The role of quantitative and qualitative research in industrial studies of tourism

Many areas of research in tourism concentrate on quantitative or qualitative studies. Some even discuss the complementarity between the two types of studies. Hardly considered are the possibilities for combining such works within an integrated framework that also considers the business environment in which tourism operates. The purpose of this paper is to return to long neglected possibilities by reinvestigating areas of methodology and epistemology concerned with the generation of a framework that embraces both quantitative and qualitative research. A hypothetical example, in terms of industrial organisation and strategic decision making, is introduced discussing the possibilities for the triangulation of methods and paradigms and the role of the business environment. The conclusion is that an improved understanding of the tourism business requires a broader research methodology than presently exists. Both types of research and the dynamic context of tourism are important and need to be combined within an integrated framework. It has been concerned with the construction of integrating frameworks that embrace an alternative logic of inference and the context of the tourism business environment. This requires refinements of existing approaches together with a broader research methodology. Only by establishing such frameworks will an improved understanding of the tourism industry be achieved. The suggested framework presented here, with particular reference to industrial organisation and strategic decision making by tourism suppliers, is not offered as a panacea. For future work, the validity and choice of framework rest squarely on how the world and ‘truth’ are viewed. However, within this, the contribution of triangulated quantitative and qualitative research should help understanding by studying phenomena in their natural setting and in terms of the meanings people have of them. This should lead to a ‘truer analysis’ of business behaviour and hence a more purposeful investigation of hotels, tour operators, travel agents and the business of tourism in general. It is in seeking to produce this ‘truer analysis’ that future research activities need to concentrate. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tourist experiences,phenomenographic analysis,post‐postivism and neural network software

This paper argues that tourist experiences are essentially individualistic, although it is possible to discern consensual realties. It follows the viewpoint that positivistic research methodologies contain limitations in not being able to define the nature of individual tourist experience, and suggests that phenomenographic analysis may be one approach that permits both a revelation of individual experience while permitting model building of the shared consensus of what is actually happening. More tentatively it is suggested that, when allied with the use of current developments in software, such as that of CATPAC™, a post‐positivist paradigm of research results. Some results of research using this approach are indicated. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Household decision-making for everyday travel: a case study of walking and cycling in Lancaster (UK)

Increased walking and cycling for short journeys in urban areas has many obvious advantages yet so far gains from the promotion of more sustainable travel of this type are mostly small. This paper reports on a large research project which uses a mixed method approach to explore attitudes to and perceptions of walking and cycling, and which examines the process of household decision-making for everyday travel and the constraints that this imposes. Using survey, interview and ethnographic data it is argued that many people hold ambiguous and sometimes contradictory views of walking and cycling as effective means of everyday travel, that what they do rarely matches precisely what they believe, and that the complexity and contingency associated with everyday travel for many households is a major barrier to the use of more sustainable travel modes. It is suggested that better understanding of these processes could help to inform both future transport policy and the promotion of walking and cycling for short trips in urban areas.     

Mythic Geographies of Representation and Identity: Contemporary Postcards of Wales

This article explores how picture postcards contribute to the cultural production, performance and consumption of landscapes, places and identities. Drawing on cultural and critical studies, it scrutinises the postcard as a cultural text and as a site of cultural production. It begins by briefly reviewing the concepts of ethnicity and identity in relation to its case study country of Wales and suggests how its imagined communities and landscapes have a broad mythical structure that can be mapped across a series of discourses. It then outlines the study's approach to postcard analysis and locates the visual in social science research, confronting issues of interpretation, validity, sampling and reflexivity. The article subsequently presents a discourse analysis of a dozen contemporary Welsh-produced postcards from the archives of the National Library of Wales. In particular, it navigates the visual narratives that are privileging particular stories of place, culture and nationhood and analyses what is being invoked to epitomise contemporary Wales and what is being set aside in these postcard representations. It suggests these visual texts reflect an internal re-mapping of Wales that is celebrating the capital city of Cardiff as its metropolitan cultural core and marginalising alternative imagined communities of Wales, redefining them through spectacle and theatricality. Finally, the article concludes by suggesting how further analysis of such visual touristic texts could offer insights into the cultural production and consumption of identities, landscapes, and places.     

Hearing the authentic voice of stakeholders? Implications for governance of tourism strategy-making

Exploring tourism strategy-making in the light of complexity theory, this research examines the interactions that take place between stakeholders as strategy is developed and codified. It focuses on York, a significant UK tourist destination. Taking a strategy-as-narrative approach, it seeks to identify the plurality of stakeholder voices as the embodiment of the authentic voice of strategy. Key research themes are identified concerning how discourses, as manifestations of socially embedded networks of power, surface in narrative within strategy-making; what power relations govern which come to the fore and which are silenced. A heuristic device explains the power relations at work as the interplay of performative, attributed, and contextual power. The study points to the need for further work to understand how all stakeholders might be enabled to contribute equally to strategy-making, addressing the power differentials between actors through the allocation of appropriate resources.     

