A comparison of research topics in leading tourism journals

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.