Journals for Tourism, Hospitality and Destination Management Research: SSCI, ESCI and Scopus Options, With and Without Article Charges

Tourism is the easiest field in this series to get cloned in. The journal names are long, they repeat the same four or five words in different orders, and a great many are run by universities with modest websites, which is exactly what a fake site is designed to imitate. An author sends a destination image paper to what looks like a European tourism journal, pays on acceptance eleven days later, and finds the article on a site that no index has ever covered.

With that said, here is the full management and finance picture for tourism and hospitality, starting at the tier a first paper realistically lands in and working upward to the SSCI names everyone knows.

How to read a quartile before you read the list

Two quartiles exist and they measure different things. The Scopus quartile comes from Scimago, inside a Scopus subject category. The JCR quartile comes from Clarivate, inside a Web of Science category, using the impact factor. Tourism shows this gap more than most fields: several titles below sit at Scopus Q1 with a Web of Science Q2 or Q3.

The index tier matters more than either. An ESCI journal shows an impact factor and a quartile that look exactly like an SSCI one on screen, and this field has ESCI titles with impact factors above 6, so an ESCI listing will still not satisfy a rule asking for SSCI. Where the tier is not recorded, the tables say so rather than guess. Settling this before the cover letter is the first step in Journal Submission Preparation.

Scopus-indexed options, Q3, where a first paper usually lands

All four of these charge no APC, and three carry a Web of Science impact factor. For a PhD scholar who needs a dated indexed record, this is the sensible starting point rather than a nine-month queue at an SSCI title. Planning a sequence is the Mentorship Program.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Scopus-indexed options, Q1 and Q2

Three of these carry a Web of Science Q2 alongside a Scopus Q1, which is the clearest quartile mismatch in this subject. The AI Journal Finder matches an abstract against them in seconds.

Diamond open access: tourism journals that charge nothing

A deep free tier in this subject, including two ESCI Q1 titles with impact factors above 3.9. If nobody is funding you, read this table before any other on the page.

Not sure whether the journal you picked is still indexed? Run it through the Predatory Journal Checker at ai.researchramp.com, or send us the title on WhatsApp or WeChat for a same-day check. Two minutes to spare instead? Try the Smart Quiz.

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Gold open access journals for tourism and hospitality

Published charges, running from about 21 US dollars to 2,790. The cheap end is real and indexed in some cases and unranked in others, so read the quartile column alongside the price.

Web of Science options: SSCI, SCIE and ESCI

The senior titles of the field. All of the SSCI names here are subscription journals, so they charge no APC and take the longest to decide.

Indexed conference routes in tourism research

Thin in this subject. One series matches tourism directly, and the rest of the indexed options sit on the geoinformation side, which suits destination mapping work rather than hospitality management.

What your data availability statement has to say in tourism research

This is now a routine editorial check at every major publisher on this page, and tourism authors get caught more often than most, because so much of the data is either personal or scraped.

1. Survey data. Deposit the anonymised responses in a repository and cite it with an identifier. Remove anything that could identify a small hotel, a named operator or an individual respondent in a small destination.
2. Interview transcripts. You usually cannot share them, and that is accepted. Say so plainly, name the ethics approval that restricts sharing, and offer the interview guide and coding frame instead.
3. Online reviews and social media posts. This is the trap. Scraped TripAdvisor, Booking or platform content is covered by terms of service and by data protection law, and several journals now require both an ethics statement and confirmation that redistribution is permitted. Publish aggregate results and the collection method, not the raw scraped corpus with usernames.
4. Official tourism statistics. Cite the agency, the release version and the access date. These figures get revised, so a reader needs to know which vintage you used.
5. Commercial data. Occupancy, rate or booking data supplied by an operator normally cannot be released. Name the provider, state the restriction and the contact route, and get written permission to publish aggregates before you submit.

Write the statement while you write the methods rather than at submission. That is part of Manuscript Preparation Support, and the round that follows a hard review is Review & Response Support.

What gets accepted in this field, and what gets rejected

What is a realistic review time for a tourism research paper?

Three to six months to a first decision at the SSCI titles, and eight months is common at the most submitted hospitality journals. The Diamond and Scopus-only titles above are usually faster, often six to twelve weeks, because they receive a fraction of the submissions.

Add one to three months for a major revision and one to two for production. Plan on a year from submission to a printed page at the top titles, and build a thesis timetable around that rather than around the best case.

Why has my tourism paper been with the editor for six months?

Almost always because reviewers declined and the editor is still searching. Tourism has grown far faster than its reviewer pool, and the leading journals receive thousands of submissions a year against a small pool of willing reviewers.

