Travel and Tourism Research - Tourism: Principles, Practices, Philosophies - page 406

results tend to be limited. It is much better to utilize motivational and psychological research
techniques, which are better suited for obtaining this information.
In summary, try to get factual or opinion data via the survey method and utilize in-depth
interviewing or psychological research techniques to get ''reason why'' data.
It was mentioned earlier that surveys can be conducted by personal interviews, telephone, mail, or
Internet. The purpose of a survey is to gather data by interviewing a limited number of people (sample)
who represent a larger group. Reviewing the basic survey methods, one finds the following advantages
and disadvantages.

Using the Internet

The Internet has become increasingly pervasive in all aspects of life today and the field of research is

no exception. In an ongoing effort to reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of survey research,
many researchers have turned to the Internet. In general, the results of this move to online survey
research have been impressive, to the point where Web-based research may even be the mode of
choice for a large percentage of studies.
Despite its appeal, Web-based survey research does have certain shortcomings that need to be
kept in mind when contemplating its use. One of the industry

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s current top concerns relates to
growing consumer distaste for any unsolicited marketing messages, whether they come from
researchers or not. This reality makes it increasingly more dif cult for research organizations to
recruit participants for both surveys and focus groups.
Another problem is that because Internet-based research is so easy and inexpensive to conduct, a
lot of inexperienced, poorly quali ed individuals are carrying out their own surveys online. Because it is
easy to create a survey online and e-mail it out, research has gone through a damaging period during
which untrained people have conducted surveys using unprofessional sampling or consolidation of
results, and as a consequence have derived unreliable results.
Despite these problems, there is little doubt that the use of online surveys, primarily because of
their economic ef ciency, will continue to grow and to improve in quality. Research companies have
developed excellent sophisticated Internet surveys.

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Personal Interviews

Personal interviews are much more flexible than either mail or telephone surveys because the
interviewer can adapt to the situation and the respondent. The interviewer can alter questions to make
sure that the respondent understands them or probe if the respondent does not respond with a
satisfactory answer. Typically, one can obtain much more information by personal interview than by
telephone or mail surveys, which by necessity must be relatively short. Personal interviewers can
observe the situation as well as ask questions.
A major limitation of the personal interview method is its relatively high cost. The U.S. Census,
which uses a combination of mail and follow-up door-to-door interviewing, demonstrates the high
cost of personal interviews. It tends to be the most expensive of the three survey methods. It also takes
a considerable amount of time to conduct, and there is always the possibility of personal interviewer
bias. Technology holds the promise of making personal interviewing less expensive.

Telephone Surveys

Surveys in which respondents are interviewed over the telephone are usually conducted much more
rapidly and at less cost than are personal interviews. The shortcomings of telephone surveys are that
they are less flexible than personal interviews, and of necessity they are brief. Further limitations of
phone surveys are that not everyone has a telephone, land lines are disappearing, and cell phones
introduce a new dimension. However, those with telephones tend to have the market potential to
travel or buy tourism products. Consequently, phone users make a good sample for travel research.