EFTI Talk | Conversation with the Editor of Tourism Management
Welcome to our EFTI Talk the Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute, Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management in the College of Health and Human Performance at the University of Florida are presenting to you the EFTI Talk. It is my great honor to introduce our speaker today Dr. Cathy Hsu. Dr. Cathy Hsu is a chair professor from the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Cathy is a renowned scholar in our travel and tourism field. Dr Hsu's research expertise include tourist behavior and the resident sentiment, destination marketing, and hospitality education. She was an Associate Dean and now serves as the Program Leader for the Hong Kong Polytech Online MicroMasters.
Cathy devotes her time to serve on several committees at the university level, that's plenty of work. Thank you so much for taking time of your busy schedule to be our speaker, Cathy. Many graduate students and faculty members will be interested in learning from you about how you keep up your research productivity when you are an Associate Dean. Would you like to share? Alright, sure, thank you Dr. Fu for the invitation. It's my honor to be here. I hope our conversation will be interesting and we will generate some some issues that we can discuss and also reflect later on. To address your question, to take an administrative position,
I guess the research does suffer. Before I take on the position, I have to think for myself: Is this something I want to do in terms of my career progression? For me, the reason to take on that component, I see that as service because when I was younger when I was an assistant professor and associate professor, I understand the department head and the dean spent a lot of time administering, managing and leading the department and the the college. I benefited tremendously, so that gave me the time to develop as a junior researcher and junior faculty member. So, when I was promoted to professor, I thought maybe it's time
for me to give back. So for me personally, it was not part of my career development plan, but I saw that as an opportunity to give back to the community. So, it is very important to be a good citizen of the community, but for others, I understand they have that ambition to become a leader in higher education whether it's at the disciplinary level or at the general higher education level. Then, being a department head and associate dean will be a very important training ground for the bigger things to come. So I guess everybody has a little different aspiration and also the reason for getting into administration, but yes it is a trade-off. You spend a lot of time in meetings, you spend a lot of time going out to the industry, and also consulting with the student, managing and leading the faculty members. So, it does take a big chunk
of the time, but once you decided to do it, I guess the work week becomes longer. Instead of working let's say five days a week, you get to work six or six and a half days a week, but I guess if you're enjoying the role, then you don't see that as pressure, you don't see that as work really because you're enjoying yourself. So, being an administrator for me, the lesson was I had to better utilize fragmented time. I did not have the whole day today to do my research. I may have a couple hours between meetings and then half an hour between talking to a student, talking to a faculty. So, I had to switch the channel very quickly. Obviously, my research suffered
a little and my productivity decreased a bit from during the time I did not have any administrative responsibility, but again it is a trade-off. Whether you're happy with the trade-off only yourself can answer it. So, I'm not sure I did a good job of balancing the two or keeping up my research productivities like some other people can, but for me, it is a responsibility for me to take on that position for a number of years, so that we can provide a nurturing environment for the junior faculty to develop, and now once they're developed, they can do it as well. Wonderful, thank you for your stories, and I am inspired definitely, and again I believe you and I will enjoy what we are doing, and many administrators also love what they are doing because I strongly believe a wonderful leader can really make the generational impact, especially for an institution. So, thank you for all you have done in our area. For our next question, I would like to ask you, again very similar to the first one, how do you prioritize balance and maximize the productivities of your research, teaching, being an administrator, and now the editor. Dr. Hsu is the Editor-in-Chief for Tourism Management, which is the number one ranked journal in our area. Cathy would you like
to share your thoughts on this topic? Alright, thank you, I started being the Editor-in-Chief January 2020. Before that, it wasn't on my mind at all to be an editor because I was the editor for the Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism for 16 years. Yes that was a much smaller journal and I can spend a lot of time on each paper, communicating with the authors, but Tourism Management, as Dr. Fu mentioned, is one of the top journals, therefore,
attracts a lot of manuscript submission every year, so the workload is significantly more. Then how do you balance? It is a learning process and it is again a trade-off sometimes not necessarily in terms of how much time I want to spend it's more of an internal struggle actually for me. At the very beginning and even now two years later, how much time can I spend on a particular submission? I want to spend a lot more time on it because I see being an editor as being a mentor. I would like to provide constructive feedback to the authors even if I, for example, reject the paper. Especially that desk rejecting a paper, I understand how much work the authors have put in
to the paper before submission and receiving a dash rejection, for example, three days later that hurts. I understand that, so I want to spend time with the authors, providing feedback. However, considering we just ended the year 2021, Tourism Management received 1,760 some submissions, so again internally I have to struggle. Do I want to spend a few more minutes on this or do I need to move on to the next paper so that I can communicate with the with the next author? That's within the editorship responsibility, and then the bigger question is I still need time for teaching, I still need time for my own research, right, and serving on committees as well but like I said, I'm having fun, I'm having a fun struggle in terms of what do I do now, what do I do today, what do I do tomorrow. It's very often the what do I have to get done? What's the deadline for me today? Right, for example, I need to teach. Obviously there's no negotiation today today is my teaching day. Research, unfortunately, tends to be the lasting line,
