ARTICLE IN PRESS

Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490

www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman

Research article

An investigation of academic leadership in tourism research: 19852004

Weibing Zhaoa,, J.R. Brent Ritchieb
a
Tourism Management, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive N.W. Calgary, Alberta, CANADA T2N 1N4
b
Tourism Management Area, World Tourism Education and Research Centre, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada
Received 18 March 2005; accepted 15 March 2006

Abstract

This study presents the ndings of a comprehensive investigation of academic leadership in tourism research, as measured by the
quantity of articles published in eight journals in the eld between 1985 and 2004. Fifty-seven of the most prolic scholars have been
identied as leading scholars, each of whom has published at least 11 articles in the period under study. The general prole of these
scholars was further documented through a detailed examination of their educational background, institutional afliation, multi-
authorship, and gender. Based upon previous literature, this study adds more value by exploring a wider variety of journals over a longer
time frame and by collecting additional relevant information.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Authorship analysis; Journal assessment; Productivity; Tourism research

1. Introduction institutions in terms of publication productivity in a given

As tourism has quickly gained its scientic status over
the past two decades, research interest within the tourism
academic community itself has also grown. The develop-
ment of this kind of research interest reects the matura-
tion of tourism and the natural curiosity of those involved
in this discipline. Basically, two approaches have been
followed in this type of research. The rst is devoted to the
evaluation and ranking of journals in the eld. The usual
practice using this approach is to investigate the percep-
tions of tourism experts regarding the quality of the
growing tourism-related journals through surveys (e.g.
Pechlaner, Zehrer, & Abfalter, 2002; Sheldon, 1990;
Pechlaner, Zehrer, Matzler, & Abfalter, 2004). In contrast,
the other approach is focused on tourism scholars and
institutions, and heavily depends on hard data (e.g.
Jogaratnam, Chon, McCleary, Mena, & Yoo, 2005; Ryan,
2005; Sheldon, 1991). The objective of this line of enquiry is
to identify the most frequently contributing scholars and
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 403 220 8624; fax: +1 403 282 0266.
E-mail addresses: weibing.zhao@haskayne.ucalgary.ca (W. Zhao),
britchie@ucalgary.ca (J.R.B. Ritchie).
time frame.
This article seeks to follow and expand the literature of the
second line of enquiry by focusing on leading tourism
scholars as the research subjects. Academic leadership, as
dened in this article, refers to the superior capability of
some tourism scholars to communicate their research works
in accredited tourism journals. Although these prolic
scholars account for but a small proportion of the total
amount of publication in the journals (Ryan, 2005), it is
through their abundant and consistent publications that they
are able to have inuential impacts on the issues and trends
of tourism research. One of the obvious reasons for
analyzing these leading scholars is to provide a better
understanding of the factors underlying their success. In
more practical terms, it also provides information that could
facilitate the decision-making of academic administrators
and accrediting agencies regarding pay, promotion, resource
allocation, and accreditation (Cox & Gustavson, 1990; Page,
2005). The information also may aid prospective and current
graduate students, and young faculty in tourism in career
planning (Sheldon, 1991). Whats more, there is intrinsic
historical value in the documentation of leading scholars
(Jogaratnam et al., 2005).

