Annals of Tourism Research: Scopus, Scope, Metrics & Submission Guide

Key Takeaways

• Publisher: Elsevier; journal content and author guidance are hosted on ScienceDirect.
• Identity: Print ISSN 0160-7383; online ISSN 1873-7722; supplied Scopus Source ID 30718.
• Scope: tourism scholarship grounded in social-science theory, methods and multidisciplinary relevance.
• Review: double-anonymized, with separate title page and anonymized manuscript.
• Current displayed indicators: CiteScore 16.2, Impact Factor 7.8 and an 8% acceptance rate on Elsevier’s journal-insights page; verify reporting-year labels before institutional use.
• Publishing model: subscription route with no publication fee, or optional open access currently listed at USD 3,860 excluding taxes.
• Fit: topic relevance alone is insufficient; the manuscript should show originality, methodological credibility, relevance and readable multidisciplinary communication.

Journal Information at a Glance

The table below distinguishes values that are directly verifiable from current Elsevier pages from items that should be checked in the live database before submission.

Metrics and publication policies are time-sensitive. Treat this table as a research aid, not a substitute for the live journal and indexing records.

What This Page Covers

• Aims, scope and subject areas
• Scopus and other indexing
• Current metrics and limits
• Article types and manuscript fit
• Submission and formatting
• Peer review and timelines
• Open access and APC
• Ethics and AI policy
• Pre-submission checklist

Methodology and Source Note

This profile was prepared from the official ScienceDirect journal homepage, Elsevier’s Guide for Authors, Journal Insights, open-access information, recent issue pages and current calls for papers, together with the supplied Scopus source identifier. The official pages were checked on 10 August 2026. Where an authoritative page displayed a metric without exposing its reporting year in the accessible result, this article reports the display cautiously and tells readers where to verify the year-labelled value.

Because editorial teams, fees, indexing, timelines and metrics can change, reconfirm the official journal page, Guide for Authors, Journal Insights and live Scopus record before making a submission decision.

What Does Annals of Tourism Research Aim to Publish?

The journal defines tourism broadly as a global economic and social activity involving travel behaviour, the management and marketing of service industries, impacts on communities, and policy and governance at local, national and international levels. Its stated emphasis is not merely on documenting tourism phenomena but on developing theoretical constructs that connect tourism with business and the social and behavioural sciences.

Officially named disciplinary areas include service-industry management, marketing science, consumer marketing, decision-making and behaviour, business ethics, economics and forecasting, environment, geography and development, education and knowledge development, political science and administration, consumer-focused psychology, anthropology and sociology. The journal explicitly encourages multidisciplinary interaction.

For manuscript fit, that breadth is useful but demanding. A destination case study can fall within the broad subject matter yet still be weakly aligned if its contribution is predominantly local description. A stronger submission typically explains what the study changes in theory, methods, policy or practice beyond the immediate setting. The journal’s author guidance places particular weight on originality, methodological rigour, relevance, readability and transferability.

Subject Areas and Research Themes That May Fit

Based on the official scope and recent 2026 content, potentially relevant areas include the themes below. These are guidance derived from the journal’s scope and publication pattern, not an exhaustive official topic list.

• Tourist behaviour and decision-making
• Tourism marketing and consumer research
• Destination image and experience design
• Hospitality employment and social innovation
• Digital nomadism and lifestyle mobility
• Sustainable tourism and collective action
• Tourism forecasting and recovery
• Community participation and development
• Tourism ethics, justice and conservation
• Policy, governance and societal impact
• Tourism methods and methodological innovation
• AI, robotics and large language models in tourism

Recent published work includes research on image congruence, hotel-consumption emotions and memory, digital nomadism, hospitality employment, memorable tourism experiences, sustainable innovation, tourism participation and methodological combinations such as fsQCA/NCA/NConfA. A live call for papers also addresses large language models for tourism and tourists, with a deadline of 31 August 2026. These examples show the journal’s range while reinforcing its demand for a substantive tourism and social-science contribution.

