Flower-Sea Tourism Landscapes: A Comparative Review of Destination Development Archetypes and a Resource–Mechanism–Outcome Framework

Flower-focused destinations are visually intensive and temporally concentrated, yet the tourism literature treats them through dispersed discussions of gardens, festivals, rural landscapes, destination imagery, and agricultural diversification. This review develops a comparative explanation of how flowering landscapes become tourism resources rather than assuming that scenic quality alone produces durable destination value. An integrative comparative review was undertaken across four analytically contrasting destination–landscape configurations: Japanese cherry blossoms, Provence lavender, Dutch tulips, and Tuscan sunflowers. Literature was identified through targeted searches in Scopus and Google Scholar, citation tracing, and concept-specific follow-up searches, and was organized through a theoretically informed case-level template. Four provisional, overlapping development archetypes are proposed: temporal–ritual festival, sensory–product integration, designed horticultural showcase, and rural-embedded agritourism. A resource–mechanism–outcome (RMO) framework separates floral resources from process-oriented value-creation mechanisms, positive and negative outcomes, enabling capacities, and moderating conditions. It clarifies why similar landscape visibility may support attraction and local value in one setting but crowding, field damage, commodification, or economic leakage in another. The framework provides a transparent basis for destination planning and future empirical testing.