my personal research, right, because there is no deadline. Other than, for example, the funding body say you have to finish the project by the end of June, then, obviously I have to do that, but again, it is a time management, it is a priority. Where does the priority come from? I guess the priority comes from your passion are you more passionate about teaching? Are you more passionate about research? Or are you more passionate about of helping other people as an editor? Sometimes, I struggle a bit, but every day, I figure out what my day looks like. Being an editor is not all work, being an editor, actually, is fun, it is a learning experience. I learned from authors tremendously not only about "hey I didn't think about that,"
"that's a great idea" or "oh, I didn't know about this research methodology". Therefore, I learned what is the most current research methods or the different perspectives. Being an editor actually broadened my horizons a lot. Some of the disciplinary areas, for example, tourism economics -- I have no idea. I'm not very good at numbers. I did not even understand the paper, but gradually I learned, "Alright, what is the current economic research roughly?" I'm still not an expert, but roughly right. It is a learning process, it is an enjoying process, and I guess you have to work with good people. It is important to have a team
that you can trust, and you understand each other's working style and the quality output requirement. If you have a team that has similar mentalities, then that really really helps it is important nowadays. I understand, 20 30 years ago, we see a lot of single author papers, but now it's all about teams -- three people, four people, yes people are saying "Well, there are too many authors," "How can everybody all contribute to the same paper?". It is being questioned, but I would say working with a team that can help you, other people can push you, as well, when I'm behind on my research, and then people will knock on the door, and say "Hey, what happened? You know I gave you the paper two or three days ago or even weeks ago." Then, that is that push. It is important to work with good people finding people with the same interest, probably similar level of requirement of themselves, so that you don't have a unsynchronized output or working style. I guess I mumbled a bit, but there's just so much in terms of what we have to go through internally, mentally, emotionally to set our own balance. My balance may not be the same as your balance,
but whatever works for you, I guess, that's that's fine. So, I'll stop here. Thank you I love the insights and I also echo what you mentioned to build a trustworthy team to work together for the administrative work, for the editing, and for all the collaboration. I would say I'm very fortunate to be part of our UF team, our faculty members are super excellent, and also, we have outside of uf communities that I strongly encourage our faculty team to have global collaborations. So, I will take this advantage to tell the whole world that you are welcome to reach out to our UF and THEM welcome you for any further collaborations when we have common grounds and we have our different expertise. Thank you, Cathy, I really love the the new idea and the new norm of having a collaborative team when we are working on research together collectively and collaboratively. My next
question for our discussion, I would like to come back to the Tourism Management, since it's such a popular journal, everybody would like to have one or two or more articles to be published in your journal. So, would you advise the prospective authors of Tourism Management how to incorporate feedback from reviewers into their manuscripts? Okay, I can share this from the perspective of an author and then the perspective of an editor. I guess, as an author, I always try to accommodate or address as many, if not all, comments as possible, because obviously, I did not see that problem when I submitted the paper. It's always good to have a fresh eye, a fresh perspective to look at the work. Very often, by the time we submit a paper, we worked on the project for at least a year already. Then, we don't see from an outsider perspective. So, keep an open mind, keep on learning attitude, rather than being defensive. I think being defensive doesn't work. It doesn't
work. It doesn't help at all, right, because if we feel defended, then when we provide the responses in the writing, actually readers can tell. So I guess, control our emotion is one thing. Don't think the reviewers are addressing you as a person. The reviewers don't know who you are right. The reviewer just looks at this piece and thinks this piece could be improved. So, we're
colleagues we're not enemies, so they're not here to say "Hey, this doesn't work. We have to push you down." So, keep an open mind and keep an open attitude. As an author, for me, the goal is to get the paper published. For me it's not to win an argument with the reviewer. Some people will say "Oh, the reviewer is wrong" "The reviewer doesn't know what he or she is talking about." So, what if you win the argument, and your paper ended up not being able to get published? I understand some people are very principle driven. That's not me, personally. My goal is to get the paper published in the best form possible. So from the editor's perspective, sometimes I see authors resubmitted
a manuscript. On the front part, we asked the authors to provide responses to each comment, and they did a great job of responding to each comment. So, the responses, actually sometimes, that section is longer than the manuscript itself. However, the problem is they talk to the reviewers, but they didn't change the manuscript. As a reviewer, I would feel like "No,
please don't do that. I asked the question, it's not because I want you to answer me the question. I want you to make the paper better, right." In addition to responding to reviewer comments, it is very important to incorporate their comment in the submission, because the general public and the readers may have the same question or query as the reviewers would. So, it is absolutely important to make sure that you tell the reviewer the reason, for example, of this, and then where did you address that issue in the manuscript. The revised manuscript needs to be, actually, quite better so that the reviewers are convinced that yes, you take the comment into consideration as constructive and helping you make the paper better.
