The luxury tourism industry immediately conjures up thoughts of exclusivity, with access to it confined to a small and elite group of travelers often located within their own social bubble. Our systematic literature review seeks to understand how tourism scholarship has addressed the issue of luxury travel based on social media pronouncements and the areas of concentration in which earlier studies have been conducted. Literature was sourced using the following key terms “luxury tourism”, “elite travel”, “social media”, and “sustainability” in various combinations using the OneSearch online platform, the Proquest Database, and Google Scholar. Only peer-reviewed journals were used for the critical analysis. Three main thematic areas were identified and reviewed: (1) the role of social media in luxury tourism; (2) the behavioral attributes of luxury travelers’ when using social media; and (3) the methodologies employed in the extant literature, given the limitations of accessing specific data for the luxury tourism market. The selected period for the journals and articles reviewed was the last ten years, from March 2010 to March 2020. NVivo version 12 was used to decipher the themes and focus areas as well as quantify the significance of social media to luxury tourism. Drawing from these literature review outcomes, the study explores future research areas and issues that require new theoretical and methodological frameworks to further our understanding of the intersection between social media and the luxury tourism business.

The idea of destination development often emphasizes transport connectivity, hospitality services, infrastructure building, attractions facilities and promotions with an indicative measure of visitor arrivals. In contrast, we underline the importance of souvenirs corollary to tourism development if it is related to traditional crafts especially in emerging destinations. Souvenirs in tourism are a useful tool in promoting a tourist destination's image. However, in Vietnam's tourism landscape, souvenir development has not played a corresponding role of image creation and commercial enterprise. We examine the problems of adapting Vietnamese souvenirs for tourism using stakeholder analysis. Attention to souvenirs in Vietnam provides an opportunity to illustrate the nexus between tourism development trajectories, image-making and the intricacies involved in national representation.

The position of heritage hotels in place making narratives is not secure, given the challenges of new local developments and larger international forces. This research examines Singapore’s iconic luxury heritage hotel, Raffles Singapore, against the relatively new hotels, The Fullerton Hotel Singapore and Marina Bay Sands, to identify the nexus between the island city-state’s historical and contemporary position in the changing hospitality landscape, specifically addressing the concept of place making as a dynamic narrative. Applying sentiment analysis, 454 hotel guest reviews on internationally recognized travel websites were examined. The findings suggest that the dominance of a luxury heritage hotel in the narratives of place making can shift over time, subject to postmodern architectural developments in the hotel landscape and competition from other luxury heritage hotels with iconic and location histories. A key contribution to the hospitality discipline is the measurement of a luxury heritage hotel’s staying power through continuous place making amid glocal challenges. The significance of the findings should alert hospitality practitioners specializing in marketing to potential shifts arising from continuing new competitive narratives in place making.