This contribution aims at providing a state of the art of scientific production inherent to the topic of “mountain huts and tourism”, for giving a general understanding of the main research domains and areas of investigation.
For reaching this goal, a bibliometric study has been carried out by questioning the scientific databases of Scopus, using “mountain hut*” OR “mountain shelter*” OR “mountain refuge*” OR “alpine hut*” OR “alpine shelter*” OR “alpine refuge*” OR “mountain cabane*” OR “alpine cabane*” OR “mountain lodge*” OR “mountain hostel*” OR “alpine lodge*” OR “alpine hostel*”AND tour* OR ecotour* OR eco-tour*” as search terms in titles, keywords and abstracts.
The analysis was conducted on the 29th of January 2025. A total of 54 papers have been detected. The first paper is dated 1980, while 2022 represents the year with the highest number of contributions related to the topic (6 papers published). Regarding the typology of the publications, the analysis lists 40 articles, 9 conference papers, 3 book chapters and 2 reviews. The most represented countries are Italy and Austria, with respectively 13 and 6 contributions, and they are the most cited as well (respectively 158 and 235 citations). Provisional results on a keyword analysis report on the main areas of study. Some scholars have paid attention specifically to the relationship between climate change and mountain huts, while other authors concentrated the attention on the environmental implications of mountain huts, especially referring to water management and wastewater operations. In this perspective, the keywords analysis shows an important link between mountain huts and sustainable tourism, even in relation to the presence of protected areas.
The analysis, however, contains some limitations: First, the sample has been identified by only considering papers indexed on Scopus, and the content analysis has been carried out in reference to only the keyword and abstracts. Thus, it may be possible that some outcomes are different from abstract to full publication.