In the last decade, the literature on creative tourism has grown tremendously, in effective number of studies and consequently citations, becoming an emerging, relevant, and increasingly complex topic in contemporary tourism literature. This scientific advancement generates a large volume of information, opening space for different perspectives, multiple related issues, but also many consensual ideas. It is therefore essential to synthesize all this knowledge and bring clarity to the state of the art on creative tourism. Following this line of thought, the main objective of this paper is to provide a current scientific framework in this research area, from a conceptual point of view, presenting the most relevant issues, with focus on sustainability. To this end, a large body of scientific literature was analyzed through a combination of two techniques, namely content analysis and systematic literature review. These techniques were applied as a research methodology to identify keyword trends understanding its meaning and analyze the main links between creative tourism and tourism sustainability, respectively. Main results provide a critical analysis of its characteristics as well as the correlations between creative tourism and the sustainable development of tourism activity, highlighting the sustainable matrix of this new model of tourism.
