Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Annals of Tourism Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/annals Citation practices in tourism research: Toward a gender conscientious engagement Robin Nunkoo a,d,e,f, ⁎ , C. Michael Hall b,g,h , Soujata Rughoobur-Seetah c , Viraiyan Teeroovengadum a a Department of Management, University of Mauritius, Reduit, Mauritius b Department of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand c Curtin Mauritius, Charles Telfair Campus, Moka, Mauritius d School of Tourism and Hospitality, University of Johannesburg, South Africa e Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University, Australia f Copenhagen Business School, University of Copenhagen, Denmark g Department of Geography, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland h School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, 39182 Kalmar, Sweden ARTICLE INFO Associate editor: Bob McKercher Keywords: Citation Self-citation Bibliometric Gender Research evaluation ABSTRACT This study explores gender gaps and differences in citation practices of scholars in the top-cited articles in tourism research. The results suggest that male researchers dominate the authorship of those articles and are more likely to engage in self-citation than females. The study also finds a disparity in citation counts between male- and female-authored articles. Controlling for other factors, author gender is an important determinant of citation counts. The study advocates for a more gender conscious citation practices and provides potential gender-based interventions to reduce the citation gap. The research raises awareness about the dangers of the perfunctory use of citations and paves the way for further debates on the politics and embedded inequalities of citations in tourism research. Introduction Gender roles are an institutionalized system of social practices that results in unequal advantages for men, women, and intersex people at individual, organizational, and societal levels. Despite ongoing research and interventions aimed at gender convergence, gender inequality persists across several spheres of academic practices. The scientific debates on the gender aspects of tourism research systems thus far have primarily focused on inequalities in academic productivity and leadership measured by research output, professorial positions, and editorial board membership (Basurto-Barcia & Ricaurte-Quijano, 2017; Lundine, Bourgeault, Clark, Heidari, & Balabanova, 2018; Munar et al., 2015; Pritchard & Morgan, 2017; Walters, 2018). Mirroring the conclusions of other disciplines, various studies suggest that tourism academia is male-dominated and characterized by gendered and other hier- archies, such as race, culture, language and class, that have implications for tourism knowledge production (Chambers, Munar, Khoo- Lattimore, & Biran, 2017; Hall, 2013, 2016; Munar, Khoo-Lattimore, Chambers, & Biran, 2017; Pritchard & Morgan, 2017). Academic leadership and performance in tourism has long been assessed using citation indices (e.g. Hall, 2011; Law, Ye, Chen, & https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2019.102755 Received 28 November 2018; Received in revised form 27 May 2019; Accepted 11 July 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Management, University of Mauritius, Reduit, Mauritius E-mail addresses: r.nunkoo@uom.ac.mu (R. Nunkoo), michael.hall@canterbury.ac.nz (C.M. Hall), srughoobur@curtinmauritius.ac.mu (S. Rughoobur-Seetah), v.teeroovengadum@uom.ac.mu (V. Teeroovengadum). Annals of Tourism Research 79 (2019) 102755 0160-7383/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T