A Comparison of Research Topics in Leading Tourism Journals

International Journal of Tourism Sciences, Volume 11, Number 3, pp. 108-126, 2011 Tourism Sciences Society of Korea. All rights reserved.

A Comparison of Research Topics in Leading Tourism Journals

Ye “Elaine” Tian ∗ The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,

Hee “Andy” Lee † The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Rob Law∗∗ The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

ABSTRACT: As the tourism industry has grown, so too has tourism research. Similar to previous research on the development of tourism research, this study presents a content analysis of refereed articles published in four leading tourism journals over the past decade. This is to explore how the field has evolved and which topics have been popular. Based on a sample of 2,223 articles, 20 research topics across the journals were identified using both absolute and relative counting methods. The findings show that new research topics have emerged in the past decade. In addition, empirical findings reveal that travelers’ perception and behavior, and theory and research development, were the most frequently-discussed topics. Keywords: Research topic; Functional area; Leading tourism journals; Content analysis

** Ye “Elaine” Tian, MS., School of Hotel & Tourism Management, The Hong Kong

Polytechnic University, 17 Science Road, TST East, Kowloon, Hong Kong, E-mail: [email protected] , Phone: (86) 13911991148,

†† Hee “Andy” Lee, Ph.D., Corresponding author, Assistant Professor, School of Hotel & Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 17 Science Road, TST East, Kowloon, Hong Kong, E-mail: [email protected] , Phone: (852) 3400 2179, Fax: (852) 2362 9362

** Rob Law, Ph.D., Professor, School of Hotel & Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 17 Science Road, TST East, Kowloon, Hong Kong, E-mail: [email protected] , Phone: (852) 3400 2181, Fax: (852) 2362 9362

A Comparison of Research Topics in Leading Tourism Journals 109

Introduction

Over the past sixty years, tourism has experienced continuous growth and diversification, in both economical and scholarly terms. Despite the global financial turmoil in 2008 and 2009, the increasing levels of world tourism in 2010 offset recent losses (UNWTO, 2011). Furthermore, the worldwide tourism segment is expected to continue growing at a rate of four to five percent in 2011. The contribution of the tourism industry to global gross domestic product is estimated at about nine percent (MecroPress, 2010).

Alongside this upsurge in tourism has come a proliferation of scholarly research on the topic. In particular, multiple attempts have been made to investigate the ways in which tourism research is developing, in terms of its methodological characteristics (Baloglu and Assante, 1999; Chon, Evans, and Sutherlin, 1989; Downward and Mearman, 2004; Hung and Law, 2011; Lee, Song, and Mjelde, 2008; Mazanec, Ring, Stangl, and Teichmann, 2010; Palmer, Sesé, and Montaño, 2005; Rivera and Upchurch, 2008; Song and Li, 2008) and the current topics of interest (Ballantyne, Packer, and Axelsen, 2009; Cheng, Li, Petrick, and O’Leary, 2011; Lee and Back, 2005; Lu and Nepal, 2009; Oh, Kim, and Shin, 2004; O’Connor and Murphy, 2004; Wang, Fesenmaier, Werthner, and Wöber, 2010). These studies share common objectives, namely to facilitate the growth and development of tourism research and identify suggestions for future study.

Similar to previous research, this study attempts to examine the research topics addressed by the leading tourism journals. It follows the same direction as previous works by aiming to understanding how tourism research has evolved and which topics have received most attention over the past decade. Its findings will provide researchers with some suggestions for future research agendas. However, this study also has significant differences from previous works, and its contribution to knowledge can be justified as follows. Firstly, it provides more up-to-date insights by examining articles published in the past ten years, from July 2000 to June 2010. Although two recent studies published in Tourism Management [TM] have also taken the approach of reviewing published articles, the one of which (Hung and Law, 2011) focuses on methodology rather than topic, and the other (Cheng et al., 2011) covers an earlier period (that is, articles published in the period 1946-2004).