If the reviewer indeed made an obvious mistake, the reviewer misunderstood your point, actually there, could be two possibility: somebody misunderstanding a point one is you didn't communicate that clearly so that leading to the reader not understanding, and second it is possible that the reviewers have no idea of what you're talking about. It's not in their area therefore the the comments raised is not intelligently supported, right. So, it's not a valid comment. Then, yes, you can rebut. You can provide, for example, an explanation. Don't obviously just say that you're wrong. You need to be politically correct by saying it nicely. "This may not be what I was saying and we have this support from the literature and this is" -- you can do a little bit of explanation, but at the end, you may also want to say that we probably didn't make the statement clearly, and this is how we revise the paper. Maybe just a change of words or something to make the reviewer feel like "Oh yeah, okay I missed it sorry, but you know, they addressed my my question." So, you don't want to excite the reviewer, and then the reviewers become defensive,
then nobody wins. So, it is sometimes I wouldn't say a complete negotiation process, but we need to be collegial. We're colleagues. We're not enemies, so reviewers provide their feedback, free of charge, they're in a very helpful position. Therefore, we should take their responses as constructive comments and as seriously as possible, so that everybody will win at the end. Then, we have a better paper for the community, and we will disseminate enough knowledge through publication.
That's wonderful it's a really good comment. Again, we don't take the reviewers comments personally. It's really professional, very constructive comments, and the goal is the same: to produce greater quality and make sure readers can learn from the manuscript's key points. Thank you, Cathy. My next one from students faculty is again how do you capture the concurrent topics of our industries and what are some of the most important topics that your Tourism Management journal will be interested in including and publishing? Yeah, I guess we have to go outside of our office, right. Go outside of the tower that we tend to cocoon. Usually, researchers are very quiet. They keep everything to themselves. They are more -- you know. So, that becomes the trade
of a of a good researcher, but we have to break that comfort zone and go outside of the office, go outside of the campus. I guess the easiest start will be just watch television, you know, watch movies, know what's going on outside of the university environment, some media reports, and then the next step will be actually talk to some people, right. I understand some researchers don't feel comfortable with face-to-face communication with industry practitioners, but take that first step out and begin to talk to people. Especially now, we say young people are not very good at face-to-face communication, right, but actually many university scholars are the same. We're guilty of the same thing. So, we have to really go outside and talk to the industry people to see from their perspective what's the most pressing issue and what kind of real life problems that they want to solve. Very often, we form a research question based on literature review "Oh here is a theoretical gap but is that a problem really in the industry?" If the industry people don't care, then why do we do the research? I understand there there isn't a scope for basic research, but basic research finds, still eventually, we want to develop a theory so that we can help the industry to solve some issues.
