Research Methods in Tourism, Hospitality and Events Management

particular restaurant. It is suggested that ‘if an existing restaurant is used

to measure perceived value, it is difficult to determine whether the

measurement accurately reflects perceived value’ (Lee and Lee, 2012:

449). Similarly to the research conducted by Ong (2015), participants

were asked if they had purchased a discount promotion and, if so, which

product or service category they had purchased in. Participants were also

asked which product or service category they would engage in. Other

questions also related to previous research conducted, in that the

questionnaire ‘included questions related to respondents’ demographic

information and dining behaviour’.

The questionnaire was designed and piloted four times to a general and

varied selection of respondents. Each gave feedback which included

errors with the language used, the sequence of questions and the options

available for answers. All feedback was processed and amendments were

made in accordance with recommendations. The fifth pilot took place in

the style of a street survey focusing on method of delivery. Here,

feedback was similar to the previous pilot and further adjustments to the

sequence of questions and available answers were made. During this final

pilot, every nth person was asked, so as to deter from bias. This was seen

to be ineffective as some participants were asked in couples and not every

nth person would want to participate. This meant that the next available

person would then be asked, this being due to the need for the sample

size to be met within a certain time constraint.

Differently to the methods used in secondary research, this research did

not use web-based surveys as there was no available access to a large

enough source of data which was needed to meet the sample. This led to

street surveys being the chosen method for collecting the data. All

respondents that were stopped were asked for their consent to participate

in answering the questionnaire so that the research conducted was ethical.

Street surveying was chosen because of its advantages, which include

being able to reach out to a large sample and being able to generate a

high response rate due to face-to-face contact with respondents and being

able to engage a small team to help with data collection. The online

questionnaire follows.