Secondly, this study examines the research topics addressed in published articles in the four leading tourism journals, including the Annals of Tourism Research [ATR], TM, Journal of Travel Research [JTR], and Journal of Travel

110 Ye “Elaine” Tian, Hee “Andy” Lee and Rob Law

& Tourism Marketing [JTTM]. While examination of all the tourism-related journals on the market would provide a comprehensive picture of the current state of research, it would be unrealistic to execute such a study and the results would be somewhat redundant to the existing research (see Cheng et al., 2011). Thus, in order to provide meaningful and succinct results, the scope of this study is limited to the aforesaid four journals. With more than 30 years of publication history, ATR is acknowledged as one of the leading scholarly journals in the field (Ma and Law, 2009; McKercher, Law, and Lam, 2006; Xiao and Smith, 2006). TM is another leading international journal with an interdisciplinary approach which includes the planning and policy aspects of tourism as well as specific management studies (Elsevier, 2011b). Compared with ATR, TM attracts both academic and industrial readers. Hall (2011) shows that TM is ranked among the three most highly-regarded journals regardless of which assessment method is used. The focus of JTR is on travel and tourism behavior, management, and development; it was the first scholarly journal in North America to focus exclusively on travel and tourism (Sage, 2011). With respect to journal quality, JTR is ranked third in the studies conducted by Ryan (2005) and McKercher, Law, and Lam (2006). Views on JTTM are more mixed: McKercher and colleagues (2006) rank it 5th and Ryan (2005) ranked it 20th. However, its recent inclusion in the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) journal lists (Thomson Reuters, 2011) justifies its prestige, and will substantially and positively influence its ranking criteria (e.g., citation incidences, rejection rate, expert panel, and other factors). Many research studies include JTTM in their examination of journal ranking and review of research efforts (Jamal, Smith, and Watson, 2008; Lee and Back, 2005; Mazanec et al., 2010). JTTM publishes refereed articles on travel and tourism related to marketing management practices, applied research studies, critical reviews on major issues, and business and government policies affecting travel and tourism marketing (Informa World, 2011).

In an attempt to understand how research topics in the tourism field have evolved, this study presents a content analysis of academic articles published in the four leading tourism journals between July 2000 and June 2010. Specifically, it aims at examining the topic categories in each journal, comparing them among journals, and evaluating the development of the topic categories.


Literature Reviews

A content analysis is the methodology commonly used in studies investigating the research topics published in tourism and hospitality journals. In hospitality research, Chon and colleagues (1989) used a content analysis to examine changes in topic, methodology, and type of authors (e.g., faculty members or students) among 1,251 articles published in four journals. They identified six major topics including administration; operations/property management; marketing; human resources; research and development; and finance. They also showed the changes of these six topics over time. Baloglu and Assante (1999) conducted a similar study, offering insights into how hospitality has advanced in terms of research topics and methods. Although both studies identify common categories for research topics, their focus on hospitality journals is outdated.

In tourism research, Xiao and Smith (2006) applied a content analysis to develop a comprehensive subject index for ATR from 1973-2003. Like many studies categorizing research topics, their study was to examine the evolution of the research presented in ATR. They showed that subject areas have continuously evolved (please refer to Table 1). Moreover, they found that the evolution of the field has been headed for a country-specific examination and review. Although their study provides a comprehensive subject index based on a 30-year period, the sample size, being based on only one journal, limits its potential for generalization.

Utilizing a content analysis to examine the components of tourism research studies published in ATR, Ma and Law (2009) demonstrated the multidisciplinary nature of tourism research. They adapted the topic categories from previous research (see for further details Goeldner and Ritchie, 2006; Jafari and Ritchie, 1981; Xiao and Smith, 2006). Based on 1,034 full-length articles published in ATR between 1973 and 2006, they examined a revised tourism research topic category, incorporating a regional focus. Their findings show that the research categories and regional focus changed over this period. Additionally, in later years, the published papers in ATR were more likely to examine multiple topics with a broader regional focus. Like the work of Xiao and Smith (2006), their sample is limited to a single journal and hence the findings cannot reflect tourism research as a whole.


Table 1. The findings of the focus on the research subject from journal review

Journals reviewed Research topics or functional areas Findings Hospitality

Chon et al. (1989)

20 years: 1967-1986

4 journals: CHRAQ, HERJ, IJHM, and FIUHR.

