A survey of doctoral theses accepted by universities in the UK and Ireland for studies related to tourism, 1990-1999

Abstract

The Index of Theses provided the single source for multiple searches utilizing the following key words: ‘holiday’, ‘holidaymaker’, ‘holidays’, ‘tourism’, ‘tourist’, ‘tourists’, ‘travel’, ‘visitor’ and ‘visitors’. A refined list of 149 doctoral theses accepted by universities in the UK and Ireland between 1990 and 1999 is reported. Results of the survey are reported for awarding university and year of acceptance, subject categories, location of fieldwork and methods of data collection and analysis. The universities of Strathclyde and Surrey accepted just over a quarter of all theses in the reported period. The frequency of accepted theses rose from four in 1990 to 29 in 1997 with a mean yearly average since 1996 of 23. Twenty-two subject categories were created. Four frequent areas of study were reported; development, impact, behaviour and industry and these accounted for approximately half of the theses. Fieldwork locations were spread across the major regions of the world with studies of the UK comprising less than a quarter of the theses. The analysis of methods confirms the prevailing influence of positivist (questionnaire) and hermeneutic (interview) epistemologies in these studies of tourism.