Public Choice and Tourism Analysis

This paper considers the potential of Public-Choice theory to serve as a means to analyse tourism policy. It introduces the central issues for understanding the study of policy and economic decision-making, bringing them together as a single coherent explanation of the role of government within the contemporary market system. In the context of tourism analysis, the focus is on the forces that explain why governments make particular types of decisions for the industry and the effect these have on the community's collective well-being. Policy can impact on a society's culture, its social order, its administration or its use of law, or any combination of these; but, largely it is about the economic welfare of the community. Much of the public decision-making system concerns who gets what, who should benefit and who should pay. The paper reviews the notion of government intervention to establish an 'interpretation' of economic policy-making in Western democracies, such as Australia, Britain or New Zealand. It argues that most policy issues, including tourism issues, derive from some form of failure in the market-place, where the tourism industry is but one component interconnected with many others. The paper expands the public-choice approach further by applying it to segmented markets, and the tourism industry itself, and provides an issue-based model that allows the tourism policy-making process to be explored, exposed and predicted.     

Cycling case closed? A situated response to Samuel Nello-Deakin's “Environmental determinants of cycling: Not seeing the forest for the trees?”

This paper responds to Samuel Nello-Deakin's (2020) recent viewpoint, where he provocatively states that we already know enough of what is necessary to get more people to cycle: taking road space away from motor vehicles and ceding it to cyclists is a simple formula applicable in most cities around the world, provided there is political will. Further research, he claims, is unlikely to deliver new policy insights. This paper cautions against universalising the experiences of European “cycling cities” and suggests that turning to cities of the global South can animate cycling research in promising new directions. Fundamentally, it argues that it is necessary to situate cycling research and proposes worlding cycling research as a strategy to move away from Eurocentric visions of cycling cities. In doing so, it proposes avenues for further enquiry that take seriously the complex political challenges faced by cities of the global South, as well as the particular desires, aspirations and innovations of their inhabitants.     

Memory work versus memory-work and its utility in heritage tourism

This paper advocates researching the diverse, unstructured, idiosyncratic personal and autobiographical memories of individuals – visitors, tourists, local residents and geographically dispersed patrons associated with heritage resources and heritage tourism attractions. ‘Memory-work’, conceptualized by Frigga Haug and her collaborators in the 1980s as a feminist constructionist method, is differentiated from ‘memory work’ (without hyphen) as defined in the scholarly literature from different disciplines in the past three decades. For the purposes of this paper, memory work is then conceptualized as a qualitative, interpretivist research approach focused on memories, which employs a range of methodologies and techniques to elicit and ‘process’ memories, and draws on memory theory for analysis. It is argued that memory work can provide useful insights for academic knowledge production and applied research in heritage tourism. A few examples of specific research techniques are presented to illustrate the diverse spectrum of how memory work can be carried out in practice. It will moreover be discussed how memory distortion and ‘false memories’ are to be treated, how memory work differs from other qualitative modes of enquiry, and what its benefits and limitations are.     

Environmental determinants of cycling: Not seeing the forest for the trees?

In recent years, the volume of studies in the fields of transport and urban planning seeking to identify environmental determinants or correlates of cycling has expanded dramatically. This viewpoint wishes to put forward a provocative argument: namely, that while further research in this area might refine our theoretical understanding of certain issues, it is unlikely to deliver any fundamentally new policy-relevant insights as to what measures need to be taken in order to increase urban cycling rates. At present, the difficulties faced by the vast majority of cities across the world in encouraging cycling are not derived from a lack of theoretical knowledge, but are fundamentally practical and political in nature. From a practical perspective, I argue that we already know enough about what needs to be done in order to encourage cycling in the vast majority of urban contexts. The problem with the seemingly endless proliferation of research on the relationship between cycling and environmental characteristics, I suggest, is that it risks giving the impression that there is some fundamental unresolved uncertainty about what is needed to make a city more cycling-friendly, when this is simply not the case. Instead of focusing on cycling itself, I suggest that exploring the phenomenon of traffic evaporation may be a more fruitful way for researchers to advance the cause of urban cycling.     