Administration: risk management, accounting, strategy planning, structure design, organization, and

communication Operations/property management:

purchasing, receiving, sanitation, safety, quality control, menu planning, office operations, scheduling, labor, and food cost management

Marketing: marketing mix (product, price, promotion, place), marketing research, and service enhancement

Human resources: organization behavior, labor/management relations, personnel, training, development, evaluation, and other traditional human resources management functions

Research and development: information gathering and analysis, development, and research activities outside marketing department

Finance: asset management, capital budgeting, financial risk management, financing, planning, economic forecasting, and investments

Topics Changed

Over Time

Baloglu and Assante (1999)

7 years:

1990-1996

5 journals: CHRAQ, HRJ, IJHM, FIUHR, and IJCHM

Emphasis on topics shifted from year to

year.

O’Connor and Murphy (2004)

2 years:

2003-2004

12 journals: ATR, CHQ, ITT, IJCHM, IJHM, JHLM, JTTM, JTR,JVM, THR, TM, and TR

Distribution: electronic distribution, disintermediation

Pricing: online pricing Consumer: online consumer decision

making, website layout and design, and customer relationship management

Rigorous Approaches

to a Broader

Agenda are Suggested

Tourism Xiao and Smith (2006)1 journal: ATR

30 years: 1973-2003

Subject index: methodology, development, impacts, organization and association, the United States, tourist, international tourism, planning, resort, culture, marketing, motivation, attractions,conference/congress/seminar, industry, destination, Third World, employment, tourism, hotel, policy, demand, transportation, domestic tourism, Caribbean, ethnic, and government

Indices in special issues: sociology

Topics Shifted once They were Matured

Table 1. The findings of the focus on the research subject from journal review (Cont.) Journals reviewed Research topics or functional areas Findings

Tourism


Lu and Nepal

(2009)

15 years: 1993-2007

1 journal: JOST

Destination/product, visitor, theoretical, integrated, manager/planner, operator, local community, policy, non-profit organization, methodology, tour guide, government, tourism student, public, consultant, tourism worker, volunteer

Sustainable tourism is diverse, interdisciplinary, and international;

No significant change in

research methods.

Ma and Law (2009)

34 years:

1973-2006

1 journal: ATR

Destination Image & Marketing, Heritage & Environment Issues, Economics of Tourism, Theory & Research Development, Gaming, Host Guest Relationship, Geography of Tourism, Resort Development & Planning, Government and Policy Issues, Tourism Organization Management, Meetings Incentives Conventions & Exhibitions, Psychology & Tourist Behavior, Park & Recreation Management, Tourism Technology, Rural Tourism, Transportation of Tourism, Sociology & Culture Issues, Hospitality Topics, Tourism Education & Training, and Others

Over the time, research topics diversified and regional focus

broadened.

Wang et al. (2010)

10 years:

1998-2008

1 journal: ITT

Customer & demand: travelers’ behavior, users’ perception, information search, recommender system, profiling, use of Internet, information needs, virtual community, reservation system, and user modeling

Technology implementation: websites design/evaluation, interoperability and ontology building, mobile technology, multimedia, eCommerce technology, GIS, roster builder, ambient intelligence, and search engine design

Industry & business functions: marketing, distribution/sales, service, business model, management information needs, IT adoption, networking, internal strategy, benchmarking, external strategy, education, and attraction development

Overall, subject themes

continuously changed over the

decade.

Note. CHRAQ: Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, later changed to Cornell Hospitality Quarterly [CHQ]. HERJ: Hospitality Education and Research Journal, later merged into Hospitality Research Journal [HRJ]. IJHM: International Journal of Hospitality Management. FIUHR: FIU Hospitality Review. IJCHM: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. ITT: Information Technology & Tourism. JHLM: Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing. JVM: Journal of Vacation Marketing. THR: Tourism and Hospitality Research. TR: Tourism Review. JOST: Journal of Sustainable Tourism.


Another review of a single journal, Journal of Sustainable Tourism (JOST), is presented by Lu and Nepal (2009). Their focus was on geographical contribution, type of tourism studied (e.g., natural-based, cultural, ecotourism, and so on), subject themes, and methodology. After evaluating published articles between 1993 and 2007, they concluded that studies in the sustainable tourism field have successfully achieved diversity, interdisciplinarity, and internalization in terms of the scope of their topical and methodological approaches. Furthermore, they identified the application of an integrated perspective to sustainable tourism research as a new trend in the field. However, they demonstrated no significant changes in research methods during the period of study.

