Topic 5.6: Market Research and Analysis – Types and Methods » Primary Research – Questionnaires, Surveys and Interviews

What you'll learn this session

Study time: 30 minutes

What primary research is and why travel businesses use it
The difference between questionnaires, surveys and interviews
How to design a good questionnaire for tourism research
The advantages and disadvantages of each primary research method
Real-world examples of how tourism businesses gather customer data
How to analyse and use research findings to improve a tourism product

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🔍 What is Primary Research?

Imagine you run a hotel in Barcelona. You want to know why some guests leave bad reviews. You could guess or you could just ask them. That's basically what primary research is. It means collecting brand new data directly from people, rather than using information that already exists.

In Travel & Tourism, primary research helps businesses understand what customers actually want, what they think of a service and how to improve. It's fresh, specific and gathered for a particular purpose.

Key Definitions:

Primary Research: The collection of new, original data gathered first-hand for a specific purpose.
Market Research: The process of gathering information about customers, competitors and the market to help make business decisions.
Respondent: A person who answers questions in a survey or interview.
Sample: A group of people selected to represent a larger population in research.
Bias: When research results are skewed or unfair because of how questions are asked or who is asked.

📄 Primary Research

Collected by YOU for a specific purpose. It's original, up-to-date and directly relevant but it takes time and money to gather. Examples: questionnaires, interviews, observation.

📚 Secondary Research

Already exists collected by someone else. It's quicker and cheaper to access, but may be outdated or not specific enough. Examples: government statistics, travel reports, websites.

💡 Why does this matter for Tourism?

The travel industry is hugely competitive. A tour operator needs to know if customers prefer all-inclusive packages or flexible bookings. An airline needs to know if passengers value legroom or in-flight entertainment more. Without research, businesses are just guessing and in tourism, guessing wrong can cost millions.

📋 Questionnaires

A questionnaire is a written list of questions given to people to fill in themselves. It's one of the most popular research tools in tourism because you can reach lots of people quickly and the results are easy to compare.

You've probably filled one in yourself maybe after a hotel stay or a theme park visit. That feedback card or online pop-up? That's a questionnaire.

✍️ Types of Questions in a Questionnaire

Not all questions are the same. Good questionnaires use a mix of question types to get useful, honest answers.

✅ Closed Questions

Have a fixed set of answers. Easy to analyse.
Example: "Did you enjoy your stay? Yes / No"
Great for statistics but don't give detail.

💬 Open Questions

Let people answer in their own words. Give rich detail but harder to analyse.
Example: "What could we improve about your holiday experience?"

⭐ Likert Scale

Rate something on a scale (e.g. 1–5 or Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree). Very common in hotel and airline feedback forms.

🛠️ Designing a Good Questionnaire

A badly designed questionnaire gives you useless data. Here are the golden rules tourism businesses follow:

✅ Keep it short and focused people won't finish a 50-question form
✅ Use simple, clear language avoid jargon
✅ Avoid leading questions e.g. "Don't you think our resort is amazing?" is biased
✅ Include a mix of open and closed questions
✅ Pilot test it first try it on a small group before the full launch
✅ Make sure it covers your research objectives

🏠 Case Study: TUI Group – Post-Holiday Questionnaire

TUI, one of the world's largest travel companies, sends every customer a detailed questionnaire after their holiday. Questions cover everything from the flight experience to the hotel, the rep and the food. TUI uses this data to decide which hotels to keep in their brochure and which to drop. Hotels that consistently score below a certain threshold are removed from the programme. This shows how powerful questionnaire data can be in real business decisions.

📊 Surveys

A survey is broader than a questionnaire it refers to the whole process of collecting data from a group of people. A questionnaire is often the tool used within a survey. Surveys can be conducted in several ways in the tourism industry.

📱 Online Surveys

Sent via email or social media. Cheap, fast and can reach thousands of people globally. Used by airlines, booking platforms like Booking.com and tourist boards. However, only people with internet access respond which can create bias.

👮 Street / On-site Surveys

Researchers approach people in person at airports, tourist attractions, or resorts. Great for getting responses from actual visitors. Can be time-consuming and people may refuse to participate.

🌎 Sampling Who Do You Ask?

You can't ask every single tourist what they think there are millions of them! Instead, researchers choose a sample a smaller group that represents the bigger population. Getting the sample right is crucial. If you only survey visitors at a luxury spa, your results won't reflect budget travellers.