Rail track charges in Great Britain—the issue of charging for capacity

Separation of infrastructure from operations in rail transport raises the issue of what should be the structure and level of charges for infrastructure use. This paper outlines the solution adopted in Britain, and how it has developed. It concludes that the principle defect in the current system is the lack of any charge to reflect scarce capacity. A way of measuring the capacity requirements of different types of train and of identifying their opportunity cost is put forward, but it is recognised that reflecting this in the charges would be complex.     

Tourism and remembrance: the journey into the self and its past

The research refines the author's earlier conceptualization of ‘personal memory tourism’, a form of travel motivated by memories of one's own past and focused on the revisiting of sites and destinations associated with key moments in a person's life or the retracing of memorable previous journeys. The concept is compared with and differentiated from overlapping and related types of tourism. Based on some scholarly insights into the functioning of human memory, it is argued that travelling can be considered a deliberate and organized extension of the process of remembering, associated with issues of identity and an exploration of the self, especially in relation to significant others. Using an interpretive approach based on in-depth interviews with 20 participants, the research found that the majority have engaged in some form of personal memory tourism, but with great divergences in how such trips were organized and for what reasons. The research concludes that personal memory tourism should not be considered a type, but rather a form of tourism due to the heterogeneous and highly individualized nature of the phenomenon.     

Arctic ‘concessions’ and icebreaker diplomacy? Chinese tourism development in Iceland

This paper is based on a case study on a Chinese investment proposal in Iceland and sets out to explore the different ways in which actors from different backgrounds, with an extensive range of expectations and ideas of what a destination could and should be, produce and sustain ideas about tourism development. Our point of departure is how tourism represents a new globalised economic expansion possibly reflecting processes of empire building of days gone by. This research suggests that the conflicting worlds of Chinese investment plans, seemingly pregnant with imperial aspirations, core-periphery dichotomies, as well as contesting ideas of regional development, represent a need to begin re-thinking our understanding of tourism regional development from the perspective of what empires are.     

A troublesome transport challenge? Working round the school run

Transport policy and practice could be challenged by the future of women’s mobility if it means an increasing reliance on the car. The paper examines the contextual relationship between the journey to school/childcare and the journey to work undertaken by eleven women who work part-time. It considers what the problems these women face in managing their time-space commitments and argues that time is the central problem. Transport can be a solution and a further problem in negotiating the competing time needs of work and family schedules. The research indicates the role ICTs, notably the mobile phone, play in mitigating individual transport problems, thus solutions to the problem of women’s time may not be sustainable.     

The replication and reduction of automobility: Findings from Aotearoa New Zealand

In this paper, we examine the factors that contribute to the replication or reduction of automobility amongst young adults. Semi-structured interviews conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand, with 51 drivers and non-drivers, aged 18–35 years old, form the empirical material. The findings build upon previous research and extend understandings of how seven explanatory factors; perceptual, value and preference, social, built environment, economic, legal/policy and technological, work both to continue the current automobility paradigm, and to challenge it by adopting alternative mobilities. We use the Energy Cultures Framework as an analytical tool to explore the ways through which materialites, norms, practices, and external context can replicate or reduce participation in the hegemonic mobility paradigm. This approach offers useful insights into the interactions between what the research participants think, have and do, and how this is resulting in a reduction in automobility norms amongst some younger people. It also identifies and highlights potential opportunities to leverage upon current change trends to assist a systemic transition away from automobility towards a culture of multi-mobilities.     

Tourist sustainability of destination as a measure of its development

The traditional understanding of geographical space as a given place is now insufficient. It should be analysed in a wider context of social, cultural, economic and environmental aspects as well as psychological and emotional factors. It signifies that also a tourist destination, which is of geographical character, should be studied as a set of similar factors. In this respect, a given destination is characterized by particular complexity and multi-dimensionality, which generate an ontological question concerning its nature. On the other hand, including the whole complexity of destinations, an epistemological issue concerning the possibility of their cognition remains open. Taking into account these considerations, a research problem related to the nature destinations as well as the possibility of their development has been formulated. The problem is followed by the hypothesis, which assumes that the measure of tourist development of destinations is the achievement of the state of tourist sustainability. Wherein the tourist sustainability is understood as an advantage of benefits gained from tourism over the costs of its development. In the empirical part of the paper, a method for assessment of development of destinations has been presented. This relies on social constructionist foundations and is related to the model of sustainable tourism whose assumptions have been applied as theoretical bases. The method itself was positively tested in an actual environment of five tourist towns and can be treated as a universal tool for measuring the state of tourist sustainability (unsustainability) of different destinations and in consequence, it can constitute a useful device for the management of tourist areas.     

