A survey of the doctoral theses accepted by universities in the UK and Ireland for studies related to tourism (2000-2009)

Measured up against other areas of tourism research, modest effort has been done in researching tourism education generally and tourism postgraduate studies particularly (Afifi 2009). The purpose of this paper is to update Botterill, Haven and Gale’s research (2002) entitled "A survey of doctoral theses accepted by universities in the UK and Ireland for studies related to tourism, 1990–1999". Accordingly, this research investigates the doctoral theses accepted by universities in UK and Ireland between 2000 and 2009. The research starts by demonstrating the previous work related to tourism postgraduate studies to identify trends and disclose associated issues. Subsequently, the research illustrates the methodological approach utilized before providing an analysis of both chronological and geographical distributions of tourism PhD theses awarded in UK and Ireland. The research recognizes as well both the most attractive and the relatively neglected areas of tourism research. The paper then refers to opportunities of expanding this area of research and suggests ideas for future work.