Justice has emerged as a critical concern in tourism and hospitality due to the industries’ deep entanglement with issues of equity, sustainability, and power relations. As tourism activities increasingly shape social, economic, and environmental outcomes for a wide range of human and non-human stakeholders, the need for fairness in decision-making, representation, and benefit distribution has become urgent. This study systematically reviews 137 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2024 to examine how justice has been conceptualized and theorized across tourism and hospitality literature. The analysis shows a strong reliance on a small number of dominant theories, including social exchange theory, equity theory, and organizational justice theory, while critical, feminist, and posthumanist theories remain underutilized. In terms of geographic distribution, the United States leads significantly with 40 contributions, followed by China (23), Australia (18), and Spain (13); together, these four countries account for nearly half of all justice-related publications in the field, pointing to regional research imbalances. Another important finding from the analysis of author keywords is that the majority of studies focus on the hospitality sector, particularly hotels (frequency = 47), whereas other tourism-related sectors—such as restaurants, transport, travel agencies, events, and digital platforms—are largely underexplored. By identifying these theoretical, sectoral, and geographic gaps, this study provides a roadmap for future research to foster more inclusive, context-sensitive, and theoretically diverse understandings of justice in tourism and hospitality.