I guess talking to the industry, participating in industry events, not necessarily we attend the same research conferences or education conferences every year, we may attend some industry events as well to see what's happening in the industry, what are the you know current issues, so starting from reading magazine, watching television, going out to talk to people, attending industry events, and travel. Practice what we teach, go out to eat, go out to drink, you know, stay in hotels, and travel -- through different forms traveling could include air transport, could include cruise, could include you know -- Try to be a good practitioner. Actually practice what we teach. We teach travel tourism, we teach hospitality, then, we really need to have that experience at least from the consumer perspective. Some of us has industry working experience. Not everybody has that, understand. Also even for myself, for example, I worked in the industry decades ago. Things are very different. At least we can get updated from the consumer's
perspective, and when we go out to eat, we go out to drink, stay in hotels, then we need to open our professional eyes and be observant. So I guess, keep our eyes open keep, our ears open, you know, that way we can see what's happening and find a phenomenon that's worthy of of investigation. That's how I, you know, try to find out what's happening in the industry, and for the Tourism Management -- yes, often, all the editors, I talk too as well. Often, "what's the hot topic?" "What's the trendy topic that your journal would like to publish?" Actually, the answer is -- we don't have an answer because journal editors are not the research agenda gatekeeper. We're the
quality gatekeeper, but we're not the research agenda. I shouldn't say "Oh i don't like your topic, therefore, I reject your paper." Everything is publishable, it's possible, it's researchable, but it's the quality that carry you through the publication process. Actually, myself and some other journal editors, as we're talking, are trying not to publish the so-called hot topics, because hot topics today could become very cold two years later, right, and we want to make sure that people have a sustainable research agenda, so, that they can stay engaged in the topic. That's another topic for for junior scholar professional development, but I will stay away from trendy topic unless that's something you're really interested in. Unless, you can find an angle of that topic whether it's from a consumer psychology perspective or from a branding perspective that you know can continue the thread of research agendas throughout your career. Among the Tourism Management team, we regularly communicating. Very often, one of
the editors may say "Hey what do you think about this topic? Is that suitable for the journal?" I said "Why not?" Don't judge a topic based on your own. We all come in with our own values based on our own culture, based on our own upbringing, based are our own standards, so we cannot judge whether the topic is suitable. The topic shouldn't matter. It's the quality, it's the quality that the authors bring to the journal, and the step piece create new knowledge. I wouldn't say trendy. For example, two years ago, actually, when the COVID first started, I think we saw the first paper submitted about COVID in march 2020. That was really hot right, but unfortunately, we just rejected it because the quality was not good.
Again, I guess we all have to find what's important for the industry, and also, what's of interest to us and make sure the quality is there. Sorry, I couldn't answer your question about what's the topic that tourism management would like to publish. We like to publish a variety of topics. Yes, you did answer. It's really about the quality, the methodology, the ideas, the selection of the cases, and what's new the innovative area that the authors could make contributions to the literature. You did answer. I, also, would like to
take a moment to echo on what you mentioned about watch tv, read newspapers, read magazines, talk to people, think outside of the box, and it's even better if there is there is no box. Plus, I would also like to take a moment to to thank our EFTI industry advisory board members because by talking to our advisors, by organizing the EFTI Talk, they are the cutting-edge industry leaders, and they provided what would be the needs, what would be the future for our industry, because as a higher education, we are preparing the future workforce for our industry and for the research. I agree with you, Cathy. We need to do something that would be useful for our industries and also innovative enough to have certain prevention and future development. Thank you. You did answer my question, our questions, thank you. Tell us about time now back to
the Tourism Management, a little bit, about a time when you experience a conflict. For example, the split review comments among your manuscript reviewers and how how did you resolve it? I can answer from being an author and from an editor perspective. As an author, as I mentioned earlier, try to be accommodative as possible, but sometimes we do get conflicting views. Actually, it was just a few months ago, we got a paper from from a journal. One reviewer said, "Oh, too much detail about methodology" and the other reviewers say "Not enough detail. We want to know
more about how you go through the data collection analysis process." So how do we address that, right? Plus, some journals have strict word counts, so how do we make the adjustment of satisfying both reviewers? We ended up with adding some aspects. We re-read, it all the reviewers comment and find out "Oh, okay so this is the thinking process of that reviewer." Therefore, we added some more aspect, but then on the other hand, we remove other aspects, because you have to read the reviewer comments, not bullet point by bullet point but going through and try to think "what is their thinking process?" and therefore when they see too much detail, which part exactly that person could be addressing? When we do our responses to the reviewer comments, we also mentioned that. Reviewer A, thank you very much. Based on your comment, we added
more detail here, here, here, and here. However, this appears to be in conflict with Reviewer C, and then Reviewers C, we say the same thing right. So, we want the reviewers to know that there are conflicting views; however, we try to address each one of them. I guess, English writing skill is really really important. When the reviewer says too much detail,
I don't think they want the author to remove blocks of text rather than streamlining the writing. The same message could be delivered in 500 words, as well as, 250 words. Very often, we see authors add a lot of adjectives or unnecessary qualifications or repeating very very wordy, so practicing English writing skill would be very very important. Work with, like I said, a good team. Some people are good at methodology. Others are good at words, and plus, you have different people reading through the same paper multiple times, then people will see "Oh yeah, you don't need this part" as well. Very often, as an editor, I would tell the author,
"This is too long. However, I'm not asking you to remove blocks of text because then the message could be lost." I guess professional editors are always available -- some are better than others, and I understand it costs money but if, honestly, you think you're not a good writer, it's very well worth the money to invest in a good editing service.
