There are many kinds of scholarly journals. Some accept articles based on the judgment of their editors or their editorial boards and many of the scholarly journals that function this way are of a high quality. But the more important journals as far as academic prestige is concerned, are those that published refereed or peer-reviewed articles in which the editor sends an article without revealing the author to various experts in the appropriate field for evaluation. Generally these peer reviewers are asked for their opinions on whether the article should be published as it needs some work, needs a great deal of work or shouldn’t be published.
Among refereed journals there is hierarchy. And some journals, often the preeminent journals in their fields will publish only articles that they consider to be “paradigm changing” -that is, readers of the article it is assumed may change the way they think about the subject of the piece and field itself. These journals tend to accept 10 or 15 percent of the articles that they receive so it is difficult to get an article published in them. Some “A” level journals such as the annals of tourism research are reputed to have a rejection rate of more than 90 percent. An article that is rejected by one of these prestigious publications may be a very fine piece of work and be readily accepted in other journals so don’t be discouraged if your work isn’t accepted right away.
Consider submitting to journals in a variety of subject areas that might be covered in your article. For example an article on the semiotics of tourism may possibly be of interest to journals in communication sociology psychology economics tourism semiotics or other disciplines or subdisciplines.