Tourism and Hospitality Research in the Peripheries: Thematic Focus and a Research Agenda from Ghana

Abstract

Increasing debates on decolonising tourism and hospitality knowledge production have emerged in the context of a largely Western-dominated canon of the research production and dissemination system. This paper contributes to these debates by highlighting and centring the research in and on Ghana. This is accomplished by reviewing and synthesising 238 tourism and hospitality articles authored by 520 authors over 31 years through content analysis. The sample shows a trend toward increased use of quantitative methodology, multiple authorship and underrepresentation of hospitality research. By outlining current thematic convergence, divergence and omissions, we set out a future research agenda. Our findings demonstrate that while research productivity has been increasing consistently, there is a very limited representation of Ghanaian (African) tourism and hospitality research scholarship in the top-tier tourism and hospitality journals. This raises concerns about the need and challenge of increasing the representation and visibility of tourism and hospitality research from the peripheries.