Research Methods in Tourism, Hospitality and Events Management

Step 1: Who to ask

Perhaps the first step is to determine who to ask. In the situation outlined above, any

person visiting the tourist attraction for recreational purposes is eligible to be

included in the survey. One aspect which should be considered is at what age visitors

become suitable. Clearly, the responses, attitudes, decision making and purchasing

requirements of young children may well be different to those of adults. Extreme

care should be taken when contemplating interviews with children, and only ever

with the full cooperation of parents (see ethical considerations in 

Chapter 1

). In

situations where the opinions of children are important, it may be preferable to

design a separate survey (possibly with some comparable questions to an adult

survey). In this sense, it could be much easier to train interviewers in the particular

requirements of the survey, to gain permission and inform the local police of the

aims and methods of the survey.

Although site surveys at tourist attractions with face-to-face interviews can achieve a

high response rate, some people will refuse to cooperate. In the literature, those

taking part in a survey are called ‘respondents’ and hence a response rate of 90%

would indicate that 90% of those approached for interview agreed to and

satisfactorily completed the interview. Thus, in order to be able to report the response

rate, it is important to keep a record of non-respondents. If the response rate is very

low, then a judgement may have to be made as to the reliability of the results.