research methods in tourism nicos rodosthenous phd 28/02/2013 4 28/2/20131dr nicos rodosthenous

RESEARCH METHODS IN TOURISMNicos Rodosthenous PhD

28/02/20134

28/2/2013 1Dr Nicos Rodosthenous

The range of research methods

• This chapter examines the range of alternative and major research methods to be used in tourism.

• 1. Scholarship: involves knowing the literature but also being able to synthesise it, analyse it and critically appraise it.

• 2. Just thinking: researcher needs to be creative in identifying and posing the initial questions, developing research strategy, creative in analysing



• data and presenting findings.• 3.Exisitng sources-using the literature: there is a

great need for the consolidation of existing knowledge from good literature reviews.

• 4.Exisitng sources-secondary data: large quantities of info are collected and stored by government and other organizations as routine functions of management, including sales, figures, visitors/tourists numbers, income and expenditure, health data etc.



• Such data are referred to as secondary data, because their primary use is administrative and research is only secondary use.

• Case study: CTO in Cyprus.• 5.Observation: involves gathering of info

about people’s behavior without their knowledge. i.e. when people are reluctant to talk about, or may be too young to interview.



• 6. Qualitative methods: 1. Nature of qualitative methods. Involves the

gathering of large amounts of info about (people, organizations, facilities, programmes) and for quantitative techniques to involve the gathering of small amounts of data on relatively large numbers of case. i.e. a quantitative research with 500 items of data on only 20 people and for a qualitative research to get little info for 200 people.



2. Situations for the use of qualitative methods. When the focus of the research is on meaning

and attitudes. When interaction between members of a group

is of interest When concepts, terms, issues must be defined by

the subjects and not by the researcher in advance

Generally cover cases of service quality and customer ‘satisfaction (case study: hotel industry)



• 3. Types of qualitative method. Informal and in-depth interviews: involve small

numbers of individuals being interviewed more than one occasion.

Group interviews or focus groups: apply to groups of people rather than separate individuals.

Participant observation: involves the researcher becoming a participant in the subject being studied.



Analysis of texts : for example, research on politician’s speeches or on media coverage of an event.

4. Questionnaire-based surveysThe nature of questionnaire –based surveys

take two formats: a face-to-face, or telephone interview format, which is the most commonly used in tourism research. (i.e. people are satisfied or not with a service or a product)



Types of questionnaire survey. Household survey : people are selected where

they live and are interviewed at home. (community or social survey)

Street survey: people are selecting by stopping them in the street, in shopping malls, etc.

Mail survey: questionnaires are sent and returned by mail-sometimes “postal survey”



Site of user survey: users of a leisure or tourism facility or site are surveyed on –site.

Captive group survey: members of groups, i.e. school children, or staff of a company are surveyed.

B. Subsidiary and cross-cutting techniques. Coupon surveys/conversion studies : can be

made of info from public responses to advertising coupons, where the public is invited to write or telephone for info on a product. The data



• indicate the level of interest in the product on offer, compared with other products, and finally , if the people responded become customers. (convert to customer-conversion studies)

En route/intercept surveys: such surveys may be conducted in aero planes, at airports or while travelling by car, bus, or train.

Time-budget surveys: can be used to study holiday-makers activities at their destinations, by keeping diary.



Experience sampling method (ESM): is a development of the time budget survey/diary, by using mobile phones text msg which responses to questions sent automatically.

Panel studies: are made up of a paid representative of the public who agrees to be on call for a series of surveys over a period of time.

Longitudinal studies: involve surveying the same sample of people periodically over a number of years, for studying social change and ageing.


The range of research methods Media-sponsored surveys: newspapers,

magazines, radio and TV stations often run opinion poll-type surveys among their readers, listeners and viewers.

Action research: when a researcher is personally committed to the topic, either for his company or for social cause.

Case study: 1)The survival of Cyprus Airways 2) the sustainable tourism development.

Historical research: usually used as secondary data analysis. ( compare data, figures, statistics etc)



Textual analysis: involves organizations’ annual reports, politicians’ speeches or advertising messages. The content of published or unpublished texts referred as content analysis.

Delphi technique: involves the gathering and analysis of info from a panel of experts on future trends and developments.

Projective techniques: what if? Involve subjects responding to hypothetical-projected-situations.



The use of scales: the advantage of the use of existing scales is that the researchers are not going to “reinventing the wheel” but to devising their own measure of a particular phenomenon.

More than 588 scales are used in marketing research, like consumers motivation and attitudes and others for leisure and tourism.

Among these scales are:



1. Safety (air travel)2. Satisfaction (air travel)3. Sports activities4. Time management5. Pleasure6. Pricing issues (air travel)7. Cooking enjoyment



• For example: using scales in areas of destination choice and tourist satisfaction.

Meta-analysis: the reported findings of a large number of individual research projects in the same area, provide the basis for further exploration and analysis of the area.

C. Multiple methods : many research methods involve the use of more than one method or technique. Two multi-method situations are discussed here: 1) Triangulation and 2) the case study method.



• C.1. Triangulation.• Gets its name from the land surveying method of

fixing the position of an object by measuring two different positions, with the object to be the third point of the triangle.

• Often used both qualitative and quantitative approaches, in analysing data in more than one way by using different interviews, observes and analysts in one study to gather data.



• C.2. Case studies Introduction: involves the study of an example-a

case- of the phenomenon being researched.• Cases can consist individuals, communities,

countries, organizations and companies.• For example: a survey of 500 visitors to a leisure

or tourism site can be seen as a case study of the site. As a second case study can be seen the environment and the history of this site.



Purposes:



Merits of the case study method can be summarised as follows:

1. Ability to place people, organizations, events and experiences in their social and historical context.

2. Ability to treat the subject of study as a whole.3. Multiple methods-triangulation-are implicit and

seen as a strength.4. The single , or limited number of cases, offers a

manageable data collection task when resources are limited

28/2/2013 Dr Nicos Rodosthenous 21


5. Flexibility in data collection strategy allows researchers to adapt their research strategy as the research proceeds

6. There is no need to generalize to a defined wider population.

Design of case studies: It is important to plan to avoid the problem of

having collected a lot of data and not to knowing what to do with them.



Three specific issues are important:a)Defining the unit of analysis: for example a

dept within a large organization, it is important to keep the analysis at the dept level only.

b)Selecting the case: four types of case-selection can be considered:1) purposive, 2) illustrative 3) typical/atypical 4) pragmatic



c) Data gathering: uses a number of data sources and data gathering techniques, including: the use of documentary evidence, secondary data analysis, in-depth interviews, questionnaire surveys and observation.

Analysis : can these data add something to the research? Three main methods of analysis are considered:

Pattern matching –relating the features of the case to what might be expected from some existing theory



Explanation building-often an iterative process where a logical explanation of what is discovered referencing between theory and data.

Time series analysis-explanations are developed on the basis of observing change over time.


research methods in tourism nicos rodosthenous phd 28/02/2013 4 28/2/20131dr nicos rodosthenous

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