Random Sampling: Every person has an equal chance of being chosen. Fair but hard to organise.
Quota Sampling: You decide in advance to survey a set number from each group (e.g. 50 men, 50 women; 30 under-25s, 30 over-60s). Common in tourism research.
Convenience Sampling: You ask whoever is nearby and willing. Quick but potentially biased.

🏭 Case Study: VisitBritain – National Visitor Survey

VisitBritain (the UK's national tourism agency) runs large-scale surveys called the International Passenger Survey and the Great Britain Tourism Survey. These ask thousands of visitors about their spending, destinations and satisfaction. The results help the government decide where to invest in tourism infrastructure and how to market Britain abroad. This is a brilliant example of survey data shaping national tourism strategy.

🎤 Interviews

An interview is a face-to-face (or phone/video) conversation where a researcher asks questions and records the answers. Unlike questionnaires, interviews allow for follow-up questions and much deeper responses. They're brilliant for understanding the why behind customer behaviour.

👥 Types of Interviews Used in Tourism Research

📝 Structured Interview

The interviewer asks the same set questions in the same order to everyone. Results are easy to compare. Like a spoken questionnaire. Used in large tourism surveys.

🗣️ Semi-Structured Interview

Has a list of key questions but allows the conversation to flow naturally. The interviewer can explore interesting answers further. Most common in tourism research.

🤖 Unstructured Interview

More like a conversation with a general topic. Very flexible and detailed but hard to compare results. Used for in-depth case studies or expert opinions.

⚖️ Advantages and Disadvantages of Interviews

👍 Advantages

Get detailed, in-depth responses
Can clarify confusing questions on the spot
Body language and tone can give extra insight
High response rate people are less likely to walk away
Can explore unexpected topics that come up

👎 Disadvantages

Time-consuming and expensive
Interviewer bias the way you ask can influence answers
Hard to analyse qualitative responses
Small sample sizes you can't interview thousands of people
People may give socially acceptable answers rather than honest ones

✈️ Case Study: easyJet Passenger Interviews

easyJet has used in-depth passenger interviews to understand why some customers choose rival airlines. Researchers sat with passengers at airports and asked open questions about their booking decisions, price sensitivity and what they valued most. The findings revealed that many passengers cared more about punctuality than price a surprising result that influenced easyJet's marketing strategy. This is something a simple tick-box questionnaire might never have uncovered.

🔬 Comparing the Three Methods

Each method has its place. A smart tourism business will often use a combination of all three, depending on what they need to find out.

Method	Best For	Cost	Sample Size	Data Type
Questionnaire	Large-scale feedback	Low	Large	Mainly quantitative
Survey	Broad data collection	Low–Medium	Large	Quantitative & qualitative
Interview	In-depth understanding	High	Small	Mainly qualitative

📈 Using Research Findings

Collecting data is only half the job. Tourism businesses then need to analyse the results and use them to make decisions. Here's how findings from primary research are typically used:

📍 Identifying which destinations are most popular with certain age groups
📍 Improving hotel facilities based on guest feedback scores
📍 Adjusting pricing strategies based on what customers say they'd pay
📍 Developing new tour packages based on what activities customers want
📍 Training staff in areas where customers report poor service

💡 Quantitative vs Qualitative Data

Quantitative data is numerical e.g. "78% of guests rated the pool as excellent." It's easy to display in charts and graphs.

Qualitative data is descriptive e.g. "The pool area felt cramped and noisy." It gives rich detail but is harder to summarise.

Good tourism research uses both. Numbers tell you what is happening; words tell you why.

🔎 Ethical Considerations in Research

When collecting data from tourists and customers, businesses must follow ethical guidelines. This is especially important under UK and EU data protection laws (like GDPR).

✅ Always get informed consent people must know they're being researched
✅ Keep responses anonymous where possible
✅ Don't ask sensitive or personal questions unnecessarily
✅ Store data securely and don't share it without permission
✅ Give people the right to withdraw from the research

📚 Exam Tip: What Examiners Want to See

In your iGCSE exam, you might be asked to recommend a research method for a given tourism business scenario, or to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of a method. Always link your answer to the specific context a small guesthouse has different needs and budgets to a global airline. Use real examples where you can and always consider cost, time, sample size and the type of data needed.

🔒 Test Your Knowledge!