0261-5177/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2006.03.007
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490
This article is organized as follows. The next section
provides a summary of prior research, which is followed by
a discussion of methodology, including detailed descrip-
tions of the sample selection and data collection proce-
dures. The results are then presented for the 19852004
period. The nal section concludes and presents some
implications for future research.
2. Review of the Literature
2.1. Authorship Analysis in Tourism
Although authorship analysis has been a common
practice in other mature disciplines or elds, it is still a
very recent research phenomenon in tourism (Pearce,
1992). So far, only a couple of studies have been reported.
The pioneer work by Sheldon (1991) represents an initial
systematic try in this respect. Based on the three tourism
journals Annals of Tourism Research (Annals), Journal of
Travel Research (JTR), and Tourism Management (TM),
Sheldon analyzed the authorship of tourism research
during the decade of the 1980s (19801989). Descriptive
statistical analysis was widely used to investigate the
characteristics of tourism scholars appearing in these three
journals in terms of academic/nonacademic authorship,
geographic location of authors, institutional contributions
to tourism research, and repeat contributions by authors.
The unique value of this research lies in its objectivity in
revealing the overall prole of the emerging international
tourism research community in the 1980s. In this sense, it
enhances the identity of tourism as a distinct, maturing
eld of study and appropriately recognizes the contribution
of tourism scholars and their institutions to the body of
knowledge in tourism. Noticeably, in analyzing the repeat
contributions by authors, Sheldon (1991) ranked the
tourism authors according to their research contributions
in the three journals. However, the ranking was just a
group one based on profession; no individual scholars were
identied and ranked. Employing a very similar approach
to Sheldons (1991), Jogaratnam et al. (2005) conducted an
up-to-date analysis, examining the institutional contribu-
tors to the same three journals from 1992 to 2001.
Specically, Jogaratnam et al. (2005) analyzed the author
afliations, repeat contributions by authors, repeat con-
tributions by institution, and contributions by geographic
area. Although these analyses are basically the same as
Sheldons (1991), Jogaratnam et al. (2005) added more
value by identifying a list of 45 intensely contributing
researchers in terms of the absolute number of appearances
in the journal articles. Probably because the emphasis
of this research was on the institutions that employ
scholars rather than individual authors, Jogaratnam et al.
(2005) did not further investigate the characteristics of
these leading tourism scholars. However, they did indicate
that examining the afliations of these leading scholars
would provide information on the attractiveness of a
given institution as a center for research. Ryans article
477
(2005) is a personal reection on the practices of ranking
and rating of academics and journals in tourism re-
search. Based on the database of CABI Publishings
leisuretourism.com, Ryan (2005) identied 52 of the
most published tourism scholars by counting the number
of their academic articles in 16 tourism-related journals.
Ryan (2005) also provided a ranking of these scholars,
which was based on all the journal articles covered by
leisuretourism.com.
Though insightful and valuable, prior research of
authorship analysis in tourism has, we believe, three
limitations. For one thing, the journals under considera-
tion are either too narrow or too broad. Sheldon (1991)
and Jogaratnam et al. (2005) collected their data solely
based on the top 3, i.e., Annals, JTR, and TM. Although
these three journals have been long established in tourism,
the exclusion of other high-quality, peer-reviewed, tourism-
specic journals may unreasonably downplay the research
contributions of many individual tourism scholars
(McKercher, 2005). To the contrary, in order to obtain
the ranking data, Ryan (2005) examined all the journals
in leisuretourism.com, the majority of which are not
tourism-specic. Even in the 16 tourism-related journals
that Ryan (2005) examined in detail, some have not yet
grown to be international in a real sense. Thus, inclusion
of those tourism-unrelated journals or the least re-
ferenced journals also distorts an appropriate evalua-
tion of individual contributions to the body of tourism
knowledge. Second, leading scholars are not yet to
be specially treated as research subjects. It seems that
previous researchers were only interested in identifying
and listing prolic tourism scholars and institutions by
counting their works, with no intention to go further and
investigate the possible factors that might have contri-
buted to their outstanding performance. As a result, the
data, data analysis, and ndings are constrained. Third,
all three studies reviewed above used the absolute number
of journal articles to rank tourism scholars. Treating
every author equivalently, such a ranking criterion favors
multi-authorship over single authorship, and thus may
not objectively rate the productivity of individual scholars.
To address these limitations, this study attempts to
provide greater validity and applicability in the assess-
ment of tourism scholars by examining a number of
discreetly selected journals over a longer period of time,
and by collecting much more additional data concer-
ning leading tourism scholars, as suggested by Wood
(1995) and Losekoot, Verginis, and Wood (2001). Speci-
cally, this study will address the following questions:
(1) Who are the most published scholars in the eld
of tourism in the past two decades? (2) What is their
general prole, such as publications, education back-
ground, afliations, etc.? (3) Are there any correlations
between their academic leadership and some prole
characteristics? (4) What implications can be drawn
for university administrators and potential graduate
students?
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
478 W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490
2.2. Journal Quality Assessment in Tourism
To access the data concerning the productivity of
individual tourism scholars, the selection of journals is no
doubt the rst prerequisite procedure. Until now, there
have been no ofcial statistics, or research, on the exact
number of academic tourism-related journals. Before the
1990s, there were only a few of inuential journals
specializing in tourism, noticeably Annals, JTR, and TM.
It is not surprising that at that time considerable tourism
research had to be communicated in hospitality and leisure
journals; thus the eld was quite fragmented. But since the
1990s, as tourism gradually gained in disciplinary status,
we have seen a rapid boom in the number of tourism-
specic journals. According to Pechlaner et al. (2002), the
eld of tourism currently hosts more than 75 journals
around the world, among which more than 40 are
internationally recognized (McKercher, 2005). Given this
growth of tourism journals, there is a need for an upgraded
journal quality assessment.
Sheldon (1990) rst used the survey method to explore
the quality and usage of 15 tourism and hospitality
journals, as perceived by faculty who had published
articles. Among the 15 journals, only eight were tourism-
specic journals, i.e., Annals, JTR, TM, Hospitality and
Tourism Educator, International Tourism Reports, Tourism
Recreation Research, Tourist Review, and Travel and
Tourism Analyst. The result shows that Annals, JTR, and
TM consistently take the rst three places in the mind of
tourism faculty, with respect to quality, frequency of
referencing, and frequency of publishing, although their
order is not necessarily the same. In contrast, none of the
remaining ve tourism journals was among the top 6. By
the means of electronic survey, Pechlaner et al. (2002) rated
22 tourism and hospitality journals in terms of their
readership frequency, scientic relevance, practical rele-
vance, reputation, and importance for academic career.
The journal list was based on the Accredited Journal
Coverage List of the Emerald Reviews 400 in the eld of
hospitality and tourism, and the targeted respondents were
TTRA and AIEST members. The result shows that Annals,
JTR, TM, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration
Quarterly (CHRAQ), Journal of Travel and Tourism
Marketing (JTTM), Journal of Sustainable Tourism
(JoST), Tourism Analysis (TA), Journal of Hospitality
and Tourism Research (JHTR), and International Journal
of Hospitality Management (IJHM) consistently enter the
top 10. Noticeably, Annals, JTR, and TM were indis-
putably identied as the top 3 tourism journals, a nding
exactly consistent with Sheldons (1990). However, a
problem with this research is that all the rankings were a
mix of tourism and hospitality journals, thus confusing the
relative importance of individual tourism journals. An-
other journal ranking research by Pechlaner et al. (2004)
presents similar ndings, based on the same survey data.
Annals, JTR, and TM were still the most highly rated