Sometimes reviewers will say "Yes, I understand you use this particular theory, but why don't you use that theory?", and we cannot use both, right? So, again, we need to be not defensive and try to reply to the reviewers scholarly that is if the reviewers say, "How come you didn't use this particular theory?", and we can understand where that review come from because that's the theory the reviewer is most familiar with or has done work in that area. Then, before we respond, then we have to have a really good understanding of the theory that he or she mentioned so that we can provide an intelligent response. It could very well be another perspective or the theory doesn't really work in this particular situation. Before you can say that, you have to really understand what that theory is about, the boundary, the limitation, the most suitable situation or phenomenon to be applied. Don't just feel like "Oh why are you you picking me in terms of the theory? That's what i decided. That's the best. I know the best." That's being defensive. We need to look at the theory that they mentioned. Honestly, we probably missed it in our literature
review. So, take a look at that theory. Have a good understanding, and then, you can respond intelligently. Either way by saying "Yeah, we can do that in a future study" or you can say "This is not really applicable to this particular situation" and why. Again, not only responding to the reviewer comment but also address that in the manuscript as well. Like I said, we do want to bring that up to the attention of the reviewer and the editor. I understand not all editor read all reviewers comments closely before they send out for a major revision decision. For example, three reviewers, two of them say major
review, and one of them say minor review. Oh okay sounds good we'll send it out for major revision, right, without reading the specifics. As an author, we want to bring that conflict to the reviewer's attention so that when they get our revised paper they thought "Oh somebody disagree with me had a different view". Then, the reviewer may have a second thought, and then
the editor brings that attention to the editor. "Oh yeah, reviewers have different views." Then, the editor needs to make a judgment somewhere down down the road. So, as an author try to be smart in terms of bringing the attention of the reviewer and the editor and be nice in terms of responding as well. Again, it is a i wouldn't say a political process, but it is a process that needs careful
handling, but I guess it is it is possible to resolve, and very often reviewers, the first time they say reject. I understand some reviewers say, "Why do you send me the revised paper again. I rejected the first time." Fine, but other reviewers actually completely switched 180 degrees. First time reject, and I asked the same reviewer, "Can you review it again because
other reviewers thought there was potential" and they become the first one to say actually accept, right, so don't think the reviewer meant evil. They just want to help, so yeah, we should take the the process as a learning process, and then just open communication. That's great, yeah, I personally professional I've been on your editorial board for several years, and I did experience what you have explained, and I think the process has been very enjoyable, professional, and very constructive. Thank you for your leadership, making the Tourism Management an even greater journal in the field. I also have another follow-up. You have touched down on these answers, so the question would be I believe would be from lots of our graduate students, faculty members, from assistant associate to full professor, we all want to know what would be the do's and the don'ts while publishing articles in tier one journals or at least trying to submit the manuscripts to the tier one journals. What would be the tips of do and don't. It's a very
general question, but somehow, to re-emphasize the importance of getting the manuscripts ideas, the theories, the cases to be published within the top tier journal. Starting from picking the topic, I suppose. Especially nowadays, secondary data and big data are widely available. So, I see a lot of data-driven research. In other words, when I get a piece that's technically correct, everything is fine you know has all the bells and whistles, use the most updated big data analytics, and a lot of data charts and graphs, and all that but that's data-driven research. Does it solve a problem? Is there a theoretical underpinning, right? So, what you find
most of the tourists congregate in this particular small area in the city, so what, right ?Starting from having a research problem, a real life problem. What what what question can you answer? What problem can you solve, right? And then, is there a theoretical underpinning? Yes, you find a correlation between the number of arrival and the CO2 emission in the particular city. Are they cause and effect? Simply finding a correlation doesn't mean anything. Are there theoretical underpinnings? Starting from the very beginning, I guess we all need to think about what is the value of this piece of research? Value in terms of practical and value in terms of theoretical advancement. With so much data available out there, it's very tempting to do big data research, but then we have to go back in terms of the the real contribution of the study. Number two, don't slice the research into too many pieces. I understand the pressure of publication.
We all try to collect a big data set, and then say "Okay, we can publish one two three four paper out of this big data set." Well, that depends on how you slice the research. Does each piece have a unique angle that can make a contribution right and how much overlap are there between the different pieces? When you slice the pizza or salami slicing, right, two things. Then it's of no value, and very often, especially for top one journal, as you know now, we can do the the online search easily. Very often, I can see, obviously, this is the second piece or the third piece of a same database. Then, very likely tier one journal editor will say "sorry". It's interesting, but we would like to be the first one to publish in a series. Then you need to think about your strategy. I understand some people
traditionally would like to get small pieces published first, and then say, "Oh we'll publish a big paper in in tier one journal," but you have to think from the editor's perspective, as well. If you have those little things published already quickly, then what's the novelty that deserves the big piece to be published in a tier one journal. It's the prioritizing how many pieces can you realistically publish from one data set, from one study, and which journal you should submit first. If eventually you want something published in a tier one journal, you may want to consider that as your first piece, rather than, subsequent.
