This editor profile is the twenty-first in a series which will introduce you to a selection of our editors.
This week we have an interview with John Tribe, Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Tourism Research.

What aspect of being an editor do you find most rewarding?
I like being at the centre of the research community. Annals of Tourism Research, is a top journal, so you get to see the best research as it is being developed. I enjoy the whole process through to the finished hardcopy product. 

What advice would you give to a new editor?
My best advice would be; really get to know the outgoing editor. Use that person as your mentor. It is really important to have someone with a great deal of experience you can turn to. Another piece of advice I would give is; don’t go for sudden changes, do things gently, try not to show any major dysfunctional rift. To the reader the transition between editors should look and feel seamless.

What would you change about your role as editor or the scientific journal publishing industry if you could?
You quite easily accept what is on offer and that can be a bad thing. For instance the submission pages for authors could be a lot more user-friendly. We need to continuously improve electronic systems and processes.  I would also like to see less developed countries have more access to more expensive journals.

How do you envision the role of the editor being different in year 2020?
Journals are very word, sentence and paragraph bound. With so many possibilities for making them multi-media, I am very interested to see how far we can take the electronic medium. There’s a lot of experimentation we can do in the academic world with multi-media. For instance I just accepted an article based around a video, which requires a different approach to bring it alive.

How do you balance your role as editor with your other roles?
You just have to be very organized. Everything that needs doing I write down and every day I take a look at my list and decide what I am going to do that day, that week, that year and work my way through it. As soon as I have written it down, I don’t feel any anxiety about it, because I know it is organized. I delegate a lot too.

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I am still holding out for a career in drumming…

Why did you choose tourism as your field of study?
I started off as an economist and in fact it took me a while to find the subject that I really felt comfortable in. Now I have the wonderful title of Professor of Tourism! A lot of people don’t take tourism seriously and I find myself having to defend it all the time. Even though it doesn’t need defending at all! Tourism is an extremely important economic phenomenon, whole countries depend on it and almost every human-being loves it. It is fascinating why human-beings are attracted to tourism, why they do it? The impact of tourism also fascinates me, in terms of what goes on during the interchange of cultures, and how the ecology and the environment are affected. Tourism seems to draw people who have a multi-disciplinary approach to research, and that in itself makes it interesting.

What’s new in the field of tourism?  How will this work impact our daily lives?
Climate change is a hugely important topic at the moment. A lot of people are being drawn into that debate. The outcome of that debate may mean that people have to change their behavior and for some people that is a hard fact to face. Political sustainability is another big topic in tourism because tourism relies on peace and political stability to exist.

What gets you up in the morning?
I always have a huge optimism for the day. Ordinary beautiful day-to-day things get me up in the morning. I like a lot of the simple things in life.

What is the biggest lesson you've learned in your career?
The biggest lesson I’ve learnt is that there are always new ways of looking at things. There is always new knowledge to be found and new things to learn. Understanding is a very relative thing! Another important lesson I’ve learnt is that there are certain key disciplines that govern a deep understanding of the world, like sociology. We should all have a basic understanding of sociology.

What are you currently reading? Would you recommend it?  If so, why?
I am reading a book on Mobility by John Urry and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. I read a lot of fiction, I go to the theater. I like a balance of academic and non-academic work, but the former is winning at the moment.

Who or what is your biggest inspiration?
All sorts of people come to mind here. Like my PhD supervisor, Prof Ron Barnet for instance, who really taught me to see the world in a different way. Someone else who comes to mind is Nelson Mandela, who was very politically brave, managed to survive persecution and emerge positively from that.

What would you like your legacy to be?
I don’t think of legacies in terms of big things. I think legacies are quite continual things like inspiring people, which is really important as an academic. A legacy I strive for is to hand on my journal in at least as good and preferably a better state than I found it. I would like to make sure it continues to be the very top journal in tourism. I would like people to understand this complex phenomenon called tourism a bit better. I would like governments to take it more seriously. People’s immediate reaction to tourism is; people on holiday, having fun. A lot of people don’t realize that banking doesn’t have half the impact on people’s lives that tourism has. People dismiss it as flippant but it is increasingly important to an increasing number of people. Experiences while traveling are so important in life. 

What do you like to do for fun?
I am a great fan of yoga, it’s a very important thing for me. I like to get out everyday. I love the theater, cinema, art and of course travel.

What are some of your favorite places?
One of my favorite places is home in Richmond, England. Other favorite places; Goa in India and I love South America and their passion for living and dancing. Rio de Janeiro is a fascinating place.