journals. However, it was found that for many journals
there existed signicant differences between the evaluators
in the United States and those in other countries. For the
evaluators in the United States, the top 10 journals were
JTR, Annals, CHRAQ, JTTM, Journal of Leisure Research
(JLR), TM, JHTR, IJHM, TA, and Journal of Tourism
Studies (JTS), while for the evaluators in other countries,
the top 10 journals were Annals, TM, JTR, JoST, JTTM,
JTS, IJHM, JHTR, CHRAQ, and TA. If hospitality
journals were not considered, the top 10 tourism journals
should be JTR, Annals, JTTM, TM, TA, JTS, JoST,
Journal of Vacation Marketing (JVM), Asia Pacific
Journal of Tourism Research (APJTR), and Tourism
Recreation Research (TRR) for the evaluators in the
United States, and Annals, TM, JTR, JoST, JTTM, JTS,
TA, Tourism Review (TR), Tourism Economics (TE), and
Tourism Recreation Research (TRR) for the evaluators in
other countries. Ryan (2005) also identied and listed the
top 10 tourism journals based on frequency of hits in
searches in leisuretourism.com, i.e., Annals, TM, JTR,
JoST, JTS, Travel and Tourism Analyst (TTA), Travel and
Tourism Intelligence (TTI), TA, TRR, and International
Journal of Tourism Research (IJTR). This ranking list has
seven tourism journals in common with that of Pechlaner
et al. (2004), and thus to some extent veries the validity of
the ndings by Pechlaner et al. (2004).
The above review of journal quality assessment literature
indicates that tourism academics may never achieve an
absolute consensus on any ranking list. Although it seems
that there is no doubt about the tier A status of Annals,
JTR, and TM in the eld of tourism, the perception of the
quality of other tourism journals is quite ambiguous. This
degree of ambiguity puts us in a very ambivalent situation
when selecting journals for the study of leading scholars.
We believe that there is a situational need for the
establishment of a more objective hierarchical ranking of
tourism journals, as advocated by McKercher (2005).
However, before the establishment of such a ranking
system, we were obliged to make a decision of our own in
order to proceed. Based on a comprehensive consideration
of the relevant research to date and our personal
reections, we selected eight journals for study and data
collection, i.e., Annals, JTR, TM, JTTM, JTS, JoST, TA,
and TRR. Although we acknowledge some subjectivity is
involved, three facts provide justication for our selection.
First, all these journals are internationally recognized. The
literature review shows that each of them has been included
in all, or most, ranking lists for tourism journals. Second,
these journals publish all kinds of tourism research with no
special preference for some research topics, and thus can
host a diversity of tourism scholars. Third, all these
journals have a relatively long history, and have gained
respectable positions in the tourism research community.
JTR, Annals, and TRR were launched before the 1980s,
TM in the 1980s, JTS in 1990, JTTM in 1992, JoST in
1993, and TA in 1996. The relatively long history of
existence, to some extent, indicates superior journal
quality.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490
3. Method
In this study, only the peer-reviewed full-length articles
in the eight selected journals from 1985 to 2004 were
counted. Book reviews, research notes, short communica-
tions, conference reports, and correspondents are ex-
cluded1. The number of author appearances in these
journal articles forms the basic data to identify and rank
the most prolic tourism scholars. To more precisely assess
the research contribution of individual scholars, author
appearances were adjusted to be a fraction for multiple-
authored articles. For instance, for an article authored by
three, the contribution of each author was equivalently
considered as 1/3 article. Although some prior research has
implied that adjusted and unadjusted appearances are
highly correlated and essentially redundant measures of
productivity (Jogaratnam et al., 2005), it is a much more
common practice to rank leading scholars in terms of
adjusted appearances (e.g. Cox & Gustavson, 1990; Glass
& Chen, 2005; Heck & Cooley, 1988; Mathieu &
McConomy, 2003; to name only a few). Thus, based on
the number of adjusted appearances, we obtained another
adjusted ranking of leading scholars. Here, there is a
practical concern that our approach for adjustment might
fail to sufciently consider the possible inequality with
respect to the contribution of each author in a multiple-
authored article as the leading authors are usually assumed
to play a relatively bigger role. So, an alternative way to
adjust the raw number of articles is to assign differentiating
coefcients to each position. However, there is also a
counter argument that the sequence of authors in multiple-
authored articles is not always arranged in terms of the
amount of contribution; actually, it is quite common as
well that the sequence of authors is decided by surname, or
even is assigned randomly. In addition, determining the
amount of contribution in a multiple-authored article
sometimes is very subjective. Based upon these considera-
tions, we chose to use equal fractional credit for adjust-
ment. But it should be reminded that this in no way means
the alternative way for adjustment is of less value.
For the purposes of this study, our ideal is to identify
and list a sample of 50 leading tourism scholars over the
past two decades. The basic entry condition for considera-
tion is that the scholar should have at least ve articles
published in Annals, JTR, and TM during 19852004. We
believe that to be recognized as a leading scholar, a tourism
researcher must have the capacity to communicate a
certain number of his/her works in these three most
honoured tourism journals. The threshold was purposely
set somewhat moderate in order to avoid a strong journal
bias.2 In terms of the entry condition, the top 50 leading
1
Please note that articles published in Tourism Management labelled as
Case Study are also excluded.
2
In fact, in terms of the study by Jogaratnam et al. (2005), a tourism
scholar only needs ve articles in a ten-year time frame in Annals, JTR,
and TM to enter the top 45.
479
scholars must be a subset of the authors appearing in
Annals, JTR, and TM during 19852004. After we
obtained a thorough list of author names from the author
indices of Annals, JTR, and TM during 19852004, we
narrowed the scope of our search by identifying those
scholars who have published at least ve articles in these
three journals. Then, we searched the academic record of
these scholars in the eight selected journals, and ranked
them in terms of the number of appearances. Since all eight
journals are covered by leisuretourism.com, this website
provides an excellent database to search the academic
record of these tourism scholars. In addition, other
databases such as EBSCOhost, Elsevier ScienceDirect,
ABI/INFORM Global, and GEOBASE were also examined
in order to validate the data from leisuretourism.com. The
rst 50 scholars in the ranking became the research sample
of this study. After that, further personal data were
collected with respect to their educational background,
afliation, multi-authorship, gender, etc.
4. Results
4.1. Overview
Table 1 gives a list of leading scholars and the number of
their publications in the eight selected tourism journals
from 1985 to 2004. Since seven scholars tied at the last
position, there are in total 57 scholars in our ranking list. In
terms of the ranking outcome, a scholar must have
published at least 11 articles in order to be included in
the top 50 tourism scholars, 13 for top 40, 15 for top 30, 18
for top 20, and 26 for top 10. By publishing 43 articles in
the 8 selected journals, Dr. Daniel Fesenmaier was the
most productive tourism scholar during the period 1985-
2004. On average, he published about two articles per
annum. If the articles are adjusted for multi-authorship (an
adjustment we believe is meaningful), Dr. Chris Ryan
assumed the rst place by publishing 24.87 equivalent
single-authored articles.
It seems that leading scholars have less interest in
publishing in lower-tier journals. Among these 57 leading
scholars, 48 scholars have published more in Annals, JTR,
and TM than in the other 5 tourism journals. Although the
entry barrier was set to be moderate, the average number
of the articles published in Annals, JTR, and TM was as
high as 12.6. Up to 38 leading scholars have published at
least 10 articles in these three journals. In contrast, only
about 6 articles on average have been published in the
remaining ve journals. In addition, it is interesting that
only 3, 4, and 4 leading scholars never publish respectively
in Annals, JTR, and TM. In contrast, 15 never publish in
JTTM, 37 never in JTS, 28 never in JoST, 32 never in TA,
and 31 never in TRR. These facts indicate that Annals,
JTR, and TM are no doubt the most favoured venues for
leading scholars to communicate their research works,
followed by JTTM, JoST, TRR, TA, and JTS. The
relatively low publication rate among secondary journals
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480 W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490

