TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH VOL. 34(3), 2009: 319–323 Unravelling Myths in Tourism Research Josef A. Mazanec is Professor at the Institute of Tourism and Leisure Studies, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Augasse 2-6, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. e-mail: Josef.Mazanec@wu.ac.at Copyright ©2009 Tourism Recreation Research Tourism research, like any other discipline in the social sciences, has developed its peculiar mixture of approaches to theory-building, measurement, and analysis. Having served as a tourism scholar for so many years, I think it may be worthwhile to summarize a number of personal observations encountered in this field of study 1 . The observations share one commonality. They are delaying or even hampering scientific progress and that is why I address them as myths – beliefs that lose substance when scrutinized thoroughly. It is the purpose of this probe to assist junior researchers in avoiding common errors that are likely to prevent them from successfully launching their publications. The points raised in the following are derived from refereeing a myriad series of manuscripts, reading many journal articles, tutoring several generations of PhD students, and listening to numerous conference presentations. There seem to be symptomatic misunderstandings, misconceptions, misdirected efforts, and methodological flaws that pop up persistently. The discussion of the ‘myths’ will incorporate value judgements. These are normative statements that cannot be criticized on empirical grounds. You may claim that this is not a ‘scientific’ endeavour according to the rules of the game and scientists should refrain from making value judgements. However, in our research, we are forced to make basic value judgements fairly frequently. Think of choosing a field of study, a particular research issue, or a specific methodology. Very often this cannot be justified without taking recourse to subjective judgement and norms. If scientists want to play a significant role within society they cannot duck away from normative statements. Value judgements are perfectly acceptable as long as they are unmasked and made explicit. The myths are of epistemological or methodological nature. Over the years, I have found more and more evidence that the basic commandments laid out in the philosophy of science are not distant esoteric principles. Rather, they have an immediate and amazingly practical impact on the quality of everyday research work. Theorizing means imposing restrictions on data, or, put in a slightly different manner, specifying the process assumed to have generated the data. As a consequence (in our daily life as well as in science) we are forced to differentiate between what is systematic and what is random. And, as humans are excellent in pattern recognition, detecting regularities where there are none, we need objective decision support. Therefore, observing the requirements of sound statistical analysis is vital. Sometimes this is a cumbersome activity, error-prone and fertile soil for growing myths. It is not too big a surprise that a model class named Structural Equation Models (SEMs, or latent-variable- multiple-indicator models, where I include Partial Least Squares Path Models) plays a prominent role in generating myths. If a magician, whether experienced as, say, David Copperfield or an apprentice like Harry Potter, were to choose a methodology they most certainly would opt for SEMs. There is no other method where one may wave the magic wand to pull white rabbits out of the black top-hat with little effort and where theoretical progress and nonsense applications are in close vicinity. It is likely that there are divergent opinions about the myths. I deliberately overstate them to make them provocative, arouse disagreement, and ignite discourse. According to Myth 1 it is legitimate to embark on a research project entering the empirical domain without being prejudiced by prior hypotheses. This is an attitude often encountered with PhD students, particularly in an early stage of their dissertation project, Research Probe This Department has been specifically created to include findings of special significance and problem areas of subtle nuances in tourism research. Insightful contributions presenting the state-of-the-art, preferably from the developing societies, will be appreciated. It will also encourage scholars and authors to think against the grain, probing the consistency of theoretical notions and research trends whose heuristic value is all too often taken for granted. For details, contact Editor-in-Chief, Tourism Recreation Research, A-965/6 Indira Nagar, Lucknow, India. e-mail: tvsingh@sancharnet.in