Sustainability of studies on sustainable tourism – a bibliometric approach

Abstract

The core values of sustainability should be emphasised: economic development, social inclusion, equity as well as diversity, and environmental protection. Those values should be reflected in various characteristics of studies on sustainable tourism. And this is the question we ask in our paper: are the studies of sustainable tourism sustainable? To address that question, we applied a bibliometric analysis of papers published within the last ten years in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, the most influential scientific journal strictly focused on sustainable tourism issues. The analysis has revealed some doubts related to financial support for the research presented in the papers published, open access to the investigated articles, the differentiation of scientific disciplines whose achievements are presented, the expected methodological triangulation applied in the investigated papers, spatial volatility of case study areas in empirical works presented in the journal and, finally, the Anglo-American domination in the discourse on sustainable tourism.