Two senior experts in the business management field, professors Chris Cooper and Haiyan Song, shared their research insights on tourism management with specific guidance to facilitate early career researchers.

Opening the webinar, professor Cooper discussed the research opportunities and priorities that COVID-19 presents to scholars in the tourism sector. He also highlighted the link between COVID-19, climate change, and tourism—with climate hazards exacerbating the impact of the virus (e.g., air pollution), while also highlighting positives such as a reduction in flying. He called this an opportunity for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to build a new tourism that is built on research and is carbon friendly, sustainable, and innovative. He finished with an overview on how COVID-19 impacted the academic publishing landscape in terms, quality, and content of journal submissions.

Professor Song continued with a focus on tourism research amid COVID-19, looking at it both as a crisis and opportunity. He pointed out various research directions with recent journal examples, laying out their research rationales, framing, design, and results. Xuting Wang, manager of commissioning/rights at SAGE Asia-Pacific, finished with guidance to facilitate research and researchers in academic publishing.

Key takeaways from the video include an overview of tourism and pandemics, the identification of research priorities at this time of crisis, the changing publishing landscape of tourism as a result of COVID-19, tourism prospects post COVID-19, new research trends, and publication prospects to assist those who want to publish important and relevant studies in journals during this difficult period.