Information technology (IT) in hospitality and tourism research is another field which has been examined using a content analysis. O’Connor and Murphy (2004) examined the research themes in IT articles published in 12 tourism and hospitality journals and identified three main themes. They also suggested that IT research needs more rigorous approaches and a broader agenda. Recently, Wang and colleagues (2010) reviewed the papers presented in Information Technology & Tourism (ITT) with a focus on three main areas: geographic and industry focus, subject theme, and research methods. They highlighted three major subject themes, namely customer and demand; technology implementation; and industry and business functions. Of the various themes, users’ perception, search engine design, and business models are the emerging topics in more recent years.

The list of subject themes used and identified in previous research is summarized in Table 1. In summary, although there are numerous studies looking at scholarly publications in the tourism and hospitality field, their findings are either outdated or their sample is limited to one journal (Lu and Nepal, 2009; Ma and Law, 2009; Rivera and Upchurch, 2008; Xiao and Smith, 2006). Review of a single journal is limited to generalizability-related issues. Hence, this study includes four leading tourism journals to examine advances in tourism research and to compare the results across the four journals. Findings of this study are expected to update the mainstream of tourism research over the last ten years.


Method

A content analysis was conducted to analyze refereed articles published in ATR, TM, JTR, and JTTM, over the period between July 2000 and June 2010. The selection of these publications was based on tourism journal rankings and ratings conducted by previous studies (Pechlaner, Zehrer, Matzler, and Abfalter, 2004; McKercher et al., 2006; please refer to Table 2). Table 2. Journal rankings in previous studies

Journal Name McKercher et al. (2006) Pechlaner et al. (2004)

Annals of Tourism Research 1 2 (1)

Tourism Management 2 6 (2)

Journal of Travel Research 3 1 (3)

Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing 5 4 (5)

Note. Numbers in parentheses indicate the ranking in other countries.

The sample for this study was all refereed articles in the four journals, including full-length papers, case studies, and research notes. Conference reports, announcement, book reviews, and non-refereed articles were excluded from the analysis. We collected the articles from electronic databases and a university library. When the data collection was completed, three investigators independently matched the collected articles to the journals’ tables of contents to ensure data quality.

We adopted the research topic categorization scheme used by Ma and Law (2009). Developed from the work of Goeldner and Ritchie (2006), Ma and Law’s (2009) categorization is not only the most up-to-date, but also the most comprehensive framework available. The 20 topics in the scheme are listed in Table 3. Based on the scheme, one investigator categorized each article while the other two investigators reviewed the categorization independently. When a discrepancy arose, all three investigators reexamined the paper until a consensus had been reached.

When an article covered more than one topic, we recorded it with two different counting methods. In an absolute counting method, every topic in an article was marked as one in the corresponding category; thus, an article with three topics would generate one point per corresponding category and consequently three points in total. In a relative counting method, each topic was marked as the weighted percentage. For example, if an article covered three


topics, each of those categories was scored as one-third of a point and consequently one point in total. When an article covered only a single topic, a score of one point per category was given under both the absolute and relative counting methods. Table 3. A category of research topics 1. Destination Image & Marketing (DES) 11. Heritage & Environment Issues (HER) 2. Economics of Tourism (ECO) 12. Theory & Research Development (TRD) 3. Gaming (GAM) 13. Host Guest Relationship (REL) 4. Geography of Tourism (GEO) 14. Resort Development & Planning (RES) 5. Government and Policy Issues (GOV) 15. Tourism Organization Management (TOM) 6. Meetings Incentives Conventions & Exhibitions (MICE)

16. Psychology & Tourist Behavior (PSY)

7. Park & Recreation Management (PRK) 17. Tourism Technology (TEC) 8. Rural Tourism (RUR) 18. Transportation of Tourism (TRNS) 9. Sociology & Culture Issues (SOC) 19. Hospitality Topics (HOS) 10. Tourism Education & Training (EDU) 20. Others Source. Ma and Law (2009, p. 67).

