Research Issues and Methodological Profiles of Academic Works Pertaining to Physical Activity and Tourism Management in Mountain Areas (An Analysis of Research Papers Published in the Journal “Folia Turistica” in the Years 1990-2020)

Abstract

Introduction. The paper aims to analyse publications on physical activity and tourism management in mountain areas which appeared in the over 30-year period of publishing the journal “Folia Turistica” (FT). Material and methods. The research consisted of four stages: preliminary analysis of titles and abstracts of research papers published in FT in the years 1990-2020, a detailed analysis of the content of research papers pertaining to mountain issues, collecting and processing the data necessary to prepare methodological profiles of research papers using the OMPN©, analysis and discussion of the results obtained. Results. Among the 75 scientific articles qualified for the study, works in the field of social sciences, as well as in the field of natural sciences and humanities prevailed. Four leading thematic areas can be distinguished: physical or tourist activity, resource management and governance, nature and protected areas, tourist and recreational infrastructure. The share of papers on historical issues, law and security issues, and education and leadership was clearly smaller. Research and the resulting scientific articles were more often interdisciplinary (rather than monodisciplinary), the positivist approach prevailed (rather than interpretative), empirical research was undertaken more often (rather than theoretical studies), while scientific reasoning and inferences were much more often based on induction (not deduction). Conclusions. The research shows that articles on physical/tourism activity in mountain regions published in FT were highly diverse in their methodological approaches, and in many works there is a scholarly approach known as triangulation, which involves joining various approaches and research methods and drawing conclusions based on various kinds of data. This situation, together with the relatively low-level development of tourism research compared to other more advanced fields and disciplines, does not facilitate our task of evaluating the various articles and their significance in attaining valuable knowledge.