Abstract

In contemporary tourism studies, where interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and human-centered approaches are increasingly emphasized, qualitative research plays a pivotal role in interpreting complex phenomena, uncovering experiential depth, and fostering local knowledge. Nevertheless, within the Vietnamese context, the employment of qualitative methods appears restricted, sporadic, and superficial, which impedes the distinct delineation of tourism studies' scholarly identity. Based on the literature review and content analysis, this paper systematically introduces the key qualitative techniques with strong potential for tourism research, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnography, phenomenology, netnography, autoethnography, narrative inquiry, discourse analysis, and photo elicitation. Each technique is examined in terms of its core characteristics, strengths and limitations, practical applications, and relevant research themes. The tourism qualitative reasoning framework (TQRF) was proposed to help the qualitative research process not only to describe phenomena but also to construct new knowledge, contributing to the expansion or recycling of theoretical structures. Building on this synthesis, the paper advances the five recommendations: (1) aligning research questions with epistemological assumptions, (2) combining multiple techniques to deepen analysis, (3) moving beyond descriptive accounts to engage with and extend theory, (4) leveraging local contexts to contribute to global dialogues, and (5) creatively presenting qualitative data to highlight interpretive richness. The article ultimately argues for repositioning qualitative research not merely as a supplementary tool but as a humanistic, creative, and theoretically generative mode of scientific inquiry. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to shaping the scholarly identity of tourism studies in Vietnam.