From anticipation to memory: a systematic review of tourist emotional experience

Tourist emotional experience has emerged as a central concept in understanding how individuals psychologically engage with tourism environments. It is reflects a broader shift from functional attributes to experiential and affective dimensions of travel. However, existing research tends to focus on isolated emotions or single stages of the tourist journey. It therefore lacks a dynamic perspective. This study addresses this gap through a systematic review of 211 peer-reviewed articles (2000-2025), applying the antecedents-decisions-outcomes (ADO) framework to synthesize tourist emotional experience across pre-, during-, and post-visit phases. This review adopts an environmental psychology perspective to conceptualize tourist emotional experiences as emerging from dynamic person-environment interactions, where tourism environments spanning physical, sensory, symbolic, social, and digital dimensions function as multidimensional stimuli. The findings show a clear temporal pattern in tourists' emotional development, with anticipation before the visit shaped by destination environmental cues and informational influences, on-site engagement by personal psychological states, and post-visit loyalty and memory by social interactions. This study also highlights the growing influence of immersive technologies (e.g., VR/AR) and crisis-related factors on emotional trajectories. By integrating a journey-based perspective, this study advances understanding of how emotional experiences unfold across travel stages and offers implications for designing effective emotional touchpoints.