Tourist Destination

1. Editorial Independence and Editorial Authority

The Publisher recognizes and protects the academic independence of the journal's scholarly evaluation and decision-making processes. Editorial decisions concerning individual manuscripts are based on originality, methodological quality, theoretical or practical contribution, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal's scope, clarity, and the scholarly evidence provided through independent peer review.

Editorial responsibilities are exercised by the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or another suitably qualified and authorized Editorial Board Member in accordance with the journal's published policies.

The Publisher must not use ownership, administrative authority, financial responsibility, institutional relationships, commercial interests, sponsorship, personal relationships, or other non-academic considerations to influence the acceptance, revision, rejection, prioritization, or publication timing of individual manuscripts. Where the same individual holds both publishing and editorial responsibilities, manuscript decisions are made solely within the editorial role and under the journal's peer-review, conflict-of-interest, and recusal rules.

2. Editorial Decision-Making

The final editorial decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief or by an independent editor formally authorized through delegated responsibility or conflict-of-interest procedures. Reviewer recommendations inform editorial decisions but are advisory rather than mechanically determinative or binding.

The responsible editor evaluates reviewer reports together with the manuscript's academic quality, methodological soundness, originality, ethical compliance, author responses, and revisions. The Publisher, when acting solely in a publishing or administrative capacity, does not override or reverse scholarly editorial decisions.

3. Editorial and Publishing Conflict-of-Interest Protocol

Tourist Destination applies specific safeguards where the Publisher, Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, Editorial Board Member, reviewer, or another individual involved in journal governance has an actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest concerning a manuscript.

A conflict of interest may arise particularly when a manuscript:

• is authored or co-authored by the Publisher, Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or an Editorial Board Member;
• is authored by a close collaborator, colleague, supervisor, student, family member, or another person whose relationship could reasonably affect impartiality;
• concerns an institution, project, financial interest, or professional relationship directly connected to an editor;
• presents any other circumstance that could reasonably create doubt regarding editorial independence.

In such cases, the conflicted individual must fully recuse themselves from editorial handling. A recused individual must not:

• select or recommend reviewers;
• participate in reviewer invitations;
• access confidential reviewer identities where anonymity applies;
• participate in or influence internal editorial discussions and assessments;
• make, approve, or influence the final editorial decision;
• access confidential editorial information beyond standard author-facing communication.

Where the conflict concerns the Editor-in-Chief, the manuscript is transferred to the Associate Editor or another suitably qualified, independent, and non-conflicted Editorial Board Member. Where the conflict concerns the Associate Editor or assigned handling editor, responsibility is transferred to another independent editor. For special or thematic issues, an independent Guest Editor may perform this role where appropriate and provided that no relevant conflict of interest exists.

4. Manuscripts Submitted by Editors, Editorial Board Members, or the Publisher

The Publisher, editors, and Editorial Board Members are not prohibited from submitting scholarly work to Tourist Destination. However, their position must provide no advantage during evaluation. The submitting individual must not participate in preliminary editorial assessment, reviewer selection, peer-review management, confidential editorial correspondence, revision assessment, acceptance or rejection decisions, or publication prioritization.

Such manuscripts are handled by an independent, non-conflicted editor under the same scholarly, ethical, and peer-review standards applied to all other submissions. Where appropriate, the published article may include a transparency statement disclosing the relevant editorial or publishing role and the independent handling arrangement.

5. Financial Independence, Funding Sources and Revenue Model

Tourist Destination operates as a non-profit, Diamond Open Access scholarly journal. The journal charges no submission fees, Article Processing Charges (APCs), publication fees, or reader subscriptions.

Funding and Revenue Model: All operational costs—including domain registration, secure web hosting, DOI registration, digital preservation systems, and technical infrastructure—are entirely self-funded by the journal publisher/founder (Bekir Bora Dedeoğlu) using personal resources. Editorial board members, section editors, and peer reviewers contribute their scholarly expertise entirely on a voluntary academic basis.

The journal does not accept commercial advertisements. Any potential institutional in-kind support or grants cannot influence editorial independence under any circumstances; manuscript acceptance decisions rest solely upon scientific merit and peer-review outcomes.

6. Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest and Funding

Authors, reviewers, editors, and other individuals involved in the editorial process must disclose relevant financial, institutional, professional, academic, or personal conflicts of interest. Authors must also disclose research funding and related financial support. Published articles include appropriate Conflict of Interest and Funding Statements in accordance with the journal's policies. Failure to disclose a relevant conflict may result in editorial investigation and appropriate corrective action.

7. Confidentiality and Access to Editorial Information

Submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, reviewer identities, editorial correspondence, internal assessments, and unpublished materials are treated as confidential. Access to confidential editorial information is restricted to individuals who require such access for legitimate editorial, peer-review, ethical, production, or administrative purposes and who are bound by confidentiality requirements.

A publisher, editor, board member, or other individual who has been recused because of a conflict of interest must not access confidential editorial records relating to that manuscript beyond standard author-facing communication. Confidential information obtained through editorial work must not be used for personal, academic, commercial, institutional, or competitive advantage.

8. Open Access, Copyright and Fee Policy

• Tourist Destination operates as a fully open-access scholarly journal.
• No submission, processing, or publication fees are charged.
• Copyright remains with the author(s), who retain copyright and publishing rights without restrictions.
• Published articles carry the statement: "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License."

Authors may deposit the published Version of Record in institutional or disciplinary repositories, personal websites, and appropriate scholarly platforms without embargo, subject to the applicable licensing and attribution requirements.

9. Publication Ethics and Oversight

Tourist Destination follows the COPE Core Practices and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing as guiding standards for publication ethics. The journal does not claim formal COPE membership or DOAJ endorsement unless such status has formally been obtained.

Potential cases of plagiarism, inappropriate text recycling, redundant publication, authorship disputes, undisclosed conflicts of interest, data fabrication or falsification, peer-review manipulation, and other forms of research or publication misconduct are investigated in accordance with the journal's relevant policies and appropriate internationally recognized ethical procedures. Where misconduct is substantiated, proportionate action may include manuscript rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, notification of relevant parties, or other measures necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

10. Accountability and Transparency

The Publisher is responsible for supporting the administrative and technical infrastructure necessary for the journal's continued operation while respecting the independence of scholarly editorial decisions. The Editor-in-Chief and authorized editors are responsible for maintaining the academic integrity of editorial processes.

Any individual exercising editorial authority must comply with the journal's published policies regardless of whether that individual simultaneously holds another administrative or publishing role. The journal's governance structure is designed to ensure that ownership does not provide preferential treatment, conflicts of interest result in effective recusal, and individual manuscript decisions remain grounded in independent scholarly evaluation.

11. Persistent Identifiers, Institutional Standards & Metadata Integrations (ORCID, ROR, OAI-PMH)

Tourist Destination integrates global persistent digital identifiers into its core publishing infrastructure to ensure compliance with international scholarly standards and Open Science principles:

• ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID): ORCID iD authentication and linking are supported for authors and reviewers to ensure unambiguous researcher attribution.
• Research Organization Registry (ROR): Author and editorial board affiliations are disambiguated using official Research Organization Registry (ROR) IDs, enabling precise global institutional attribution and metadata interoperability.
• OAI-PMH 2.0 & RSS: Journal metadata is openly available for automated harvesting by international indexers and digital repositories via OAI-PMH v2.0 and RSS 2.0 feeds.