Table 1
Fifty-seven leading scholars listed by the number of articles published in eight tourism journals (19852004)

Unadjusted Name Annals JTR TM Subtotala JTTM JTS JoST TA TRR Total Adjusted Adjusted
rank totalb rank

1 Fesenmaier, Daniel 6 20 3 29 9 0 0 5 0 43 19.03 4

2 Ryan, Chris 7 1 15 23 4 0 8 0 4 39 24.87 1
3 Crompton, John L. 10 21 5 36 0 0 0 0 0 36 17.33 6
4 Witt, Stephen F. 9 10 14 33 2 0 0 0 0 35 17.17 7
4 Uysal, Muzaffer 3 15 7 25 5 1 2 2 0 35 13.25 13
6 OLeary, Joseph 1 6 4 11 9 8 1 4 1 34 10.8 22
6 Morrison, Alastair 1 4 5 10 12 8 1 1 2 34 10.72 23
8 Ritchie, J. R. Brent 1 10 8 19 1 1 3 1 2 27 17.67 5
8 Perdue, Richard 7 15 2 24 1 0 0 2 0 27 17.08 8
10 Pearce, Douglas 6 6 8 20 1 1 1 2 1 26 23 2
11 Oppermann, Martin 6 5 3 14 2 2 0 1 5 24 21.83 3
12 Pizam, Abraham 6 10 6 22 1 0 0 0 0 23 11.77 18
13 Getz, Donald 3 3 7 13 1 3 4 0 1 22 14.83 9
13 Pearce, Philip 8 3 2 13 1 3 4 0 1 22 12.32 17
15 McKercher, Bob 4 6 4 14 4 0 3 0 0 21 14 11
16 Wall, Geoffrey 8 0 5 13 1 1 2 1 2 20 11.33 20
17 Williams, Peter 1 6 3 10 3 2 1 0 3 19 8.92 28
18 Crouch, Geoffrey 2 6 2 10 2 2 0 4 0 18 12.92 15
18 Law, Rob 1 2 7 10 8 0 0 0 0 18 9.58 26
18 Timothy, Dallen J. 3 0 2 5 2 2 3 0 6 18 13.17 14
18 Moscardo, Gianna M. 3 2 0 5 1 8 2 0 2 18 8.85 29
22 Faulkner, Bill 3 4 7 14 0 0 1 2 0 17 9.08 27
22 Cohen, Erik 12 0 1 13 0 0 1 0 3 17 14.33 10
22 Sheldon, Pauline J. 7 5 1 13 3 1 0 0 0 17 12.5 16
22 Butler, Richard W. 4 3 4 11 0 1 1 2 2 17 9.67 25
22 Crotts, John C. 2 2 3 7 7 1 1 0 1 17 8.83 30
27 Woodside, Arch G. 0 10 1 11 3 0 0 2 0 16 7.33 42
28 Prentice, Richard 6 0 8 14 1 0 0 0 0 15 7.17 43
28 Smith, Stephen L. J. 5 4 2 11 0 0 1 3 0 15 11.42 19
28 Sirakaya, Ercan 3 7 1 11 1 0 1 2 0 15 7 46
28 Cooper, Chris 2 1 4 7 1 1 2 0 4 15 7.92 36
28 Dwyer, Larry 3 1 3 7 0 3 1 2 2 15 7.03 45
33 Riley, Michael 4 1 6 11 1 0 0 2 0 14 8.33 33
33 Teye, Victor B. 4 2 4 10 0 0 0 1 3 14 10.83 21
33 Ross, Glenn F. 2 2 2 6 2 2 0 1 3 14 14 11
36 Hope, Christine A. 4 2 7 13 0 0 0 0 0 13 6.67 50
36 Lee, Choong-Ki 2 3 7 12 1 0 0 0 0 13 7.67 37
36 Baum, Tom 2 2 6 10 0 0 1 0 2 13 8.33 33
36 Bramwell, Bill 4 1 4 9 0 0 2 0 2 13 8.83 30
36 Roehl, Wesley 2 6 1 9 4 0 0 0 0 13 6.92 48
36 Page, Stephen J. 3 1 5 9 1 0 2 0 1 13 6.75 49
36 Go, Frank M. 0 2 6 8 3 0 0 0 2 13 7.42 41
36 Kozak, Metin 2 1 2 5 2 0 1 5 0 13 9.92 24
44 Milman, Ady 2 7 3 12 0 0 0 0 0 12 7.67 37
44 Weaver, David 4 4 3 11 0 0 1 0 0 12 8.67 32
44 Sonmez, Sevil F. 3 7 0 10 1 0 0 1 0 12 5.37 53
44 Petrick, James F. 2 6 1 9 0 0 0 3 0 12 8.17 35
44 Chen, Joseph S. 3 1 4 8 1 0 0 3 0 12 7.5 39
44 Kerstetter, Deborah 1 5 2 8 3 0 0 1 0 12 5 55
44 Fennell, David A. 3 1 3 7 0 0 1 0 4 12 7.5 39
51 Gilbert, David C. 2 1 7 10 1 0 0 0 0 11 6.17 51
51 Long, Patrick 3 5 2 10 0 0 0 0 1 11 5.17 54
51 Snepenger, David 2 8 0 10 1 0 0 0 0 11 4.5 57
51 Prideaux, Bruce 0 1 7 8 2 0 1 0 0 11 7.17 43
51 Vogt, Christine A. 2 6 0 8 3 0 0 0 0 11 4.83 56
51 Baloglu, Seyhmus 1 4 2 7 1 0 0 3 0 11 7 46
51 King, Brian 2 1 4 7 1 1 1 0 1 11 5.67 52
a
The subtotal should be at least 5.
b
Each article is adjusted according to the number of co-authors.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490
may be a factor of their relative newness, rather than their
inherent weakness or lack of stature. Well established
academics may have developed a sort of loyalty to the three
core journals, and as such, may be less inclined to
communicate their research works in the other newer
journals. In a related comment, newer academics may not
feel the same compulsion to publish in the Big 3, since tion, and business/management are the most relevant three
they now have multiple publication opportunities.
The list of leading scholars should be read with
discretion. What we are trying to convey is information
regarding the academic leadership of individual scholars in
tourism research, rather than an overall evaluation of
productivity. Not entering the list or ranking at a lower
position does not necessarily mean less scholarly produc-
tivity, since tourism research may be not the primary or
sole emphasis of the scholars research activities. For
example, Dr. John Crompton has published extensively in
both leisure/recreation and tourism. If we count his overall
productivity, he will be the top scholar, as indicated by
Ryans study (2005). But in terms of tourism research, he
only occupies the 3rd position. Another point worth
mentioning is that the time frame covered by this study is
from January 1985 to December 2004. Publications either
before or after this period are not considered.3 We
acknowledge the impact this may have on the ranking of
both older and newer scholars, as well as any variation
resulting from the input of new data.
4.2. Educational Background
According to Table 2, all the 57 leading scholars we have
identied hold a Ph.D. or equivalent degree, indicating a
very strong correlation between doctoral training and
academic leadership. Although a doctorate is not sufcient
to bring about academic leadership, it seems that it has
become a necessary condition for being a leading scholar,
at least according to our sample. This nding is not
surprising, given that nowadays the central objective of the
doctoral program is overwhelmingly to incubate future
academics. Doctoral students are commonly assumed to
pursue an academic career, and their research quality is
thus often fostered as a focus of their education. It is also
relatively easier for an academic with a doctorate to seek
research funding and research projects. For instance, in
many institutions of tertiary education, a research-based
professorship is only open to those academics with a
doctorate.
A closer examination of the nal degrees reveals that the
57 leading tourism scholars have quite diverse disciplinary
origins. We note that 15 leading scholars have their
doctorate in geography, 14 in leisure/recreation, eight in
business/management, six in tourism, four in psychology,
three in economics, and two in education. Other disciplines
3
Please refer to the 6th section at the end of the main text for a detailed
description of the volumes and issues of the eight selected journals covered
by this study.
481
or elds involved span forestry, computer science, sociol-
ogy, planning, and philosophy, each of which has nurtured
one leading scholar. This nding is basically consistent
with the traditional image of tourism as a multidisciplinary
research area. Judging only from the sample of the 57
leading scholars, it seems that geography, leisure/recrea-
disciplines or areas to tourism research, and the scholars
trained in these disciplines or areas may be in a better
position to pursue tourism research and be successful. It is
a bit embarrassing that there are only six leading scholars
having doctoral training in tourism in a real sense. This
may be largely due to the youth of most tourism Ph.D.
programs around the world. Tourism Ph.D. graduates are
still a minority group among tourism academics. In
addition, most of them are still in the early stages of their
career, and evidently require some time for growth. It is
also puzzling that hospitality, a eld widely believed to be
the bosom buddy of tourism, shows a very poor connection
with academic leadership in tourism according to our
sample. We note that none of the 57 leading scholars has
had doctoral training in hospitality.
The doctoral degrees of the 57 leading scholars involve
40 degree-granting universities. Texas A & M University is
the most fertile institution in terms of training world-class
tourism researchers. So far, it has graduated seven leading
scholars. In addition, it is worth special mention that all
these seven scholars graduated from the same Ph.D.
program offered by its Department of Recreation, Park
and Tourism Sciences. The University of Western Ontario
takes the second place by granting ve of the leading
tourism scholars Ph.D. degree, followed by Pennsylvania
State University (4), Clemson University (2), University of
Bradford (2), James Cook University (2), and Monash
University (2). Each of the remaining 34 universities has
educated only one leading tourism scholar at the doctoral
level. In some sense, it can be considered a blessing that a
large number of institutions are involved in producing the
leading scholars, since a concentration of these institutions
may result in a limitation of perspectives, theoretical
orientations, or preferred methodologies (Fabianic, 2001).
It is interesting that the 40 degree granting universities are
highly concentrated in four English speaking nations,
specically, 13 in USA, 14 in United Kingdom, 5 in
Australia, and 4 in Canada. France, Germany, Israel, and
Netherlands are the only four non-English speaking
nations, each of which has educated one leading scholar.
Three reasons may explain the domination of universities
located in the 4 English-speaking nations. The high-quality
tertiary education of the USA, United Kingdom, Canada,
and Australia is renowned worldwide and has been
attracting young talent from all around the world. All 4
of these nations have a relatively long history of tourism
development, and are both top destinations and tourist
generating nations. The favorable macro environment is
obviously very contributive to the birth and growth of the
early generations of tourism academics. As well, since
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482 W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490