Nowadays, like I said, it's very searchable. We will know this is the second or third in a row of that similar topic published by the same set of authors. That's just a strategy comment. Obviously, you need to read the journal scope, understand the scope of the journal now others will say "Annals, Tourism Management, JTR. They're all similar. They're all top tier." They're all actually quite different. They have their unique scope or the mission of the of the journal . Take a clear look. Annals obviously is social science. Tourism Management is more management focused,
and JTR has a probably a more historically marketing oriented because of the the association with TTRA. I could be wrong, now, with the new editors in place but understand the scope of the journal before you submit and follow the author guide. Different journals have different requirements. Do you put a table in the text or do you put the table at the end? Very often, we try not to get back to the author too many times before we send out to the reviewer, because we don't want to upset authors with little things, but if we say, I asked you to number the lines, go back to the email one time, and I asked you to reduce the similarity, go back to the author another time. I asked you to go back and replay the table within the text
and also get very frustrated. Sometimes, we let it go. However ,the reviewer will come back and say "I don't want to review this." We're kind of caught in between, so it will be really really helpful if the authors can follow the author guide for a particular journal and check the similarity with previously published materials. This is a big thing, now, for all the publishers. The first thing we do is to check similarity, and I'm very surprised some authors don't do that before they do the submission. If we see a similarity with a previously published work,
let's say five percent seven percent, obviously that raises an issue. Not necessarily, we'll reject right away, but we'll look into that. Are you slicing the research? Are you copying other people's work? Are you not being able to write in your own language? We will looking into it. You don't want to raise suspicion from the reviewer and from the editor. Check similarity
yourself before the submission. After you've been rejected by a journal, please, don't turn around and submit to another journal, using the exact same paper. Being rejected by a journal, meaning the reviewer or the editor will give you some comments. Take their comments and make some revision before you do the resubmission. That's just respecting their comments. They must have raised some issue that you did not think about. So that you're not wasting their time, at least you take your take their comments on board, and then, make your paper better, so that when you go to the next journal, you'll have a better chance, and I understand some people say "Oh top tier one journal rejected me even though the reviewer gave me some comments, but i'm gonna go with a tier two." They may not care. That's not true
tier two journal, they still have to maintain the quality, and you get the comments. Why don't you make revisions that helps you make your work better? We all want to publish the best work we can. When somebody gives us free comments, take it, and different journals have different style requirements. Again, going back to the author's guide. Very often, I get a paper, and I say "Oh,
that must be rejected by Annals" because it still follows the annual guidelines. The authors do not bother to change the style from another journal. Again, you triggered that reviewer. You triggered that editor's suspicion of why was it rejected by another journal? There must be something wrong, so you will look closer into it. These are some very basic do's and don'ts, and there are lots of others. I guess just to do the best you can. Have a good colleague to review the paper for you
or very often, I'm sure, even in graduate school, all of our professors told us you finish the paper, you put it there, you don't look at it for another week or so, and then you come back with a fresh eye. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It worked for me because I have bad memory. I have horrible short-term memory. A week later, I don't remember what I did last week, so I would look at it from a fresh eye perspective, but for people with very good memory, it may not work for you. Then, you need to find a really good buddy to help you out with that. That's it, that's a quick answer. That's a great answer, and also, you raise the reality in academia because I believe for tenure faculty members, there would be some pressure to get survived a certain number quality of applications, and for tenure faculty members, also, have annual evaluation. So to get the numbers, get the quality that's been sometimes a challenge already to think about how can get the publication strategically when you have got a big data set, like Cathy, you mentioned. Sometimes,
to chop into different pieces, it seems it's okay in the past, but now with all the internet checking it's not so easy compared to the past, and plus in terms of editorial board, there are certain same persons serving on different editorial boards, so I'm sure you have the experience, me too, that means when we review one paper for this journal, and probably in two weeks I got sent exactly the same paper, the same topic from another journal review. They basically, as you mentioned, if the authors didn't take the comments or rejection seriously, just resubmit they are going to get the same outcome from the very similar editor's feedback. Absolutely, yeah, I was asked by another journal to review a paper rejected by Tourism Management, so, you know, what are the chances? Yeah, probably zero, and another is also talk to about sometimes, this is one area because for PhD students, for advisor, sometimes they will say "Well, think about how you can chop your dissertation into two or three publications," so there might be something advisor and advisee will need to work out carefully.
