Resumo: The terms Alternative tourism and conventional tourism have been opposites and have evolved over time. The objective was to determine the research characteristics on this topic by searching with the term “alternative tourism” within the Web of Science. The content of 87 documents was analyzed with the tools provided by the platform. Of the 87 documents analyzed with the tools provided by this platform, 40 % were published within the last three years, and it was found that they retained the ideal of fair trade applied to tourism systems focused on the community. The limiting problems are low governmental participation and inter-institutional coordination, community organization, business culture, affluence. The main approach is the rejection from the dominant tourism system.
