In 2024, the Journal of Vacation Marketing celebrates its 30th anniversary, marking three decades of scholarly contributions to the field of tourism, hospitality and travel marketing. In commemoration, this paper presents a bibliometric analysis of the journal's publications from 1994 to 2023, offering insights into the journal's growth and influence within the academic and professional community. This ‘self-analytical’ review examined publication trends, including key bibliometric indicators such as citation counts, most-cited papers, and the most productive and influential authors, institutions and countries. Further, VOSviewer and Leximancer were used for the network analysis to examine co-citation and thematic trends through these three decades. The analysis identifies keyword patterns, highlighting shifting research interests correlated with a changing global landscape, with a clear focus on themes related to risk emerging in the most recent decade. The review concludes with reflections on 30 years of research, suggesting areas that are over-represented and under-represented in the body of work published by the Journal of Vacation Marketing.