Practical Tourism Research

Stephen is a Professor of Tourism in the School of Hospitality, Food, and Tourism Management at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. He is also Professor Emeritus, University of Waterloo, Canada. His research interests include tourism statistics and economics, tourism informatics, tourism policy, and culinary tourism. He advises graduate students who are doing research in these areas and teaches research methods. He works with empirical ("quantitative"), subjective ("qualitative"), and mixed research designs. Steve is the author of numerous articles in scholarly journals as well as several books. He is past-Chair of the Canadian Tourism Commission's Research Committee and past-Chair of the Canadian Tourism Human Resources Council's Research Committee. He is an Elected Fellow of the International Statistical institute, past-Chair of their Committee on Statistics in Travel and Tourism, an Elected Fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism, and a member Travel and Tourism International Research Association, and Slow Food International. Stephen consults with various local provincial, national, and international government and not-for-profit agencies.

"Of the many books on tourism research methods, Smith's Practical Tourism Research stands apart. It meets the essential needs of a researcher, right from planning a project, designing a questionnaire to conduct interviews and finally preparing a research report. The book also provides necessary tips for report presentation. Some of the unique features of the book are: placing case studies in focus boxes that help understand the complexity of the problem. The book has a very useful chapter, Metrics of decision making besides development of scale and indices. The excellence of the book stays in the simplicity of language and lucid prose that a reader gets enlightened. Chapter after chapter the author makes an effort to integrate theory and practice. The second edition of this book is much improved and updated in content and format. A full new chapter on Netnography (internet based ethnography) has been introduced that shall help scholars gathering rich information. Practical Tourism Research is recommended to tourism graduate, researchers, planners, and consultant."--Tej Vir Singh, Centre for Tourism Research & Development, India

• -: Preface 1: The Nature of Tourism Research 2: Planning a Research Project 3: Questionnaire Design and Delivery 4: Selecting a Sample 5: How to Conduct Personal Interviews and Focus Groups 6: Indices and Scales 7: Case Studies 8: Content Analysis 9: Netnography 10: Research Reports and Presentations