Results

Descriptive analysis A total of 2,223 refereed articles were collected from the four journals. TM

contributed the largest proportion with 811 articles, or 36.5% of the total, followed by ATR, JTTM, and JTR (please refer to Table 4). The year 2007 yielded the largest number of refereed articles (N = 286). Most articles were full-length papers, followed by case studies and research notes (please refer to Table 5). The case studies were mainly drawn from TM, and the research notes mostly from ATR.

Plurality of research topics Of the 2,223 articles, 51.4% covered one topic area and 48.6% two or more

(please refer to Table 6). The majority of the articles published in ATR (64.3%) and JTR (76.3%) covered a single topic area while the majority in TM (50.4%) and JTTM (61.9%) addressed two categories. This indicates that articles based on a single study in JTTM are more likely to be multi-disciplinary and diversified.


Tab

le 3

. A c

ateg

ory

of re

sear

ch to

pics

Tota

l

547

(24.

6)

811

(36.

5)

427

(19.

2)

438

(19.

7)

2,22

3

(100

)

Not

e: *

July

-Dec

embe

r 200

0, *

* Ja

nuar

y-Ju

ne 2

010

2010

**

27

(22.

7)

44

(37.

0)

20

(16.

8)

28

(23.

5)

119

(5.4

)

2009

37

(17.

6)

90

(42.

9)

39

(18.

6)

44

(21.

0)

210

(9.4

)

2008

48

(18.

4)

101

(38.

7)

43

(16.

5)

69

(26.

4)

261

(11.

7)

2007

57

(19.

9)

129

(45.

1)

40

(14.

0)

60

(21.

0)

286

(12.

9)

2006

61

(24.

9)

105

(42.

9)

48

(19.

6)

31

(12.

7)

245

(11.

0)

2005

61

(26.

6)

80

(34.

9)

42

(18.

3)

46

(20.

1)

229

(10.

3)

2004

54

(26.

0)

68

(32.

7)

44

(21.

2)

42

(20.

2)

208

(9.4

)

2003

53

(27.

3)

57

(29.

4)

42

(21.

6)

42

(21.

6)

194

(8.7

)

2002

66

(33.

7)

55

(28.

1)

41

(20.

9)

34

(17.

3)

196

(8.8

)

2001

57

(31.

8)

55

(30.

7)

47

(26.

3)

20

(11.

2)

179

(8.1

)

2000

*

26

(27.

1)

27

(28.

1)

21

(21.

9)

22

(22.

9)

96

(4.3

)

ATR C

ount

Col

umn

(%)

TM Cou

nt

Col

umn

(%)

JTR C

ount

Col

umn

(%)

JTTM

Cou

nt

Col

umn

(%)

Tota

l

Cou

nt

Row

(%)


Table 5. Type of refereed articles

Full paper Case study Research note Total ATR Count 465 11 71 547

Column % (23.8) (6.9) (63.4) (24.6) TM

Count 670 112 29 811 Column % (34.3) (70.4) (25.9) (36.5)

JTR Count 399 24 4 427

Column % (20.5) (15.1) (3.6) (19.2) JTTM Count 418 12 8 438

Column % (21.4) (7.6) (7.1) (19.7) Total Count 1,952 159 112 2,223

Row % (87.8) (7.2) (5.0) (100.0)

Table 6. Plurality of research topics

1 topic 2 topics 3 topics 4 topics Total ATR Count 352 186 8 1 547

Column % (30.8) (19.3) (7.5) (10.0) (24.6) TM

Count 352 409 45 5 811 Column % (30.8) (42.2) (42.5) (50.5) (36.5)

JTR Count 326 98 3 0 427

Column % (28.5) (10.2) (2.8) (0.0) (19.2) JTTM Count 113 271 50 4 438

Column % (9.9) (28.1) (47.2) (40.0) (19.7) Total Count 1,143 964 106 10 2,223

Row % (51.4) (43.4) (4.8) (0.4) (100.0)

Distribution of research topics: By journal Using the categorization presented in Table 3, a frequency table for each

topic was summarized in Table 7. Others were the most frequently-covered topic, followed by psychology and tourism behavior (PSY); whereas geography of tourism (GEO) was the least popular. The absolute and relative counting methods did not produce significantly different rankings. Of the 20 research topics, 14 remained unchanged between both methods, and six were different. That is, the rankings of hospitality (HOS), heritage and environment issues (HER), resort development and planning (RES), rural tourism (RUR), park and


recreation management (PRK), and tourism education and training (EDU) changed depending on the counting method. Over the past decade, research topics like the intentions and behavior of tourists, marketing of tourism destinations, and sociology and cultural issues of tourism (SOC) have enjoyed greater research attention. On the other hand, there has been a diminishing focus on transportation and GEO.

