An analysis of publications in leading tourism journals and its implications on China tourism research

摘要

Publications in leading research journals are generally considered as important to individuals and institutions as high quality research is advantageous for grant applications and reputation enhancement (Law & Chon, 2007). This article reports on an historical analysis of published articles in three leading tourism research journals, including Annals of Tourism Research [ATR], Journal of Travel Research [JTR], and Tourism Management [TM]. Excluding book reviews, research notes, editors' comments, readers' comments, and reports, these journals published a total of 2613 full?length research articles in the period 1986 to 2006. During the analysis, the study used both absolute (AB) and relative (RE) counting methods. Publications written by scholars from Mainland China, forecasted to be the world's top travel destination in 2020, are