Trends in Tourism-Related Academic Conferences: An Examination of Host Locations, Themes, Gender Representation, and Costs

Abstract

This article examines trends associated with tourism-related academic conferences scheduled between mid-2016 and end-2018. As a subset of a lucrative business events market, studies on academic conferences remain underinvestigated. Moreover, academic literature to date reveal that extant studies are often fragmented—using one conference or through the perspective of a single stakeholder group. To address the paucity of literature related to academic conferences, this article uncovers trends within 360 tourism-related academic conferences through four aspects: Host locations, themes, gender representation, and costs. The findings reveal that tourism-related academic conferences are mostly held within the continents of Asia and Europe, mirror academic and industry contemporary discourses, reflect the persistent gap in terms of gender representation, and present increasing costs of attendance unequally skewed towards a few conferences. Timing of tourismrelated academic conferences are also largely scheduled towards the first half of the year. Further recommendations are made to organizers planning for future tourism-related academic conferences to make these events more inclusive such as (1) deriving themes from industry inputs, (2) creating a balanced profile of male and female keynotes speaker, and (3) considering cost-efficient practices to create more sustainable academic conferences.