In ATR, the five most frequently covered topics were Others, SOC (ranked second in the absolute and third in the relative count), PSY (ranked third in the absolute and second in the relative count), theory and research development (TRD), and HER. Tourism organization management (TOM) was not covered at all in the period 2000-2010.

In TM, all 20 research topics were covered. The most frequently-addressed category was Others, while the least frequent was GEO. The next top four topics, ranked by frequency, were TRD, PSY, destination image and marketing (DES), and HOS.

In JTR, the most frequently covered topic category was PSY. None of the refereed articles published in JTR between July 2000 and June 2010 covered GEO. The next most popular topics, in rank order, were PSY, DES, TRD, Others, and SOC.

Similarly, in JTTM, all the research topic categories were covered. While Others was the most frequently-discussed topic, host-guest relationship (REL) was the least popular. PSY, DES, TRD, and transportation of tourism (TRNS) were ranked below Others.

Distribution of research topics: Across journals TM was the most popular venue for new research topics, represented by

“Others” categorization, followed by JTTM (using absolute counting) or ATR (using relative counting), and then JTR. PSY was mostly covered in JTTM, followed by TM, JTR, and ATR. TRD was most frequently discussed in TM, followed by JTR, ATR, and JTTM. Using the absolute count, DES was most popular in JTTM, followed by TM, JTR, and ATR. Using the relative count, TM replaced the JTTM ranking for this topic. SOC articles appeared most frequently in ATR, followed by TM, JTR, and JTTM.

While TRNS was one of the least-popular topics, it appeared the most frequently in TM and the least in JTTM. No articles covering GEO were published in JTR while the topic was most likely to be found in JTTM compared to the other two journals.


Table 7. Distribution of research topics

Absolute counting Relative counting Topics ATR TM JTR JTTM Total ATR TM JTR JTTM Total DES 42 134 81 148 405 (4) 35.0 77.7 61.0 68.8 242.4 (4)

10.4 33.1 20.0 36.5 11.8 14.4 32.0 25.2 28.4 10.9 ECO 29 64 35 9 137 (8) 19.1 32.4 36.3 4.3 92.2 (8)

21.2 46.7 25.5 6.6 4.0 20.7 35.2 39.4 4.7 4.1 GAM 5 12 8 8 33 (16) 3.0 7.3 6.3 4.0 20.7 (16)

15.2 36.4 24.2 24.2 1.0 14.5 35.5 30.6 19.4 0.9 GEO 4 3 0 7 14 (20) 3.0 2.3 0.0 3.3 8.6 (20)

28.6 21.4 0.0 50.0 0.4 35 27.2 0.0 37.9 0.4 GOV 30 44 7 12 93 (10) 21.9 23.8 4.5 4.9 55.1 (10)

32.3 47.3 7.5 12.9 2.7 39.8 43.1 8.2 8.9 2.5 MICE 2 21 7 4 34 (15) 1.5 13.8 5.5 1.8 22.7 (15)

5.9 61.8 20.6 11.8 1.0 6.6 61.0 24.3 8.1 1.0 PRK 5 24 2 2 33 (16) 2.7 15.3 1.5 0.8 20.3 (18)

15.2 72.7 6.1 6.1 1.0 13.1 75.4 7.4 4.1 0.9 RUR 21 26 10 10 67 (13) 15.2 16.7 7.7 3.8 43.3 (12)

31.3 38.8 14.9 14.9 2.0 35 38.5 17.7 8.8 2.0 SOC 107 71 43 38 259 (5) 77.6 39.3 30.8 19.1 166.7 (5)

