Research Methods in Tourism, Hospitality and Events Management

4.3.2 Types of population

The population from which a sample is drawn can have one of two important

characteristics: it may be finite or infinite. A finite population is one where the whole

population is known and can be counted. For example, the population of tourists

undertaking a particular type of holiday with a company is likely to be known as

their names and addresses will have been stored by the company on a database and

can be easily accessed. Alternatively, there may be situations where the population is

not easily defined, hence the term infinite population. An example of this can occur

at tourist attractions or events where no charge is made for entry. The staff of the site

or the event organisers may be unaware of exactly how many visitors they receive

each year. Moreover, there may be little or no information about the characteristics

of visitors or visits (finding this out may be the objective of the survey). Under these

conditions, deciding who and how to sample is clearly more problematic. There may

also be situations faced by researchers between these two extremes. For instance, the

total number of visitors to a site may be known, but there may be little known about

when visits take place or the socio-demographic makeup of the visitors. Dealing with

this situation is no easy matter and what is presented in the following sections

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represents a pragmatic solution to try and compensate for the inherent bias which

may occur when selecting a sample of individuals for inclusion in your survey.