Ethical Principles

Ethical Principles and Publication Policy of Health Tourism Journal

The Publication Ethics of Health Tourism Journal are based on internationally recognized ethical principles designed to ensure transparency, integrity, academic quality, and responsible scientific publishing. The journal follows internationally accepted publication ethics standards and expects editors, reviewers, and authors to comply with ethical publishing practices throughout the editorial and peer-review process.

Publication Ethics and COPE Compliance

Health Tourism Journal is dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics. The journal strictly adheres to the principles, guidelines, and Core Practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The editorial board, reviewers, and authors are expected to comply with these internationally recognized ethical standards during manuscript submission, peer review, editorial evaluation, and publication.

The ethical responsibilities of editors, reviewers, and authors should also comply with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations and other internationally accepted academic publishing standards. These principles support transparency, fairness, accountability, and scientific integrity throughout the publication process.

Publication Ethics and Plagiarism Policy

All submitted manuscripts are screened for plagiarism using recognized similarity detection software such as Turnitin or iThenticate during the initial editorial assessment.

Manuscripts presenting a similarity index above 15% (excluding references), evidence of plagiarism, patch-writing, duplicate publication, or uncredited text reuse will be rejected without proceeding to peer review.

Maintaining publication ethics requires authors to submit original work and properly acknowledge all sources used in the preparation of their manuscripts.

Publication Ethics for Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Authors must clearly declare the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools or Large Language Models (LLMs) during manuscript preparation.

AI technologies may be used for language editing, grammar improvement, or data analysis; however, Artificial Intelligence cannot be listed as an author or co-author of a scientific article.

If AI has contributed beyond language editing or technical assistance, authors must explicitly explain how these tools were used. Authors are also responsible for declaring their own intellectual contribution to ensure compliance with publication ethics and academic transparency.

Incomplete or missing AI declarations may result in the manuscript not being considered for editorial evaluation.

Publication Ethics and Author Declarations

Authors submitting manuscripts to Health Tourism Journal must confirm the following declarations during submission.

Originality

Authors must guarantee that the manuscript is entirely original, has not been published previously, and is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal.

Conflict of Interest

Authors must disclose any financial, institutional, or personal relationships that could influence the interpretation or presentation of the research.

If no conflict exists, authors should include a clear No Conflict of Interest statement.

Funding Statement

Authors must identify all institutional, governmental, private, or corporate funding sources supporting the research or manuscript preparation.

Authorship and Ghostwriting Policy

Each author must clearly describe their individual contribution to the preparation of the manuscript. This policy promotes transparency, prevents unethical authorship practices, and supports responsible academic publishing.

For additional international guidance regarding publication ethics, please visit the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): https://publicationethics.org/

For more information on submission requirements, please visit our Make a Submission page.”