Think about if this is case one case two? Do you have sufficient literature review? Are you using comparative analysis across different theories and the evaluation? The new information you are going to make contributions when you chop your dissertation into two or three pieces. There might be something. All different kinds of researchers and PhD students, we can figure out a way to do it -- not to fall into the trap that you mentioned. Basically, it's from the same match up. Do you have any thoughts on publishing one dissertation and then turning one dissertation into three publications? I mean, it is possible. For some university, they even required a student to do manuscript format, right, within a dissertation you have paper one, two, or maybe three, and then you wrap it up as a dissertation, so it is possible, but like you said you need to be very careful. The advisor needs to make sure that each piece can stand on its own,
has its unique contribution rather than a lot of overlaps between between the pieces. Thank you, so now our next one. You have mentioned, earlier, you really enjoy, it's fun, so could you tell us more about what do you enjoy most about being an editor of Tourism Management? Well, actually, I was quite humbled when I was asked to be the editor of Tourism Management. It is a long-standing, very well-renowned, respected journal. I just found out that the first issue was published in 1959. That's more than 60 years ago, and as you know, nowadays people put a
lot of not emphasis, but attention on the impact factor. Historically, it has been one of the top, at least, one of the top three in the tourism area along with some hospitality type journals. So, when I took over, I realized that everybody says "Oh congratulations," but I really feel like well that's a lot of work. So, I wasn't sure if i was going to enjoy it or is it just part of my professional service again. I wanted to give back to the community. Since I took over,
we expanded editorial board tremendously. I guess different editor-in-chief work in different style, but now, we have over 90 editorial board members from 23 countries or regions. That's quite a lot of eminent scholars that I'm working with on a daily basis. That's really really enjoyable. I get to know many of you. I know Dr. Fu has been on the on the board for a long time. Longer than I have, but as the scope of the editorial board increase, I get to know many many people closely.
People I didn't know before personally or people that I know better because of the communication with them, so that is really rewarding. I think I get to know more people, but I would say another enjoyable aspect is I get to read about really interesting research, and I get to be the first one to read it. Before the reviewer gets to read it. Sometimes, I get really excited -- I say "Wow, that's really interesting" even though i'm not the one to judge the qualities of reviewers to judge the quality, but I thought "Huh? How come I never thought about that?" so that you know a light bulb goes on, and that's really really enjoyable. Like I mentioned earlier, I learned so much about the methodology, so I feel the need so -- it is pushed for me, as well from my personal development, pushed me to learn new methodology. Again, a lot of those pieces come from younger scholars. I really appreciate the younger scholars
putting their best work forward, especially to tourism management, so that I can continue my learning. Now the happiest moment as an editor is when I accept the paper believe it or not. A lot of people will think that editors take the enjoyment out of rejecting papers. No, actually the happiest time is when I accept the paper. I was like "Oh, this is finally accepted." I'm so happy for the authors. I'm happy for the journal, and I'm happy for the future readers that can also share this piece of knowledge. It's the end product of the author's hard work and
also the reviewer's hard work, so everybody wins when a piece of paper gets accepted. Also, when I accept the paper, that's for me it's a recognition of myself as well. I feel that way because I know that I have helped someone to make their paper better and to get it published in a nice journal, so that the authors can share their work with the community. I do see being an editor as a mentor. I don't see being an editor as a judge. Right, so it's the mentoring process combining the comments from the reviewers. As you also mentioned, earlier reviewers could have conflicting comments. Then, the editor needs to make a judgment. Would agree with reviewer A
or reviewer B? How is the author responding to the different reviews? Do we have a better end product? Communicating with the authors that's a mentoring role, as well. All of these together, so I thought being the editor of Tourism Management is not bad. It's quite enjoyable actually. I would have to say it's not necessarily somebody has to be an excellent researcher to be an editor, but somebody has to be a good manager and a good mentor. A good manager of the relationship between authors, and reviewers, and you know everybody involved, and be a good public relations person, because sometimes we get so many emails from angry people. So, how do you calm them down? So, that is I see as a managing role as well. I do enjoy it overall. Wonderful, thank you, Cathy. So,
this is a message for the viewers audience, and also to myself. Today is January 5th 2022. Now, I've been inspired. One of my resolutions for the new year is, Cathy, I'm going to make you happy. That means I'm going to make sure our team, our publication, will be accepted by Tourism Management. We want to increase the level of your happiness. That's our one of our number one goals, and another will be, audience, please do not be the angry authors. Cathy is such a wonderful
leader manager and editor for this top journal, so please keep our communication professional. That's very important. I know we are running out of a little bit time here, but I still have two more follow-up. Where did you see Tourism Management Journal in five years? I would say continue to have a good reputation, gain reputation outside of tourism. We do see a lot more submission now from the general management field, from the business school, non-hospitality tourism scholars, so gradually we're gaining that reputation and credibility, but hopefully we will establish more in the general academia beyond tourism.
