A Study of Prolific Authors in 25 Tourism and Hospitality Journals

This study analyzes authorships in 25 leading tourism and hospitality journals over a five-year period. A total of 3,153 full papers are examined. More than 3200 individuals authored or coauthored these papers. Prolific authors are those who authored or co-authored a minimum of 10 papers during the study period. Less than 2% of authors met this threshold. Yet they are involved in a disproportionately large 22% of all journal articles published. Prolific authors are predominately male, middle-aged and hold the rank of professor or associate professor. They reside in 10 different countries in four continents and were found to be working in 32 different universities. They also have a history of prolific authorship, publishing in a median of at least 50 journal articles, book chapters or books during their career.