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Unlock This CourseImagine a hotel chain spends £50,000 on a customer survey. They get thousands of responses. But then they realise the survey only went to guests aged over 60 and they're trying to attract young families. The data is useless. This is why evaluating market research is just as important as doing it in the first place.
Evaluation means asking: Is this research actually good enough to base decisions on? In travel and tourism, making the wrong decision based on bad research can cost millions of pounds and damage a brand's reputation.
Key Definitions:
When a tourism business receives market research data, they should ask four critical questions before acting on it. These questions help filter out weak or misleading research.
Tourism markets change fast. Research from 2018 won't reflect post-pandemic travel habits, the rise of sustainable tourism, or changes in consumer confidence. Out-of-date research can lead to very bad decisions. A good rule: research older than 2–3 years should be treated with caution in a fast-moving market like tourism.
The sample must reflect the actual target market. If a luxury cruise company surveys 200 people at a budget holiday camp, the results won't represent their real customers. The sample size also matters a survey of 20 people is far less reliable than one of 2,000.
Bias can creep in through the way questions are worded, who collects the data, or how results are interpreted. A hotel asking "Don't you think our service is excellent?" is a leading question it pushes people towards a positive answer. Good research uses neutral, balanced questions.
Is there enough data to draw reliable conclusions? One focus group of 8 people is interesting, but it's not enough to make a major business decision. Businesses need to consider whether the volume and variety of data collected is genuinely sufficient.
Market research isn't free. It takes time, money and resources. Part of evaluating its importance is asking: Is the cost worth the benefit? This is especially relevant for small tourism businesses like independent travel agents or boutique guesthouses.
Hiring research agencies, printing surveys, running focus groups, buying industry reports, staff time and data analysis software all cost money. A full professional market research project can cost tens of thousands of pounds.
Good research reduces risk, identifies opportunities, improves targeting and can save far more money than it costs. Launching a product that fails because of poor research is far more expensive than doing the research properly in the first place.
Businesses that skip research are essentially guessing. In tourism, this might mean building a resort in a declining destination, pricing a product wrongly, or targeting the wrong demographic entirely all costly mistakes.
When Quibi, a streaming service, launched in 2020 without properly researching whether customers wanted short-form video on mobile, it shut down after just six months losing around $1.75 billion. While not a tourism example, it perfectly illustrates what happens when businesses skip proper evaluation of market research. In tourism, similar failures happen regularly with new hotel concepts, airline routes and package holiday products.
Club Med is a French all-inclusive holiday company that originally targeted budget-conscious families. By the 2000s, sales were falling. They commissioned extensive market research to understand why.
The research revealed that the budget family market was being undercut by cheaper competitors, but there was strong demand from affluent adults without children who wanted premium all-inclusive experiences. Club Med evaluated this research carefully before acting on it.
Club Med repositioned itself as a premium, adults-focused luxury brand. They closed budget resorts, upgraded facilities and raised prices. By 2015, profits had recovered significantly. This success was only possible because they evaluated their research properly before making major decisions.
One of the most important evaluation techniques is triangulation using more than one source or method of research to check whether findings are consistent. If three different research methods all point to the same conclusion, you can be much more confident the finding is reliable.
A tour operator wants to know if demand for eco-tourism is growing. They:
If all three sources agree that eco-tourism demand is rising, the business can act with confidence.
If one source says demand is rising but another says it's falling, the business must investigate further before acting. Contradictory findings are a warning sign that something may be wrong with one of the research methods perhaps the sample was unrepresentative, or the questions were biased.
Both primary and secondary research have strengths and weaknesses. Evaluating which type to use and how much to trust each is a key skill.
Strengths: Collected specifically for your purpose, up to date, directly relevant.
Weaknesses: Expensive, time-consuming, small sample sizes possible, risk of bias in question design.
Strengths: Cheap or free, large datasets, expert analysis already done.
Weaknesses: May be out of date, not collected for your specific purpose, may not match your target market.
Most tourism businesses use both. Secondary research gives the big picture; primary research fills in the specific gaps. Evaluating which to rely on more depends on the decision being made and the budget available.
VisitBritain is the UK's national tourism agency. They regularly commission and publish market research to help tourism businesses understand visitor trends. But even their data needs careful evaluation.
VisitBritain publishes annual reports on inbound tourism, including visitor numbers, spending patterns, country of origin and purpose of visit. This is highly valuable secondary research for UK tourism businesses.
Even high-quality research from a trusted source has limitations. A bed and breakfast in Cornwall should use VisitBritain data as a starting point, but should also collect their own primary research to understand their specific local market.
Sometimes businesses collect research but evaluate it poorly leading to expensive mistakes. Understanding these failures helps you appreciate why careful evaluation matters.
A budget airline launched a new route between a regional UK airport and a European city. Their research showed strong demand but it was based on a survey conducted only during summer. When the route launched in January, demand collapsed. The research was seasonal and unrepresentative of year-round demand. The route was cancelled within four months. A proper evaluation of the research asking "does this data cover all seasons?" would have prevented the loss.
Pulling everything together, here is why the evaluation of market research is so critical in travel and tourism:
Tourism investments are often huge new hotels, aircraft, resorts. Good evaluation of research means decisions are based on solid evidence, reducing the chance of expensive failures.
Evaluated research gives managers confidence that the data they're using is reliable. This leads to better pricing, better targeting and better product development.
In a fast-changing market, businesses that regularly evaluate fresh research stay ahead of trends. Those that rely on old or poorly evaluated data fall behind competitors who are better informed.
Many students write about why businesses do market research when asked to evaluate its importance. These are different things. Evaluating importance means discussing how useful and reliable the research actually is not just listing reasons why it's done. Always read the question carefully and make sure your answer is genuinely evaluative.