Travel and Tourism Research - Tourism: Principles, Practices, Philosophies - page 397

INTRODUCTION

I nformation is the basis for decision making , and it is the task of travel research to gather and

analyze data to help travel managers make decisions. Travel research is the systematic, impartial
designing and conducting of investigations to solve travel problems.
Travel research is broad in scope and covers all aspects of the travel environment. It examines
consumers, competitors, products and services, market structure, economic trends, technological
forces, government regulations, demographic trends, ecology, global forces, and other factors that
make up the travel environment. Travel research is the foundation for developing your tourism
strategy and marketing plan.
There are two main primary and secondary. Primary research is original and

collected to solve a problem. Secondary research already exists, as data have been collected for other
purposes. There are two major types of research

sources of data —

exploratory and scienti c. Exploratory research is
qualitative and provides insights into the situation. One should draw conclusions from it only with
extreme care. Scienti c research is quantitative and follows a careful scienti c process that allows the
results of the study to be generalized to the population. To be useful, however, it must be carefully
planned and rigorously executed, and thoughtfully interpreted.
Travel research provides facts that help travel decision makers operate more effectively.
Managers can plan, operate, and control more ef ciently when they have the facts. Thus, research,
which reduces the risk in decision making, can haveagreatimpactonthesuccessorfailureofa
tourism enterprise.

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TYPES OF TOURISM RESEARCH

Tourism research is conducted in many forms. Some illustrative types are presented next.

The Economic Impact of Tourism

Virtually every kind of tourism destination and attraction wants to know the level of economic activity
and the bene its it is deriving from tourism within its boundaries. Frechtling provides a comprehensive
treatment on assessing the economic impacts of travel and tourism. 1

Awareness and Image Research

Another type of research that is very common in tourism is aimed at determining the level of
awareness of the destination in key market segments. It is critical to know awareness levels of a
destination since visitors are highly unlikely to choose to visit a destination if they are unaware of its
existence when making travel plans.
Once awareness levels have been established, destination managers then wish to know the nature
of the image of their destination in key market segments. Positive images can be used as the basis of
marketing campaigns to induce decisions to visit—while negative images need to be carefully
examined to determine how they can be improved.

Visitor Satisfaction Research

Studies that determine the level of visitor satisfaction regarding their visit — and the aspects of their

visitation experience that were viewed most favorably and least favorably — can be extremely useful in