Tourism gender research: A critical accounting

•Critiques tourism enquiry as a knowledge-generating system.•Reviews the trajectory and impact of tourism gender research.•Presents a bibliometric analysis of tourism gender research 1985–2012.•Identifies key topics and methodologies in tourism gender research.•Presents potential scenarios for future tourism gender research.

This paper seeks to rouse debate about the workings of tourism enquiry as a knowledge-generating system through its critical accounting of the sub-field of tourism gender research. This accounting includes a gender-aware bibliometric analysis of 466 journal papers published during 1985–2012, which categorises the sub-field’s prevailing themes and methodologies and identifies its most prolific authors and popular journals. It contends that, despite three decades of study and a recent increase in papers, tourism gender research remains marginal to tourism enquiry, disarticulated from wider feminist and gender-aware initiatives and lacks the critical mass of research leaders, publications, citations and multi-institutional networks, which characterise other tourism sub-fields. The paper identifies two possible futures for gender-aware tourism research: stagnation or ignition.