Tourism research quality: Reviewing and assessing interdisciplinarity

Tourism is by definition an interdisciplinary research area in the framework of the social sciences. There is however an identifiable gap in inter-disciplinary collaboration, which otherwise has the potential to generate new concepts and methods and, by doing so, new knowledge in tourism. Beginning with a review of the definitions of interdisciplinary research, this study centres on an evaluation of the importance and the peculiarities of interdisciplinary research quality. The quality assessment of tourism research is a key issue with particular challenges, as it often simultaneously involves more than one discipline, each with its own notions of research quality. Hence, this review of practical guidelines for interdisciplinary research evaluation advocates real interdisciplinarity in tourism research.