Table 2
Educational background of the 57 leading scholars

Name Final degree Discipline or eld Granting school Year

Fesenmaier, Daniel Ph.D. Geography University of Western Ontario, Canada 1980

Ryan, Chris Ph.D. Tourism Aston University, United Kingdom 1994
Crompton, John L. Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Texas A&M University, United States 1977
Witt, Stephen F. Ph.D. Economics University of Bradford, United Kingdom 1978
Uysal, Muzaffer Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Texas A&M University, United States 1983
OLeary, Joseph Ph.D. Forestry University of Washington, United States 1974
Morrison, Alastair Ph.D. Education Purdue University, United States 1993
Ritchie, J. R. Brent PhD Business/Management University of Western Ontario, Canada 1972
Perdue, Richard Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Texas A&M University, United States 1981
Pearce, Douglas Ph.D. Geography Universite dAix-Marseille II, France 1975
Oppermann, Martin Ph.D. Geography Universitat Tubingen, Germany 1994
Pizam, Abraham Ph.D. Business/Management Cornell University, United States 1971
Getz, Donald Ph.D. Geography University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom 1981
Pearce, Philip Ph.D. Psychology Oxford University, United Kingdom 1977
McKercher, Bob Ph.D Geography University of Melbourne, Australia 1996
Wall, Geoffrey Ph.D. Geography University of Hull, United Kingdom 1971
Williams, Peter Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Utah State University, United States 1982
Crouch, Geoffrey Ph.D. Business/Management Monash University, Australia 1992
Law, Rob Ph.D. Computer Science University of Regina, Canada 1994
Timothy, Dallen J. Ph.D. Geography University of Waterloo, Canada 1996
Moscardo, Gianna M. Ph.D. Psychology James Cook University, Australia 1992
Faulkner, Bill Ph.D. Geography Australian National University, Australia 1979
Cohen, Erik Ph.D. Sociology Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel 1968
Sheldon, Pauline J. Ph.D. Economics University of Hawaii, United States 1984
Butler, Richard W. Ph.D. Geography University of Glasgow, United Kingdom 1973
Crotts, John C. Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation University of Oregon, United States 1989
Woodside, Arch G. Ph.D. Business/Management Pennsylvania State University, United States 1968
Prentice, Richard Ph.D. Planning University of Reading, United Kingdom 1976
Smith, Stephen L. J. Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Texas A&M University, United States 1973
Sirakaya, Ercan Ph.D. Tourism Clemson University, United States 1995
Cooper, Chris Ph.D. Geography University College London, United Kingdom 1978
Dwyer, Larry Ph.D. Philosophy University of Western Ontario, Canada 1980
Riley, Michael Ph.D. Psychology University of Essex, United Kingdom 1990
Teye, Victor B. Ph.D. Geography University of Manitoba, Canada 1982
Ross, Glenn F. Ph.D. Psychology James Cook University, Australia 1986
Hope, Christine A. Ph.D. Business/Management University of Bradford, United Kingdom 1987
Lee, Choong-Ki Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Texas A&M University, United States 1992
Baum, Tom Ph.D. Business/Management University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom 1992
Bramwell, Bill Ph.D. Geography University of London, United Kingdom 1988
Roehl, Wesley Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Texas A&M University, United States 1988
Page, Stephen J. Ph.D. Geography University of Leicester, United Kingdom 1987
Go, Frank M. Ph.D. Economics University of Amsterdam, Netherlands 1993
Kozak, Metin Ph.D. Tourism Shefeld Hallam University, United Kingdom 2000
Milman, Ady Ph.D. Business/Management University of Massachusetts Amherst, United States 1986
Weaver, David Ph.D. Geography University of Western Ontario, Canada 1986
Sonmez, Sevil F. Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Pennsylvania State University, United States 1994
Petrick, James F. Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Clemson University, United States 1999
Chen, Joseph S. Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Pennsylvania State University, United States 1996
Kerstetter, Deborah Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Pennsylvania State University, United States 1990
Fennell, David A. Ph.D. Geography University of Western Ontario, Canada 1994
Gilbert, David C. Ph.D. Business/Management University of Surrey, United Kingdom 1992
Long, Patrick Ed.D. Education Western Michigan University, United States 1977
Snepenger, David Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Texas A&M University, United States 1982
Prideaux, Bruce Ph.D. Tourism University of Queensland, Australia 2000
Vogt, Christine A. Ph.D. Leisure/Recreation Indiana University, United States 1993
Baloglu, Seyhmus Ph.D. Tourism Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, United States 1996
King, Brian Ph.D. Tourism Monash University, Australia 1995

Data sources: ProQuest Digital Dissertations, Index to Theses (ASLIB), the International Academy for the study of Tourism directory of members, personal
web pages, and direct contacts with individual scholars.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490
English has become the most important language in the
international academic community, prociency in English
is no doubt a great advantage for those scholars educated
in the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
It is also interesting to examine the date when the
doctoral degrees were granted. Since being granted a
doctoral degree usually indicates the beginning of an
academic career, it is reasonable to suppose that the earlier
a scholar obtained his/her doctoral degree, the more time
he/she has devoted to research and thus the better his/her
standing in the ranking will be. This proposition is not
supported if the ranking is examined individually. We note
that quite a few scholars who received their doctoral degree
in the 1990s occupied fairly high positions. However, if
examined holistically, the ranking is basically consistent
with the proposition. It was revealed that nine of the
scholars obtained their doctoral degree between
19952004, 23 between 19851994, 17 between
19751984, and 8 before 1975. More than 70% of doctoral
degrees were granted between 19751994. In contrast, the
doctoral degrees granted in the latest 10 years only make
up about 16%. The under-representation (or affect on
rankings) for individuals who graduated before 1975 is
acknowledged, given that the publications before 1985 are
not counted, and in addition, a certain proportion of the
scholars who graduated before 1975 may have slowed
down, or even ceased their research activities, due to death,
retirement, or health reasons.
4.3. Affiliation
Table 3 presents information regarding the afliation of
the leading scholars, which was collected in January 2006.4
We note that the 55 leading scholars are fragmentally
distributed in 39 institutions.5 It is not surprising that all
these institutions are academic institutions. Since non-
academics have no motivation or pressure to continually
conduct original research, it is much less possible, or
probable, for them to develop into a leading scholar.
Although it is admitted that the afliation decision of
academics is dependent on multiple factors, the number of
leading scholars holding tenure, indicates to some extent,
the overall attractiveness of institutions to leading scholars.
At present (the time when the data were collected), both
Texas A & M University and James Cook University
employed 4 leading scholars, Hong Kong Polytechnic
University 3, and each of the University of Surrey,
University of Calgary, Arizona State University, Univer-
sity of Waterloo, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University, University of Central Florida, Temple Uni-
versity, and University of Strathclyde 2. The remaining 27
4
Since the afliation of individual scholars could be changed in the
future, the validity of data concerning current afliation is only
guaranteed until January 2006.
5
Drs. Oppermann and Faulkner passed away respectively in 1998 and
2002. So we only have 55 scholars for the analysis of afliation.
483
universities each employed one. It would be interesting and
worthwhile to further examine the policies and supportive
environment of the above-mentioned universities with
respect to faculty recruitment and administration. At the
historical zenith, both Texas A & M University and
University of Surrey attracted ve leading tourism scholars
in total between 19852004. Four schools each ever
employed 4 leading scholars in total, specically, James
Cook University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
University of Calgary, and Arizona State University.
Detailed information is showed in Table 4. A comparison
between the present and historical number of leading
scholars provides additional information regarding the
attractiveness of each institution in question. How to retain
those faculty members with high research potential is
evidently a critical part of administrators responsibility.
A geographical analysis of the afliated institutions
reveals that the distribution of afliated institutions is quite
similar to that of doctoral degree-granting universities. Up
to 32 (82.1%, 32 out of 39) afliated institutions are
located in the same 4 English-speaking nations, specically,
17 in USA, 6 in United Kingdom, 5 in Australia, and 4 in
Canada. If New Zealand is also counted, the 5 English
speaking nations host 34 (87.2%, 34 out of 39) afliated
institutions. Obviously, language is still a contributing
factor for the domination of English speaking nations.
After all, the scholars serving in the higher education
institutions of these nations have no problem with English
and thus have a better chance to be successful through
publication in English language publications. In addition
to the language factor, universities in these nations also
offer a series of tempting benets, such as world-leading
research facilities and highly competitive salaries &
benets. Thus they can attract talent from all around the
world.
An examination of the afliations at the secondary and
tertiary levels also reveals some interesting ndings. At the
tertiary level, up to 42 (76.4%, 42 out of 55) leading
scholars are afliated with units that embrace a team of
colleagues with common interests in tourism issues and
provide tourism-related degree programs. The attractive-
ness of these places to leading scholars may be that they
provide a location where tourism scholars can seek a sense
of common achievement and feel at home, since the
presence of a distinct tourism department or program may
be a good indication that tourism education and research
are highly recognized. At the secondary level, up to 25
leading scholars are concentrated in the faculty, college, or
school of business/management, 12 in independent schools
of tourism and hospitality, and 18 in others. Given the
close disciplinary relevance of business/management to
tourism and the fact that schools of business/management
have been among the best-remunerated faculties at
advanced education institutions, it is not surprising that
business/management schools have attracted the largest
body of leading scholars. It is encouraging that schools of
tourism and hospitality have absorbed the second largest
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484 W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490

Table 3
Information on the afliation of the 57 leading scholarsa

Name Employer institution Secondary unit Tertiary unit Ph.D.

