The state of research methods in tourism and hospitality

The tourism and hospitality research landscape is constantly evolving and the field is growing in maturity. One of the features that dominates this evolution is the proliferation of academic journals. The number of tourism and hospitality journals has increased from less than ten before the 1980s to around 300 in 2017 (Shani and Uriely, 2017). Among the various knowledge dissemination channels that exist, academic journals play a leading position and serve several important functions. They play a central role in knowledge production and are considered key to knowledge advancement in any discipline (Xiao and Smith, 2007). Journals signify the existence of a scientific domain, niche discipline, or school of thought (Nie et al., 2009). The various tourism and hospitality journals constitute the main reservoir of knowledge for researchers, students, and practitioners alike. Interestingly, these journals have been in their own right, the focus of investigations, described by Figueroa-Domecq et al. (2015, p. 88) as “the scholarship on the scholarship” of tourism and hospitality research. Within these groups of studies feature fervent debates on research methodologies and related aspects. For example, Xiao and Smith (2006a) noted a rise in the number of articles published in Annals of Tourism Research that have as their main objective the dissemination of new concepts, models, and methods. Such an argument can also be extended to other journals in the field, where articles focusing on research paradigms and methods are common.