Obviously we will continue to push the knowledge boundary. Hopefully, we can publish some interesting studies that are really of value and can be tested over time. We want to continue to strive for a good satisfying publishing experience for the authors. I understand some authors may see the publishing process as being too long and the communication with the reviewers may not be very positive, constructive, but hopefully we can continue to improve in that aspect to serve the academic community by offering a constructive and satisfying publishing experience for the authors. And, I would really like to create a sense of community for the tourism scholars right. It shouldn't be a survival game. I understand
that the acceptance rate -- the final acceptance rate -- is very very low lower than 10 percent. In other words, of the 1700 60 some papers submitted, we only published less than 200 ,but it shouldn't be a survival game. It should be a helpful, supportive community that we learn from each other, we support each other, and again reviewers are nice people.
Otherwise, they will not be reviewers. They're not having an evil heart and say 'I want to tear your research apart," and authors need to understand that. Obviously editor, like I said, plays a role between the reviewers and the authors, so hopefully, I mean talking about five years, but that's a continuous process. I would like to create a sense of community that everybody feels like yeah, we're all colleagues within bigger bigger tourism community, and also, as an example, actually gaining reputation and credibility outside of tourism. So,
that's my humble goal for the next few years for Tourism Management. That's awesome, I love your humble goal, and I'll do my best to support you. Out of my curiosity, do you think is it possible? Because you mentioned about to expand the tourism community, and you would like to have more communities authors to join Tourism Management. Do you think is it possible or is there even a potential to modify the name of Tourism Management to become Tourism and Business Management. That would be a tough one, because it has such a good reputation a brand recognition. There's so many business management journals out there already.
No, we haven't thought about it, but thank you for raising that. Maybe in five years, when the tourism management changes the name, and we'll come back to this video. One more thing is now back to you. Where did you see yourself in five years. Other than retirement?
Then, you're coming to see us in Gainesville. I guess stay relevant. It's such a rapidly changing world, right. It's constantly changing, so I would challenge myself to stay relevant and continue to engage in lifelong learning so that i don't become an antique. I hate to become one of those senior scholars, and people say "Oh, she's talking about the same thing again." I tell all my students if you hear me talking about the same thing with new no new ideas pinch me and ask me to retire. So, I would like to stay relevant. Hopefully, I can stay relevant still five years from today,
and I really would like to see some real impact from my research I've devoted the past especially 10 years or so on a very focused research agenda with a series of studies, and hopefully in five years time I can see some real impact, meaning could be picked up by the government, tourism bureau, the industry to change some of the policies, and you know, at least take that my research output into consideration, so that would be really really rewarding to see some real impact, but then yeah in five years time, hopefully I can reach that, and I will continue to go out of my ivory tower, talk to the industry people, and collect evidence to see if my research really really make any impact in the real world, but again that's that's probably where I would like to be -- to see my research actually being adopted and make a difference in in tourism policy or in the way industry practices. Dr. Hsu, I'm sure it will happen, and for my own, limited experience, I always think probably I'm the one to read my own journal articles, even cite my own journal articles, but until one day. I had one publication published in 2003, and in 2009, a CEO reach out to me, and I said "Where did you find me?" -- from website from the economic impact study in fishery management, and then that's where I started to gain the attention from lots of industries. Until right now, we are still working on economic impact analysis. This
is something been very inspired. I'm sure your work your area is so important, and people are following your lead. So, thank you so much. Before we close our conversation, are there any other topics that you would like to share with our audience? Well, if if the audience are students or junior researchers, I would just say be passionate about what you do, be persistent. Very often, I get young people to ask me: "So, how do you become so "successful"? I don't see myself as being successful, but they say "How do you become so successful?" I said just be persistent. I say
I'm here today because i've been here for over 30 years. You will be like me 30 years from now, so be persistent, be passionate, and you know Rome is not building one day, so you just continue to do what you're doing, and do the best you can, and there's no shortcut. Thank you so much. You have been such a wonderful leader, and a mentor in our travel tourism research. Thank you Dr. Hsu, it's such a wonderful time with you to learn from you directly, and I hope students, faculty, scholars, and our industry leaders thank you for watching us, and we hope you enjoy this session as much as I have enjoyed, and we wish you a very, happy, fruitful, and happy, again -- happiness is very important -- happy year to come, thank you. Thank you very much.
2022-01-30 09:20
