Tourism citations in other disciplines

Abstract

Tourism publication and citation patterns have been analysed repeatedly: most recently, by Hall, 2011, Benckendorff and Zehrer, 2013, Fennell, 2013, Xin et al., 2013. Initially there were few researchers or journals, and ideas and information were largely imported from other disciplines. This has continued, but as tourism research expanded, it also became increasingly self-referential. Here we examine whether it has entered a third phase, with outward citations in other academic disciplines: a key criterion for a mature field of study. For comparison, economics research examines how humans allocate resources, and is cited across many other disciplines. Tourism research examines how humans move around, which a priori seems equally fundamental. Here, therefore, we test how widely tourism research is cited in non-tourism journals. All searches were conducted during 2012 and 2013.