Research Methods in Tourism, Hospitality and Events Management

6.3 Qualitative methods and the literature review

We saw in the 

previous chapter

 that it is important for you to link the

literature to the questions that you ask in a survey or questionnaire. It is

equally important for you to carry out the same process when you use

qualitative methods. This is particularly important so that you can focus

your attention on the key authors that you have considered during the

literature review process. You can even extend your thoughts to consider

what you are going to ask and why and relate the question to the literature.

A really good example of this type of thinking is shown in 

Table 6.1

.

Kimberley was trying to find out about status-seeking consumption

behaviour amongst young females and she used focus groups conducted in

London and Bournemouth to explore this. In 

Table 6.1

, you can see how the

questions she asked were linked to the literature and allowed her to see

whether her research supported the existing literature or offered new

insights.

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Source: ‘Status-seeking consumer behaviour and its impact on the

hospitality consumption of young professional females’ by Kimberley

Anne Kirk-Macaulay and Susan Horner; paper presented at

EuroCHRIE, 2013.

Note: The example citations in the final column are not included in the

References, as these are for illustration purposes only.