program in
tourism

Fesenmaier, Daniel Temple University,
United States
Ryan, Chris University of Waikato,
New Zealand
Crompton, John L. Texas A&M University,
United States
Witt, Stephen F. Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, China
Uysal, Muzaffer Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State
University, United States
OLeary, Joseph Texas A&M University,
United States
Morrison, Alastair Purdue University,
United States
Ritchie, J. R. Brent University of Calgary,
Canada
Perdue, Richard Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State
University, United States
Pearce, Douglas Victoria University of
Wellington, New Zealand
Oppermann, Martin
Pizam, Abraham University of Central
Florida, United States
Getz, Donald University of Calgary,
Canada
Pearce, Philip James Cook University,
Australia
McKercher, Bob Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, China
Wall, Geoffrey University of Waterloo,
Canada
Williams, Peter Simon Fraser University,
Canada
Crouch, Geoffrey La Trobe University,
Australia
Law, Rob Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, China
Timothy, Dallen J. Arizona State University,
United States
Moscardo, Gianna M. James Cook University,
Australia
Faulkner, Bill
Cohen, Erik Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Israel
Sheldon, Pauline J. University of Hawaii,
United States
Butler, Richard W. University of Strathclyde,
United Kingdom
Crotts, John C. College of Charleston,
United States
Woodside, Arch G. Boston College, United
States
Prentice, Richard University of Sunderland,
United Kingdom
Smith, Stephen L. J. University of Waterloo,
Canada
Sirakaya, Ercan Texas A&M University,
United States
School of Tourism and Hospitality National Lab for Tourism and Yes
Management eCommerce
Waikato Management School Department of Tourism and Hospitality Yes
Management
College of Agriculture and Life Department of Recreation, Park & Yes
Sciences Tourism Sciences
School of Hospitality and Tourism School of Hospitality and Tourism Yes
Management Management
Pamplin College of Business Department of Hospitality and Tourism Yes
Management
College of Agriculture and Life Department of Recreation, Park & Yes
Sciences Tourism Sciences
College of Consumer and Family Department of Hospitality and Tourism Yes
Sciences Management
Haskayne School of Business Tourism Management Area Yes
Pamplin College of Business Department of Hospitality and Tourism Yes
Management
Victoria Management School Tourism Management Area Yes
Rosen School of Hospitality Rosen School of Hospitality Yes
Management Management
Haskayne School of Business Tourism Management Area Yes
School of Business Department of Tourism Management Yes
School of Hospitality and Tourism School of Hospitality and Tourism Yes
Management Management
Faculty of Environmental Studies Deptartment of Geography Yes
School of Resource and Centre for Tourism Policy and Research Yes
Environmental Management
School of Business Department of Accounting and No
Management
School of Hospitality and Tourism School of Hospitality and Tourism Yes
Management Management
College of Public Programs School of Community Resources and No
Development
School of Business Department of Tourism Management Yes
Faculty of Social Sciences Department of Sociology and No
Anthropology
School of Travel Industry School of Travel Industry Management No
Management
Strathclyde Business School Scottish Hotel School Yes
School of Business and Economics Department of Hospitality and Tourism No
Management
Carroll School of Management Department of Marketing No
School of Arts, Design, Media and Tourism Studies Program No
Culture
Faculty of Applied Health Department of Recreation and Leisure Yes
Sciences Studies
College of Agriculture and Life Department of Recreation, Park & Yes
Sciences Tourism Sciences

W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490
Table 3 (continued )
Name Employer institution
Cooper, Chris University of Queensland,
Australia
Dwyer, Larry University of New South
Wales, Australia
Riley, Michael University of Surrey, United
Kingdom
Teye, Victor B. Arizona State University,
United States
Ross, Glenn F. James Cook University,
Australia
Hope, Christine A. University of Bradford,
United Kingdom
Lee, Choong-Ki Kyung Hee University,
South Korea
Baum, Tom University of Strathclyde,
United Kingdom
Bramwell, Bill Shefeld Hallam University,
United Kingdom
Roehl, Wesley Temple University,
United States
Page, Stephen J. University of Stirling,
United Kingdom
Go, Frank M. Erasmus University,
Netherlands
Kozak, Metin Mugla University, Turkey
Milman, Ady University of Central
Florida, United States
Weaver, David University of South
Carolina, United States
Sonmez, Sevil F. Emory University,
United States
Petrick, James F. Texas A&M University,
United States
Chen, Joseph S. Indiana University,
United States
Kerstetter, Deborah Pennsylvania State
University, United States
Fennell, David A. Brock University, Canada
Gilbert, David C. University of Surrey,
United Kingdom
Long, Patrick University of Colorado at
Boulder, United States
Snepenger, David Montana State University,
United States
Prideaux, Bruce James Cook University,
Australia
Vogt, Christine A. Michigan State University,
United States
Baloglu, Seyhmus University of Nevada, Las
Vegas, United States
King, Brian Victoria University,
Australia
a
Validity guaranteed until January 2006.
body of leading scholars. The rapid growth of this kind of
school around the world sends a positive signal that
tourism is being recognized as a distinct discipline, though
ARTICLE IN PRESS
485
Secondary unit Tertiary unit Ph.D.
program in
tourism
Faculty of Business, Economics School of Tourism and Leisure Yes
and Law Management
Faculty of Commerce & School of Economics No
Economics
School of Management Organization Behaviours & Human Yes
Resource Management
College of Public Programs School of Community Resources and No
Development
School of Business Department of Tourism Management Yes
School of Management Operations and Information No
Management Group
College of Hotel and Tourism School of Tourism No
Management
Strathclyde Business School Scottish Hotel School Yes
School of Sport and Leisure Centre for Tourism and Cultural Yes
Management Change
School of Tourism and Hospitality Research Center (Tourism and Yes
Management Hospitality)
Faculty of Management Tourism Management Program Yes
Rotterdam School of Centre for Tourism Management No
Management
School of Tourism and Hotel School of Tourism and Hotel No
Management Management
Rosen School of Hospitality Rosen School of Hospitality Yes
Management Management
College of Hospitality, Retail, and School of Hotel, Restaurant and No
Sport Management Tourism Management
School of Medicine Department of Family and Preventive No
Medicine
College of Agriculture and Life Department of Recreation, Park & Yes
Sciences Tourism Sciences
School of Health, Physical Department of Recreation and Park Yes
Education and Recreation Administration
College of Health and Human Department of Recreation, Park & Yes
Development Tourism Management
Faculty of Applied Health Department of Recreation and Leisure No
Sciences Studies
School of Management The Marketing Group Yes
Leeds School of Business Center of Sustainable Tourism No
College of Business Department of Marketing No
School of Business Department of Tourism Management Yes
College of Agricuture and Natural Department of Community, Yes
Resources Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource
Studies
William F. Harrah College of Department of Tourism & Convention Yes
Hotel Administration Administration
Faculty of Business and Law School of Hospitality, Tourism and Yes
Marketing
still just in a small number of universities. Notably, up to
37 (67.3%, 37 out of 55) leading scholars are working
at institutions with a doctoral program in tourism. The
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486 W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490

Table 4
Leading employers of leading scholars within 19852004

Employer institution Num of leading scholars

At presenta Historical zenith (19852004)

Texas A & M University, USA 4 5

University of Surrey, UK 2 5
James Cook University, Australia 4 4
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China 3 4
University of Calgary, Canada 2 4
Arizona State University, USA 2 4
University of Waterloo, Canada 2 3
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA 2 3
University of Central Florida, USA 2 3
Temple University, USA 2 2
University of Strathclyde, UK 2 2
a
Validity guaranteed until January 2006.

