Title: The relationship of impact factors and journal rankings in tourism

Authors: Davis Ka Chio Fong; Ben Haobin Ye; Rob Law

Addresses: Faculty of Business Administration, University of Macau, E22-3086, Avenida da Universidade, Taipa, Macau ' School of Business, Sun Yat-sen University, 135 Xingangxi Road, Guangzhou, China ' School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 17 Science Museum Road, TST East, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Abstract: This research note discusses the relationship of impact factors (IFs) and journal rankings in tourism. The present conceptual paper contributes to this line of research by commenting on the (un)suitability of using IFs and citations for ranking tourism journals, and aims to offer novel and constructive suggestions to academics in the field. Limitations of using IFs in ranking tourism journals have been examined, which include unintended negative impact induced by extensive use of IFs, possible inaccurate assessment of the paper's quality, and incomparability of IFs between tourism journals and mainstream business journals. Implications were offered to address the limitations of paper assessment based on journal ranking. Specifically, universities should not use impact factor as the sole measurement to judge journal quality. Other ways of measurement (e.g., peer-assessment) would also be a good indicator.

Keywords: impact factors; journal rankings; tourism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBBM.2018.092742

International Journal of Bibliometrics in Business and Management, 2018 Vol.1 No.2, pp.97 - 103

Received: 14 Apr 2016
Accepted: 28 Jun 2016
Published online: 29 Jun 2018 *

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