Understanding Its Scopus Coverage and Journal Metrics

Elsevier lists Scopus among the journal’s abstracting and indexing services and also lists the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), SJR, SNIP and the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC). The supplied source data identifies Scopus Source ID 30718. This is important for researchers whose universities require publication in a Scopus-covered source, but the live source profile remains the correct place to confirm active status and coverage dates.

Current displayed metrics

Elsevier’s accessible journal pages currently display a CiteScore of 16.2 and an Impact Factor of 7.8. The accessible result did not expose the reporting year. For academic reporting, promotion files or doctoral regulations, do not detach a metric from its year: confirm the latest year-labelled CiteScore in Scopus and the latest Impact Factor in Journal Citation Reports.

Quartile, SJR and SNIP

The current year-specific SJR, SNIP and category quartile were not verifiable from the authoritative pages accessible for this article. That uncertainty is intentional rather than a gap to be filled with a third-party ranking site. Quartile can differ by database, year and subject category; use the latest official source required by your institution.

What Types of Articles Does the Journal Publish?

The official Guide for Authors lists full papers based on empirical research, conceptual essays and review articles, research notes, commentaries and rejoinders. It also supports Registered Reports. For full research articles, the guide describes manuscripts as normally 6,000–10,000 words and states an absolute published maximum of 10,000 words including tables, figures and references. Research Notes are capped at 2,000 words including tables, figures and references.

This distinction matters when selecting the article type. A concise methodological observation may be better framed as a Research Note than expanded artificially into a full paper. A conceptual submission needs more than a literature summary; it should develop a persuasive theoretical contribution. Review articles should likewise have a clear scholarly purpose rather than functioning as broad descriptive inventories.

Is This Journal a Good Match for Your Research?

A manuscript is more likely to be well aligned when the tourism context is central, the work contributes to social-science understanding, and the theoretical or methodological contribution is clear beyond one setting. The journal’s publishing criteria emphasize courageous originality, credibility through rigorous design, relevance to identifiable communities, readable communication and transferability of methods or data.

Practical Journal-Fit Examples

Preparing and Submitting a Manuscript

The journal’s current author instructions require editable source files and a submission prepared for double-anonymized review. Word files should be single-column; Word or LaTeX source files are acceptable, while a PDF is not accepted as the source file for production.

Title page and anonymized manuscript

Submit the title page separately with the article title, author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, declaration of interest, corresponding-author postal address and email. The anonymized manuscript should contain the paper, references, figures and tables but no identifying author information.

Abstract, keywords and highlights

The abstract must not exceed 120 words. The journal asks for 1–6 English keywords. Highlights are encouraged as a separate editable file with 3–5 bullet points, each no more than 85 characters including spaces.

Article structure and readability

The guide requires clearly defined sections. For its theory-oriented multidisciplinary audience, the journal specifically requires introduction, literature review, methodology and conclusions, with empirical work also presenting methods/data and findings/discussion appropriately. The journal discourages acronyms except universally accepted or methodological terms. A glossary of field-specific terminology is requested.

References and data

References cited in the text must appear in the reference list and vice versa, with accurate bibliographic information and DOI links where available. Elsevier encourages research-data availability statements and data linking. Annals also emphasizes transferability and expects researchers, where possible, to make data and methods available for future research.

Use the official Guide for Authors as the final authority because requirements can be updated between revisions of this guide.

What Happens After You Submit a Manuscript?

The journal follows a double-anonymized review process. Editors first assess the submission for suitability. Manuscripts that proceed are reviewed without reviewers knowing author identities and without authors knowing reviewer identities. Authors may then receive a decision, revision request or rejection, depending on the editorial assessment and peer-review reports.

1. Complete the journal-fit and author-guideline check.
2. Upload the title page, anonymized manuscript and required supporting files.
3. Pass technical checks and initial editorial suitability assessment.
4. Proceed to double-anonymized external peer review if selected.
5. Prepare a revision and point-by-point response if requested.
6. Receive the final editorial decision.
7. If accepted, complete publishing agreement, proofs and production steps.

Elsevier’s current Journal Insights displays 6 days to first decision, 53 days to decision after review, 221 days from submission to acceptance and 17 days from acceptance to online publication. These are journal-level indicators and should not be treated as a guaranteed schedule for an individual manuscript.