Table 5
Statistics on multi-authorship of leading scholars in the eight selected journals

Num of authors Annals JTR TM JTTM JTS JoST TA TRR Total

1 59 50 74 18 16 12 13 33 275
2 85 116 90 44 9 28 17 22 411
3 30 50 46 36 10 7 12 4 195
44 1 16 8 3 7 2 7 3 47
Total 175 232 218 101 42 49 49 62 928

presence of a doctoral program may indicate a focus on
tourism-related research activities, and thus foster the
growth of leading scholars. This proposition is somewhat
supported by the result of another study in the eld of
accounting, showing that the presence of a PhD program is
positively related to productivity in top journals (Mathieu
& McConomy, 2003).
4.4. Multi-authorship
Between 1985 and 2004, the 57 leading scholars have
published 928 research articles in the eight selected tourism
journals (no repeat). Table 5 shows the detailed statistics
on the multi-authorship of these articles in each journal.
About 30% of the articles were published in the name of a
single author, 44% in the name of two, 21% in the name of
three, and 5% in the name of four or more. Co-authorship
is the most common type for all of the eight journals. We
can see that although collaborative research makes up as
high as 70%, leading scholars usually cooperate with only
one research collaborator.
4.5. Gender
Although more male scholars were expected, the over-
whelming dominance of male scholars in the list of leading
scholars is still beyond expectation. Only six female
scholars6 enter the list, and this just constitutes 10.5% of
the whole sample. Determining an explanation for the
severe under-representation of females in the group of
leading scholars was not a goal of this study, so we will not
attempt to provide any supercial views here.
5. Discussion and conclusion
This study is a systematic investigation of individual
academic leadership in tourism research. By counting the
publications in 8 recognized tourism journals between 1985
and 2004, we have identied 57 of the most prolic scholars
over the past two decades, each of whom has published at
least 11 articles. Their general prole was further revealed
through detailed examination of their educational back-
ground, afliation, multi-authorship, and gender. Based
upon previous literature, this study adds more value by
exploring a greater variety of journals over a longer time
frame and by collecting additional information on each of
the leading scholars.
The data analysis has generated some interesting ndings
about leading scholars. Having published 43 articles in the
8 selected journals, Dr. Daniel Fesenmaier of Temple
University was the most productive tourism scholar
6
They are Drs. Moscardo, Sheldon, Hope, Sonmez, Kerstetter, and
Vogt.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490
between 1985 and 2004. If multi-authorship is considered
and adjusted for, Dr. Chris Ryan of the University of
Waikato was the No. 1 scholar by publishing 24.87
equivalent single-authored articles. All the leading scholars
hold a doctoral degree, but their disciplinary origins are
quite diverse. Specically, the most three popular dis-
ciplinary origins are geography, leisure/recreation, and
business/management. The doctoral degrees of the 57
leading scholars were granted by 40 universities, the
majority of which are located in the four English-speaking
countries, i.e., USA, United Kingdom, Canada, and
Australia. Texas A & M University is the leading
contributor by having graduated seven leading scholars.
More than 70% of leading scholars obtained their doctoral
degree between 19751994. As for afliation, all the leading
scholars are full-time faculty members at university or
college, and they are fragmentally distributed at 39
different institutions. The Texas A&M University and
James Cook University are the leading employers of
leading scholars, each of which has now attracted 4
scholars. In historical retrospect, the leading employers of
leading scholars were Texas A&M University (5), Uni-
versity of Surrey (5), James Cook University (4), Hong
Kong Polytechnic University (4), University of Calgary (4),
and Arizona State University (4). The geographical
distribution of the afliations was quite similar to that of
degree-granting universities. They are highly concentrated
in the same 4 English-speaking countries, i.e., USA, United
Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Leading scholars have a
common interest in working at tourism-specic depart-
ments or centers, which are mostly in the charge of either
tourism & hospitality schools or business/management
schools and provide tourism-related doctoral programs.
Collaboration is a dominant theme in the research
activities of leading scholars, but they usually cooperate
with only one collaborator. There is a severe under-
representation of females in the list of leading scholars.
Only six out of 57 are female scholars.
The data and ndings of this study can be used in
multiple ways. For university administrators, they can
obtain some understanding, from the list of leading
scholars, of the relative quality of their tourism faculty
body on a worldwide scale. Leading scholars should be
viewed as a precious asset and be competed for. Their
contributions to the afliated institution not only lie in
their prolic research activities, but also in their leadership
and commitment to the building of world-class tourism
programs, especially graduate programs. With their aca-
demic achievement, they often can magnetize a team of
colleagues and high-quality postgraduate applicants. Our
data and ndings can be used as a reference for university
administrators to critically review their faculty administra-
tion policies regarding how to recruit, retain, or foster
leading scholars. For instance, this study has revealed that
leading scholars prefer to work in tourism-specic depart-
ments or centers, and at tourism and hospitality schools or
business/management schools. For those universities that
487
have a serious interest in tourism education and research, it
would be a good strategy to set up a tourism-specic
department or center, and locate it at the school of tourism
& hospitality or business/management. For young students
who intend to pursue a graduate degree in tourism, our
data provide them with a useful source to seek appropriate
programs and supervision. At present, although most
doctoral programs in tourism around the world have set an
admission requirement that the applicant should possess a
tourism-relevant degree (either baccalaureate or master),
how relevant is relevant is often not specied. The
disciplinary origins of leading scholars we have identied
provide a possible guideline in this respect, for both the
potential applicants and the doctoral programs. In addi-
tion, our data and ndings are also relevant for accredita-
tion organizations and associations, and for universities to
facilitate their candidate search process. For example, the
International Academy for the Study of Tourism, one of
the most respected associations in tourism, still employs the
traditional personal nomination process to consider and
induct new members. This study may be helpful by
providing an additional way to identify potential new
members.
The limitations of this study lie mainly in the denition
and measurement of academic leadership. In this study,
academic leadership was dened as the superior cap-
ability of tourism scholars to communicate their research
works in accredited tourism journals. In terms of this
denition, it is logical to measure academic leadership by
the quantity of publications in reputable journals in the
eld. However, it should be acknowledged that very
worthwhile scholarly contributions are also being made
through publication in other peer reviewed tourism
journals not included in this study. As Professor C.
Michael Hall has very aptly made us aware, he publishes
in certain journals or outlets because I want to commu-
nicate something to a particular audience and believes that
to be the best avenue (Hall, 2005, p. 655). The authors of
this paper both admire and share this philosophy and
believe that future research should seek to nd a way to
accommodate it in efforts to identify and acknowledge the
contributions of leading scholars. In addition, other
worthwhile contributions include a wide variety of research
work such as conference presentations, proceedings, books,
monographs, book chapters, dissertations, trade journal
articles, etc. In this regard, we believe that the omission of
books within the process of identifying leading scholars,
can be particularly misleading and dangerous. While
we recognize that we are venturing into somewhat
dangerous territory in seeking to address this short-
coming, we believe it is ultimately necessary. As an
example, the above referenced Professor Hall does not
emerge as a leading scholar based on our methodology
but obviously (in our view), he has had a signicant
inuence on the eld through his books, which represent an
important means of synthesis and comment as well as
dissemination of ideas.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
488 W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490
Equally, although not a tourism scholar by most
measures, individuals such as Professor John Urry, has had
a signicant inuence due to the publication of his book,
The Tourist Gaze. We will not venture further in this
regard, but we do wish to leave readers with the message
that we believe that the kind of methodology we have used
to identify leading scholars should be complemented by
further work which will provide other measures of
scholarly leadership to ll out the presently incomplete
picture.
In addition, tourism research is widely published in a
diversity of journals, many of which are not necessarily
tourism-related. But in counting journal articles, we only
examined 8 tourism-specic journals. Thus, our results may
fail to fully capture the overall academic importance and
inuence of individual scholars, and as such, may need to
be expanded upon in future research. While we believe our
methodology generally captures an adequate holistic
picture of scholarly leadership in leading tourism journals,
we are sensitive to the fact that certain highly acknowl-
edged scholars may have been omitted from our list since
they have made their contributions in more narrowly
focussed disciplinary journals on the topic of tourism.
Examples are Douglas Frechtling from the USA, as well as
John Fletcher and Stephen Wanhill from the UK. Since
they have published extensively in the economic literature
(as well as tourism journals), thus diluting their contribu-
tions (according to our measures), they arguably do not
appear as highly ranked in terms of scholarly leadership, as
some might think they deserve to be. While we have
dared to highlight the above individuals, we want to
make clear they are cited only as examples, and are in no
way intended to be viewed as an exhaustive listing.
Although a more comprehensive consideration of all the
research contributions of scholars might contribute to a
more systematic, objective evaluation, we argue that the
most direct and practical choice at this time is to focus on a
limited number of tourism-specic journals. The primary
difculty of a more comprehensive evaluation lies in the
data collection. Since information on publications other
than tourism journal articles is not always readily
accessible, relevant information is extremely hard to seek
and conrm. Sometimes, even for the scholars themselves,
they may not know exactly what they have published.
Thus, the preciseness of the data may never be fully
achieved. This may be the main reason why to date nearly
all the research on tourism scholars and institutions is
always attached to tourism journal articles. Even if we were
100% sure that we had obtained all the information
needed, it is another problem to compare and decide on the
relative value of the publications of a different nature. For
these reasons, it would be a more feasible strategy to
examine a single type of publications each time, and then
horizontally compare the results in order to achieve a
comprehensive understanding.
Another major limitation of this study, as also indicated
previously, is the failure to sufciently consider the type,
quality and the innovativeness of publications. In fact, this
is an inherent problem for any ranking exercise (Losekoot
et al., 2001). What we are really measuring is academic
leadership in a quantitative sense, rather than a qualitative
sense. As Page (2005) has cautioned, overdue emphasis on
productivity might result in abundant less-rened research
with mediocre and mundane ndings. Therefore, quality
and innovativeness should be included as a critical element
in the criteria of ranking. However, since high-quality
and innovative are quite subjective concepts, it is
obviously unfair and less rigorous as well, if we input our
personal, non-authoritative perceptions of quality and
innovativeness into the ranking process. Although quality
and innovativeness were not fully considered in this study,
they have been controlled in some sense. This can be
understood from two perspectives. For one thing, research
articles published in journals must have successfully gone
through a rigorous review process, which, we believe,
guarantees that they are of sufcient quality for accep-
tance. Second, the choice of journals was made with
discretion. It was largely based on a critical review of
previous journal quality assessment literature. Of course,
we acknowledge that the journal screening just has
alleviated the quality problem, rather than eliminated it.
A better quality-based evaluation framework is still
desperately needed. Citation analysis, which assumes that
there is a correlation between the citation count of an
article and its quality, has been widely advocated and
practiced as a promising tool in this respect, although at
the same time it has been criticized ercely for citation
biases such as incomplete citing and overcomplete citing
(Hauffe, 1994). Also, we might seek insights from various
other scholarship recognition practices. The Nobel Prize
nomination and selection process provides an excellent
model for accrediting individual achievements by the
quality of work. In tourism, we have had a number of
prestigious awards set up by international organizations in
the eld, by associations such as the Travel & Tourism
Research Association (TTRA), and the International
Society of Travel & Tourism Educators (ISTTE), as well
as publishers, journals, governments and industry/profes-
sional organizations. These awards may also be good
indicators of academic leadership in the broadest sense. In
summary, we assert that we should use all the information
we can obtain in every situation in order to be more
complete in an assessment of scholarly leadership in
tourism.
In addition to the above-mentioned limitations, we also
have to acknowledge the fact that the 20-year time frame
covered by this study was intended to focus on a reasonable
career time frame for most academics. This said, it overlooks
the early career contributions of certain long serving
academics (for example, if we may be permitted, the senior
author of this paper), and may also be biased against newer
academics, some of whom may be prolic in recent years, but
who have not yet had sufcient time to fully establish their
track record. So, if we examined a shorter period of time, for
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490 489

