Research Methods in Tourism, Hospitality and Events Management

Step 7: Weighting

Observations made at the site to help develop a sampling frame and define the

sampling unit will have established times of the day when the site has most of its

visitors. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to increase the number of interviewers

to account for this. Thus, by using the next-to-pass technique there may be certain

times when many more people are passing the interview point and leaving the site

because the interviewer is occupied. For example, it could be found that half of those

interviewed on a particular day had travelled to the site by coach, whilst observations

had shown that a higher proportion of visitors had arrived by car. Some account

should be made of this to allow for possible errors in the results. Thus, some replies

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in the analysis stage could be adjusted or ‘weighted’ to allow for the higher numbers

of coach trippers interviewed than were actually present on the site.