Open Access, APCs and Publication Costs

Annals of Tourism Research is a hybrid journal: authors can publish through the subscription model or choose gold open access. Elsevier currently states that the subscription route has no publication fee charged to authors. For open access, the listed APC is USD 3,860 excluding taxes.

The OA page explains that the actual amount can be affected by institutional agreements, country, funding arrangements and other eligibility factors. Authors should therefore treat USD 3,860 as the current list price rather than an invoice prediction. Elsevier’s page also lists a 36-month embargo for sharing accepted manuscripts under the subscription route; check the current sharing policy for the version you intend to deposit.

Publication Ethics and Generative-AI Policy

The journal’s Guide for Authors incorporates Elsevier policies on ethics in publishing, submission declarations, authorship, changes to authorship, competing interests, funding, preprints, inclusive language and research integrity. The submission must not be under consideration elsewhere, and all authors should approve the submitted version and accept accountability for the integrity of the work.

For generative AI, Elsevier requires authors to declare substantive use of generative-AI or AI-assisted tools in manuscript preparation. Authors remain responsible for accuracy, source checking, originality and the final content. AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Basic tools used only for grammar, spelling or reference checking do not require the same disclosure under the stated policy.

The journal also states that reviewers and editors should not use generative-AI tools such as ChatGPT in peer-review and manuscript evaluation because of confidentiality and author-rights concerns. Policies evolve, so check the current version when you submit.

What Recent Research Reveals About Journal Fit

The 2026 issue available on ScienceDirect shows a mix of theory, behaviour, methods and societal questions. Topics include attraction-image congruence, consumption emotions and memory, gamified destination donations, digital nomadism, hospitality employment, multisensory tourism experiences, zoo and conservation ethics, tourism forecasting, sustainable tourism innovation and local participation.

That pattern supports two practical conclusions. First, the journal is not confined to one methodology: conceptual, qualitative, quantitative and mixed forms of inquiry can fit when the contribution is strong. Second, the unit of analysis can range from tourists to destinations, organizations, communities and policy systems. What connects the work is a meaningful contribution to tourism as a social-science field.

Common Reasons a Manuscript May Be Unsuitable

The journal does not publish a checklist of rejection percentages by cause. As practical publication guidance, however, a manuscript may be poorly positioned when it falls outside the tourism social-science scope, makes a mainly descriptive contribution, lacks sufficient theoretical or methodological originality, uses methods that do not support its claims, or is difficult for a multidisciplinary audience to read.

Other avoidable problems include exceeding article-type limits, failing to anonymize the manuscript, missing declarations, inconsistent references, incomplete figures or tables, and poor alignment between the title, abstract and actual contribution. These are general readiness risks informed by the journal’s submission criteria, not official rejection statistics.

Pre-Submission Checklist for Annals of Tourism Research

Is Annals of Tourism Research Suitable for PhD Researchers?

It can be appropriate for a PhD researcher when the dissertation-related paper genuinely fits the journal’s scope and quality expectations. Scopus indexing or citation metrics alone do not make the journal automatically suitable for a doctoral requirement. The manuscript still needs an original contribution, rigorous design and clear relevance to tourism social science.

Before choosing it for a PhD publication plan, compare the journal’s live indexing and metrics with your university’s written rules, discuss the choice with your supervisor, and read several recent papers close to your topic. If your institution uses a specific quartile or JCR category rule, verify the exact database, year and category rather than relying on a generic “Q1/Q2” label from a search result.

How Contentxprtz Can Support Publication Readiness

Preparing for Annals of Tourism Research involves more than correcting grammar. The journal’s emphasis on theory, originality, rigour, relevance and readability means that authors may benefit from a structured readiness review before submission.

Contentxprtz can ethically support journal-scope alignment review, manuscript assessment, academic editing, ESL language polishing, title and abstract refinement, structure improvement, journal-formatting checks, reference consistency, cover-letter editing and reviewer-response editing. The work should improve how the author’s own research is communicated; it should not create data, fabricate references, conceal authorship or manipulate peer review.

Contentxprtz does not guarantee journal acceptance or publication. Editorial screening, peer review and final publication decisions remain solely with Annals of Tourism Research and Elsevier.