Areas of Tourism Research Purpose of Tourism Research Tourism research provides Sources of Data for Tourism Research

1. Areas of Tourism Research
MUHAMED ALI PARAMBIL
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2. History of Tourism Research
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• Initially the study of tourism research focussed on tourism as an economic activity. In particular
the economic advantages and disadvantages of tourism.
• With the passage of time and the concomitant development of the field of tourism studies,
attention has turned from primarily economic foci to alternate foci which includes – the nature
of the tourists, the tourist experience, the social, environmental and economic impacts
(Bruntland Report) of tourism as well as training and educational needs.
• Interest has also shifted from the supply side (tourism industry sector and Government (the
sellers)) side to the demand side (customers)

3. Purpose of Tourism Research
• The purpose of research in tourism can be summarised as follows:
• Constructing and testing theory.
• Profiling, inventory making and collecting baseline data.
• Assessing social, cultural and environmental impacts.
• Identifying educational needs.
• Assisting in planning and management activities.
• Providing a temporal perspective – past, present and future trends.

4. Tourism research provides:
• Information for planning and Management at the local, regional, state, national and
international levels
• Allows comparisons to be made and policies to be developed
• Information on social, environmental and economic impacts of tourism
• Offers insights into the motivations, needs, expectations and satisfaction levels
of tourists.
• Highlights the educational needs of commercial operators and service providers.
• Enables operators, tourism bodies and governments to evaluate tourism and its
outcomes in a variety of contexts.

5. • Goldner and Ritchie (2009) describe six uses of tourism research.
• Identifying problems
• Providing market information
• Minimising operational wastages
• Identifying new profitable resources
• Facilitating sales promotion
• Fostering goodwill

6. Industry Sectors and Research Needs
• 1. Tourism Attractions:
• Destination Images
• Competitiveness of Tourism Products
• Quality of service delivery by staff
• Site visitation patterns
• Quality of educational components offered during a tourism experience
• Current and potential target markets
• Location of tourism product, experience in the destination, destination life cycle

7. • 2. The Hospitality Sector
• Quality evaluation and client needs with regard to services, amenities, facilities and their
layout
• Evaluation of menu changes and menu contents
• Health and safety issues, pricing and market strategies, competitors and their products
• Implications of legislative and statutory changes such as tax systems etc.
• 3. Tourism bodies/associations: They consist of public or private
representatives or a mixture of personnel from both sectors. They can
operate at local, regional, state, national or international levels.
• Identification of major generating regions, market segments
• Identification of community attitudes and investment requirements and strategies
• Evaluation of future development needs in regard to infrastructure, facilities and
amenities.

8. • 4. The Government
• To monitor incoming, outgoing visitation patterns
• To gather data on visitor activities in order to manage natural and built
environments in a sustainable way.
• To quantify visitor numbers and establish visitor patterns for planning
and management purposes
• To know about expenditure patterns to regulate or stimulate investment.
• To design and determine the effectiveness of overseas advertising and
promotional campaign
• To assess social, cultural, environmental and economic impacts.

9. • 5. The tourists
• Developing typologies, psychometric profiles, understanding tourist motivations
• To assist in providing appropriate amenities, quality experiences and obtaining
information on socio-economic backgrounds, generating areas, expectations, values and
attitudes.
• 6. The Community
• Community participation in tourism planning and development,
• Identify community attitudes to development (doxy’s irridex theory) and to implement
or review legislative requirements etc
• 7.Tourism and Hospitality operators and companies
• Information about visitor needs to provide better services and information in regard to
performance of their operations to improve efficiency
• Information to maintain or improve market share

10. • 8. The Environment
• Environmental audits
• Conduct of environmental impact assessments
• Identification of issues and the subsequent development of legislative
requirements and policy development.
• Determining carrying capacity, limits of acceptable change, recreational and
tourism opportunity spectrums.
• Identification of preservation and conservation values.

11. Sources of Data for Tourism Research
• Two types of data – Primary and secondary. Primary data collected through
observation, interviews, focus groups and questionnaires.
• Secondary data sources can be used as the basis of an entire research. – Desk
Research
• Secondary sources can vary from statistical sources and documentary sources.
Documentary sources are of two types, cultural products or artefacts like diaries,
newspapers, magazines, photographs, advertising posters, video clips, films, meeting
minutes, visitor record books and souvenirs.
• A useful classification system for cultural documents is provided by Sarantakos. It
has five components.
• 1. Public documents (include statistical documents and reports as well as various
government census reports )

12. • 2. Archival Documents: Historical data
• 3.Personal Documents: diaries, letters, emails and autobiographies.
• 4. Administrative Documents: Generated in the business environment like annual reports,
meeting notes and agenda, business correspondence and in-house documentation.
• 5. Formal Studies and Reports: Produced for and by the public, private and non-profit
sectors. The documents may have restrictions placed on them in regard to dissemination of
their contents to the wider public domain.
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• Relevant statistical sources include UNWTO, PATA, National government or government
affiliated agencies responsible for production of statistics.
• Tourism Journals such as Journal of Tourism research, Annals of Tourism,
Tourism Management, Journal of Tourism Studies, Journal of Sustainable
Tourism, Tourism Analysis, Tourism Geographies, Tourism Economics,
Festival Management and Event Tourism, Current Issues in Tourism, Journal
of Hospitality and Tourism Research etc.