperity for the people, promoting the coordinated development of material and spiritual civilization, and participating in global environmental governance. Additionally, this study proposes six ecological principles tailored to mass tourism: green development, conservation first, resource intensification, systemic optimization, environmental education, and ecology for the people. These principles provide a theoretical reference for academic research and industrial development in ecotourism in the new era.

This study uses digital footprints extracted from online travelogues as data and applies social network analysis and other methods to analyze the temporal and spatial behavior of Hanfu travel photography in Luoyang. The findings are as follows. First, Hanfu travel photography is a typical practice under the new tourism resource concept led by “China-Chic”, and its role in highlighting cultural self-confidence is becoming increasingly prominent. Second, the mechanism of “symbol attraction-spatio-temporal behavior-meaning production”, driven by the new tourism resource concept and combined with spatial production theory, drives the government’s integration of resources to create the symbol of“Tang Dynasty”(spatial representation). Tourists engage in embodied travel photography to practice spatio-temporal behavior (spatial practice), return to the Tang Dynasty, achieving the meaning of their dream (representational space). Third, this study examines the temporal and spatial behavioral characteristics of Hanfu travel photography in Luoyang, discovering the temporal characteristics of “seasonal balance driven by festivals and events” and the spatial characteristics of “dual axis supported attraction clustering”. These patterns overcome the static limitations of traditional spatial practices of single scenic spots and single scenes, and based on personal preferences, form a dual axis differentiated choice of historical narrative and life experience of “Dreaming Back to the Tang Dynasty”. The expansion of spatial production theory in the new era, along with its localized application in the integration of culture and tourism amid the rise of China-Chic consumption, offers a valuable framework for optimizing the supply of integrated cultural and tourism products. It also supports the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional cultural resources in Luoyang and other historically and culturally significant cities.

Rural tourism is an important means of achieving rural revitalization. However, both internal and external crises in the tourism system have impacted the tourism industry. How community residents in rural tourism deal with the stress caused by tourism crisis is worthy of consideration. Currently, there are relatively few dynamic analyses of the stress-coping processes of community residents in rural tourism. Enhe Village in Ergun City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was selected as the case study site. This study fills this gap by analyzing the stress-coping processes of community residents during the tourism crisis from 2020 to 2022. This study employed descriptive experience sampling and conducted four interviews to obtain diachronic data, applying the “coping resource-action-coping result” framework to map residents’ stress coping processes. The results indicate： (1) based on the characteristics of community residents’ coping processes, five types of stress coping models are refined, namely, livestock livelihood support coping, loyal customer support coping, focus on mid-to-high-end market coping, connection to the external market coping, and leading winter tourism coping; (2) residents’ stress-coping processes present three stages: resisting shocks, resuming operations, and innovating, and the role of coping resources varies across stages; and (3) according to the self-construal type, stress-coping models can be divided into independent and interdependent self-coping, and these two types differ in terms of resource combination and coping thinking. This study extends and deepens research on coping with stress in the tourism field and provides practical implications for crisis management in rural tourism communities.

The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China promotes the in-depth integrated development of culture and tourism, making cultural and tourism integration a hot topic in tourism research. Through bibliometric analysis, this study systematically sorts the overall research progress in domestic cultural and tourism integration. Furthermore, based on content analysis of the relevant literature, it summarizes the main research topics and gaps in terms of the essence and connotation, dimensions and measurement, development models, paths and mechanisms, as well as influencing factors and outcomes of cultural and tourism integration. This study introduces the ecosystem perspective, constructs a theoretical framework for cultural and tourism integration based on the concept of a cultural and tourism integration ecosystem, and proposes a future research agenda within this framework. From an ecosystem perspective, this study conducts an integrated analysis of existing research on cultural and tourism integration, deepens and expands the theoretical construction of cultural and tourism integration, and provides theoretical references for the practice of the cultural and tourism integration ecosystem and its multiple subjects.