Send one polite status enquiry at three months and another at six. If the answer stays vague, withdraw formally in writing before submitting elsewhere, and never let two journals hold the paper at once.

Which tourism journals are indexed in both Scopus and Web of Science?

On this page the dual-listed titles, as on October 2026, include Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, the Journal of Travel Research, the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, the Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management, the Journal of Tourism Futures, Tourism and Management Studies and the European Journal of Tourism Research.

Several of the strongest free titles sit in that list, which is worth knowing before you assume that dual indexing costs money. Confirm each by ISSN, because dual listings change between years.

Can a journal be Scopus indexed but not Web of Science indexed?

Yes, and tourism has many examples. The two databases are run by different companies with separate selection committees, so a journal can be accepted by one and never apply to the other.

The Geojournal of Tourism and Geosites and the Journal of Tourism, Heritage and Services Marketing both sit at a Scopus quartile with no Web of Science tier recorded. If your rule names Web of Science, they are not options for you whatever the Scopus band says.

Which index does my promotion committee actually count for tourism research?

Only your own institution's written rule answers that, and in hospitality schools it varies more than most. Three patterns are common: SSCI only, which excludes the ESCI titles on this page; any Web of Science Core Collection listing, which includes them; and any Scopus-indexed journal, which opens most of the page.

A fourth pattern matters in business schools: the ABDC list, which covers tourism and hospitality titles and can outrank both indexes internally. Ask which applies before you choose a venue.

What does Scopus discontinued mean for a paper already published?

Your article stays in the database and remains a Scopus-indexed paper if it was published while the journal was still covered. Coverage ends from the discontinuation date forward, so later articles in that journal are not indexed.

Keep a dated screenshot of the journal's Scopus record from around the time you submitted, because tourism has seen several fast-growing titles added and later removed, and an assessment committee may query one.

How much does it cost to publish a tourism paper in an indexed journal?

It can be nothing at all. Ten titles on this page charge no fee, including two ESCI Q1 journals with impact factors above 3.9, and every SSCI title listed is subscription, which also charges no APC.

Where a fee applies, the range runs from about 21 US dollars to 3,220, and price tells you little about standing: the cheapest titles here carry no quartile at all, while the strongest free title carries an impact factor of 6.6.

Is a Scopus Q3 paper in tourism research enough for a PhD submission?

For most universities yes, because the requirement usually names the index rather than the quartile, and a Q3 article is a Scopus-indexed article. Some programmes specify Q1 or Q2, and a few name SSCI or ABDC, in which case it is not enough.

Get the requirement in writing at the start of your final year. It decides which table on this page you should be reading, and in a field where the top titles take eight months to a first decision, that decision is worth making early.

What editors screen before a reviewer sees your paper

The editorial office checks whether the English is clear enough to review, whether the structure and reference style match the journal, and what the similarity report says. In tourism a fourth check is now routine, because survey instruments and scale items repeat across papers and push the overlap score up innocently. Run your own check first with the Plagiarism & AI Similarity Checker, and settle the language and formatting through Manuscript Editing rather than after a rejection.

Where Research Ramp comes in

We match a finished abstract against live indexing, tell you plainly when a design will not survive the first screen, and prepare the submission so the editorial office has no reason to bounce it on formatting. Subject-matched PhD editors, milestone payments, and the author stays the author throughout. Where a study needs a second destination or a partner with operator data, that is Collaboration Matching, and past work is on our Case Studies page.

Questions we are asked about quartiles

Send us the abstract, we will send back the shortlist

Send us your abstract and we will return a shortlist that separates SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, Scopus and EI options, with the access model marked against each. Tap the WhatsApp icon, or scan the WeChat code. To hand over the whole route from venue choice to acceptance, that is the Full Publication Package.

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Disclaimer. Every table on this page is correct as on October 2026 and no later. Article charges shown in US dollars are approximate conversions at October 2026 rates, and journals bill in their own currency. Indexing, quartile, access model and charges change through the year, and journals can be added to or removed from Scopus and Web of Science at any time. This page is general information only. Research Ramp Private Limited accepts no responsibility or liability for any decision made on the basis of it, including the choice of journal, any charge paid, or the outcome of any submission. Every detail must be independently verified by the author with the journal's own website and the live Scopus source list and Web of Science Master Journal List before submitting. If you would like an informal second check, send us the title and we will look at it for you.

本页所有列表数据截至 2026 年 10 月，仅供一般参考。Research Ramp 不对任何依据本页作出的选刊、付费或投稿结果承担责任。投稿前请务必通过期刊官网及 Scopus、Web of Science 实时数据自行核实收录情况与费用。