41.3 27.4 16.6 14.7 7.6 46.5 23.5 18.5 11.4 7.5 EDU 9 12 4 2 27 (18) 8.5 8.3 2.8 1.0 20.7 (16)

33.3 44.4 14.8 7.4 0.8 41.1 40.3 13.7 4.8 0.9 HER 58 74 26 9 167 (7) 42.6 45.7 18.5 3.8 110.6 (6)

34.7 44.3 15.6 5.4 4.9 38.5 41.3 16.7 3.5 5.0 TRD 86 187 80 55 408 (3) 49.3 124.4 72.5 28.4 274.7 (3)

21.1 45.8 19.6 13.5 11.9 18.0 45.3 26.4 10.3 12.4 REL 27 14 4 1 46 (14) 16.8 6.3 3.0 0.5 26.7 (14)

58.7 30.4 8.7 2.2 1.3 63.1 23.7 11.3 1.9 1.2 RES 14 45 7 5 71 (12) 8.3 21.8 6.0 2.3 38.4 (13)

19.7 63.4 9.9 7.0 2.1 21.7 56.6 15.6 6.1 1.7 TOM 0 55 4 24 83 (11) 0.0 30.3 3.5 10.8 44.6 (11)

0.0 66.3 4.8 28.9 2.4 0.0 68.0 7.9 24.1 2.0 PSY 95 162 115 182 554 (2) 78.0 95.3 92.8 103.4 369.5 (2)

17.1 29.2 20.8 32.9 16.2 21.1 25.8 25.1 28.0 16.6 TEC 4 41 22 55 122 (9) 2.5 21.7 16.0 23.3 63.5 (9)

3.3 33.6 18.0 45.1 3.6 3.9 34.1 25.2 36.7 2.9 TRNS 5 14 3 2 24 (19) 3.5 7.2 2.5 1.5 14.7 (19)

20.8 58.3 12.5 8.3 0.7 23.9 48.9 17.0 10.2 0.7 HOS 20 94 13 42 169 (6) 17.0 59.7 9.5 23.7 109.8 (7)

11.8 55.6 7.7 24.9 4.9 15.5 54.3 8.6 21.5 4.9 OTHERS 187 231 60 205 683 (1) 140.2 163.3 52.0 120.8 476.3 (1)

27.4 33.8 8.8 30.0 19.9 29.4 34.3 10.9 25.4 21.4 Note. Italic numbers in each journal column indicate column percentage. Italic numbers in the total column indicate row percentage. Numbers in parentheses indicate the rank.


Discussion

Although some slight variations in frequency were found in each journal, there were some similarities across the four journals. The topics of Others, PSY, TRD, DES, and SOC generally prevailed. While PSY is the most popular research topic in Ma and Law’s (2009) study, this study shows that Others is the most frequently-discussed topic. Its popularity implies that new research topics, which were previously considered trivial, have emerged in the first ten years of the new millennium. This may be attributable to two issues. Firstly, over the period of study, covering the first ten years of a new century, researchers seem to have worked on new topics departing from conventional considerations. Secondly, the research framework suggested by Ma and Law (2009) can be updated with the findings from this study.

Conversely, GEO and TRNS have received little attention over the period of study. This implies two things: maturity of the fields or researchers’ ignorance. In the former case, there is little room left for researchers to contribute to the field. So, the low number of new studies on these topics is inevitable. In the latter, however, researchers’ ignorance of the specific topic may result in insufficient research activities.

Given that “Others” categorization is believed to represent new research ideas which have not been recognized as a main research stream, TM (with 231 papers based on absolute count, and 163.3 based on relative count) and JTTM (with 205 and 120.8, respectively) can be considered the venue that welcomes new approaches.

TM ranked some of the most popular topics either first or second in terms of frequency. A similar publication pattern is observed in JTTM: more papers on PSY and DES were published in JTTM than the other journals. However, TRD and SOC were least popular. While TOM did not appear in ATR at all, SOC was most popular in ATR compared to the other journals. JTR generally covered most topics, except GEO. As such, each journal shows different characteristics based on the research topics addressed within.