Tourist–community interactions in ethnic tourism: Tuva villages,Kanas Scenic Area,China

Tourists and destination communities interact in different contexts. Such interactions play a key role in constructing a rewarding experience and cultural understanding for tourists and influence the social and cultural life of the destination community. It is particularly so at ethnic areas where tourism experiences are acquired through encounters with the ethnic community. A diagram of tourist–community interactions in ethnic tourism is developed to outline different types of interactions, factors affecting these interactions, and impacts to both groups of actors. This research explores tourist–community interactions through a comparative examination of tourists' and residents' perceptions at Tuva villages in Kanas Scenic Area (KSA), China. In-depth interviews were conducted with residents involved in tourism and tourists to KSA through two field investigations in 2010 and 2013. Research results indicate that the ethnic encounter is not perceived by tourists as a primary motivation to visit Kanas, but it contributes to the formation of a satisfactory on-site experience. Tourists and community members have diverse needs for these interactions and are impacted by these interactions to different degrees. The research also reveals that community participation influences how and to what extent these interactions occur. Practical implications for KSA are then discussed.     

Elite interviews: critical practice and tourism

The elite interview method has been applied to the study of politics and policy-making and to other social and organisational contexts, although it has been relatively little applied in a formal fashion in tourism research. Nevertheless it is a method that has the potential of enhancing the quality and quantity of research data given the power and influence of elite subjects. The conduct of elite interviews suggests that there are qualitatively different aspects in interviewing ‘up’ as compared to interviewing ‘across’ or ‘down’. The article provides a review of some of the major issues involved in the conduct of elite interviews and highlights some of the tactics that researchers may use in the interview process as well as some of the potential ethical and publishing constraints. Even though there are a number of potential methodological challenges in using this method it provides a valuable approach in tourism research, especially studies that aim to understand decision-making processes, policy-making and perceptions. It is shown that individual ingenuity and reflexivity are required in order to overcome some of the challenges reported in existing studies.     

Transport imaginations: Passenger experiences between freedom and constraint

This paper highlights the openness and indeterminacy of passenger experiences by exploring the power of passengers' imaginations in the context of urban railway commuting in Tokyo, Japan. Contrasting with much existing research on the figure of the passenger which has often stressed its intensified management and securitisation through spaces of transit, this paper examines how imagination plays an important but under-acknowledged part in transforming passenger experiences. Drawing upon extensive qualitative fieldwork conducted in Tokyo, it describes how the virtuality of these imagined spaces can work in different ways that can both enable and constrain passengers. Rather than seeing imagination as an internal psychological phenomenon, this paper stresses the relational qualities of imagination. Imagination can enable passengers to creatively travel as they gather references from what they see, hear, smell and feel through their bodily registers. In doing so, this paper argues that imagination is a situational process that materializes through passengers' encounters with a range of sensory stimuli in railway spaces. It also spotlights the specificity of the Japanese context for developing our understanding of power dynamics in research on passenger experiences. Supplementing transport geography's longstanding commitment to tracing the politics of enablement and constraint in terms of accessibility and travel time use, our paper highlights how imagination is an important but overlooked political domain.     

Small tourism business research change and evolution

The paper critically reflects on key knowledge contributions that coalesce to inform contemporary understanding of the phenomenon of small tourism business. The purpose is to scrutinise change and evolution in perspectives and how these impact on what knowledge is disclosed and what is not. Conventionally accepted wisdom is challenged, indoctrinated presuppositions are questioned, and research methodological advancements are offered. This is achieved through a comprehensive review and critical‐reflective analysis of key academic contributions spanning a period of approximately 35 years. The value is to stimulate criticality relative to what constitutes ‘truth’ within the given context and to inspire fresh research perspectives. Conclusions are drawn regarding future research directions. Furthermore, informed by thorough analysis of the content of the paper, five guiding research principles provide an appropriate conclusion. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The development of tourist art and souvenirs — the arc of the boomerang: from hunting,fighting and ceremony to tourist souvenir

This paper examines the history and development of tourist art and souvenirs and discusses the reception of such artefacts, alongside works of fine art, within the museogallery system. Beginning with the relationship between cultural tourism and anthropology, it identifies common links between ethnographic artefacts, works of fine art and souvenirs collected in Australia during the latter half of the 20th century. Approaching these objects from the discipline of art history, this research takes as its priority the formal qualities of the artefacts and charts the transition of the boomerang, among other Aboriginal artefacts, from functional tool designed for hunting, to a marker of people and place made for sale as a tourist commodity. Other questions addressed in this research are as follows: What, other than size and price, attracts tourists to certain souvenirs and not others? Where is their final resting place and what meaning is attached to them through the narrative appended by the maker and by the consumer? How is it effected by the resulting location of display? Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.