Table 6
An expanded list of leading scholars in tourism research between 19852004 (ordered alphabetically)

Name Afliationc Name Afliation

Category Ia
Airey, David University of Surrey, UK Kim, Samuel Sejong University, South Korea
Seong-Seop
Backman, Sheila J. Clemson University, USA Littrell, Mary A. Iowa State University, USA
Beaman, Jay Auctor Consulting Associates, Ltd., Litvin, Stephen W. College of Charleston, USA
USA
Burns, Peter University of Brighton, UK MacKay, Kelly J. University of Manitoba, Canada
Chon, Kaye Hong Kong Polytechnic University, McCleary, Ken W. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
PR China
Choy, Dexter J. L. University of Hawaii, USA Morley, Clive L. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia
Forsyth, Peter Monash University, Australia Shackley, Myra Nottingham Trent University, UK
Gartner, Williams C. University of Minnesota, USA Shaw, Robin Deakin University, Australia
Graefe, Alan R. Pennsylvania State University, USA Smeral, Egon Austrian Institute of Economic Research, Austria
Gursoy, Dogan Washington State University, USA Tosun, Cevat Mustafa Kemal University, Turkey
Hobson, J. S. Perry Southern Cross University, Australia Turner, Lindsay Victoria University, Australia
Hsu, Cathy H. C. Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Var, Turgut Texas A&M University (Emeritus), USA
PR China
Hudson, Simon University of Calgary, Canada
Category IIb
Buckley, Ralf Grifth University, Australia Hsieh, Sheauhsing Progressive Insurance, USA
Hall, C. Michael University of Otago, New Zealand Qu, Hailin Oklahoma State University, USA
Henderson, Joan C. Nanyang Technological University, Timmermans, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
Singapore Harry
a
Scholars in Category I refer to those who have published 910 articles in the eight selected journals within the time frame of 19852004, including at
least ve articles in Annals, JTR and TM. These scholars can be considered a natural addition to the list in Table 1.
b
Scholars in Category II refer to those who have published at least 11 articles in the 8 selected journals within the time frame of 19852004, but have
published less than ve articles in Annals, JTR and TM.
c
Validity guaranteed until January 2006.

example, the latest 10 years, it is not surprising that some
young scholars already in the list would upgrade their
position and some of those not in the present list will
eventually get in. However, in acknowledging such a
potential bias, we also wish to point out that longer-term
academics may not have been fully committed to tourism
research throughout the entire 20-year period, especially
considering that tourism research was not highly recognized
during the early years of the period covered. In contrast, with
the growing signicance and wide recognition of tourism
research around the world, nowadays, it may be argued that
newer academics have a much clearer career ladder in mind,
and can fully devote themselves to tourism research. We will
not go further in addressing this bias issue, but we do want to
emphasize here that variation in the ranking list is to be
expected if we expand or narrow the time frame under
examination.
The above discussion provides some clues for future
research on academic leadership. First, a wider variety of
publications should be examined and the ndings cross-
compared so that more validity is guaranteed. For
example, Park and Meng (2004) have made an initial
analysis of the institutional presentation contributions to
the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA)s
annual conference. Similar analysis certainly can be applied
to individual scholars. Second, as mentioned earlier, it
would be valuable to have a more in-depth and detailed
examination of the institutional recruitment and adminis-
tration policies of those universities that have attracted a
few leading scholars. Their good practices then can be
made available to other sister institutions that have the
same serious interests in tourism education and research. In
this sense, the recently launched WTO TedQual Certica-
tion System, while presently imperfect, provides an initial
guideline. Third, due to limited time and funding, most
data used in this study came from second-hand sources,
such as journals, personal web pages, biographies, data-
bases, etc. Although the data are sufcient for present
analysis, we believe that a more in-depth investigation of
leading scholars, either by means of a survey or by personal
interviews, might offer more insights and greater under-
standing. For example, we might collect information
regarding industry experience, supervision of graduate
students, editorial board service, etc., and see whether
there is any correlation between these factors and scholarly
leadership, as measured in this study. Finally, we believe it
would also be useful to examine the nature and intensity of
scholarly contributions of leading scholars over the course
of their career. Such an examination could provide insights
and understanding that potentially could be both helpful
and encouraging to junior scholars as they seek to launch,
build and maintain their academic careers.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
490 W. Zhao, J.R.B. Ritchie / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 476490

6. Notes qualitatively oriented study that seeks to achieve a more

holistic understanding of scholarly contributions to the
The following is a list of the journals and issues covered eld of tourism. Interested readers are strongly encouraged
by this study. to collect, analyze and interpret this type of additional
information.
Journal From To

Annals of Tourism Vol. 12(1), Vol. 31(4),

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