Considering the nature and feature of each journal along with topics covered, we can summarize the characteristics of each journal as follows. The focus of ATR is on the academic perspectives of tourism and on setting up the theoretical constructs. As a social sciences journal, ATR provides a platform for various disciplines of tourism research to make contributions to social science (Elsevier, 2011a). As a result, no articles cover TOM and more than half of the research in ATR are about Others or/and SOC.


TM concentrates on the research of tourism planning and management. Besides, with the growth and development of tourism, the journal is continuing concerned about the interdisciplinary of this field and those specific management studies. Therefore, most of the research in this journal has two or more topics.

JTR has focus on travel and tourism behavior, management and development theory (Sage, 2011). Consequently, the most covered topics in JTR are PSY, DES as well as TRD.

JTTM is the first professional journal taking notice of the specific discipline of travel and tourism marketing from managerial perspectives. It also publishes tourism research from a variety of perspectives. For this reason, this journal covered all the 20 topics in last decade and the most popular topics are Others, PSY and DES.

Conclusion

This study presents a content analysis of articles published in the four leading tourism journals from July 2000 to June 2010. A total of 2,223 refereed articles were examined and classified based on a topic categorization used in previous studies. For ATR, 547 refereed articles covered all topics except TOM. In JTR, all topics except GEO were covered in the 427 articles studied. In TM and JTTM, all 20 topics were covered in the 811 and 438 articles identified, respectively. Across all 2,223 articles, the most popular topic after Others was PSY. In ATR, the most popular topic was Others, followed by SOC and PSY. However, the most popular topic in JTR was PSY and the second-ranked topics were DES and TRD. In TM, after Others, TRD and PSY were ranked second and third, respectively. Finally, in JTTM, the most popular topics were Others, PSY, and DES.

An implication of this study is that the findings provide a guideline for understanding the focused topic of each journal. Also, evaluating research topics enables us to identify how tourism research has developed and situated. The finding offers a good opportunity for researchers to understand the key research issues in the field. Of the 20 topics identified in this study, the most popular was Others, whose topics largely disperse. It indicates that tourism researchers and the leading journals in tourism have increasingly focused on new research topics, which enable tourism research multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary. This finding also provides support for the notion that tourism


studies have changed rapidly in research focus and methodological sophistication (Xiao and Smith, 2006; Ballantyne, Packer and Axelsen, 2009). Due to the disparity of topics in Others, this category needs to be decomposed to establish a detailed subtopic structure. Furthermore, this study identifies more and less popular topics in the leading journals. Findings represent the current status of topic categories of the discipline at the time of stud. Although it is not our study objective, we speculate the reason behind the observed changes in the types of publications as sophistication of tourism scholarship. Previous research found prevailing of co-authorship (Hung and Law, 2011). Academic collaboration with researchers who have different interests and expertise would drive to diversification of research topics.

There are some limitations to this study. Whilst this study examined leading tourism journals, the limited number of journals included for analysis restricts the generalizability of the findings. While the prestigious status of the four journals would justify their inclusion for analysis, this study carries the inherent limitation when it is considered that more than 70 other English-medium tourism journals exist. Future research can address this limitation by extending the scope of research and including more journals. Also, although the investigators collected published, refereed articles from various sources (such as Internet databases and a university library), some articles were not accessible, affecting the comprehensiveness of the evaluation. While a consensus among three investigators is necessary to determine a research topic, subjective judgment and human error may bring a degree of bias.

Future research can extend the period of publication, and expand the scope of the journal sample (by including more publications and different fields such as hospitality and/or by selecting some tourism journals with specialization on limited research topics). Also, as noted above, the topic categorization framework adapted from previous work was not detailed enough to delineate the topics in Others, so future research should devote effort to developing this framework further.


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Received May 04, 2011 Revised October 04, 2011 Accepted December 08, 2011

International Journal of Tourism Sciences A publication of the Tourism Sciences Society of Korea

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Jang, S. C., Bai, B., Hong, G. S. and O’Leary, J. T. (2004). Understanding travel expenditure patterns: a study of Japanese pleasure travelers to the United States by income level. Tourism Management, 25(3), 331-341.

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Mehta, R, and Sivadas, E. (1995). Comparing response rates and response content in mail versus electronic surveys. Journal of the Market Research Society, 37(4), 429-439.

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A Comparison of Research Topics in Leading Tourism Journals

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