Ready to Start!

Hello Everyone!

As I mentioned in the last post, I met with my supervisor to discuss my dissertation idea so far. James had some really good comments and advice on how to make it less complicated and more interesting for me. Originally, I thought I would hand out surveys to creative tourists either in person or online. But as James pointed out, it would be very difficult to gain access to a large enough group of creative tourists in order to analyze data quantitatively. Creative tourism providers probably wouldn't give me the email addresses of past guests (for online surveys) and asking them to fill out surveys while they are in the middle of their holiday probably wouldn't have been looked upon favorably by the companies or their guests. Therefore, James suggested that I take a different approach. I will now be focusing on three case studies in England to gather my data. At each case study, I will engage in participant observation, interview the marketing manager, and do a content analysis of marketing materials. These are the methods that I will use to complete the following research objectives:

1. Establish typologies of creative tourists

2. Critically analyze the marketing strategies of creative tourism providers

So now, instead of mixed methods research, I'll be conducting qualitative research for both aspects of my dissertation. In a way, this might be better for me because I can focus on learning all about qualitative research methods instead of both. I've started to do some reading about how to analyze qualitative data and it looks complicated but I think the more I read, the more I will understand.

I'm really looking forward to my research now because I actually get to participate in some creative classes in order to observe the tourists. I think this method will be much more interesting for me than collecting surveys would have been. However, I really need to practice my note taking and memorization skills! According to what I've read, participant observation needs to remain really informal. I can ask questions and ask tourists to clarify certain points but I can't bring in a list of questions to go through one-by-one and record all their answers on tape. This could affect the way they act around me. Therefore, I have to mainly remember what they tell me and write it all down quickly after the class. The main things I'll be looking for/asking about are their characteristics, motivations, perceptions, expectations, interests, and feelings about the activity/holiday they are involved in. I'm really curious to know what I'll find out!

I'm also really looking forward to the marketing aspect of my research. Personally, I really want to know who they think their target markets are. I also want to see if their current marketing strategies are visible enough to attract people that may not be within their target markets. According to the literature, most people do not even know what creative tourism is! Yet the literature repeats over and over again how amazing and revolutionary creative tourism is! And I agree! Therefore, I'm hoping that my research will shed some light on why creative tourism isn't as well known as other cultural tourism niches and whether marketing has something to do with it. I see posters on the bus and tube every day about destinations that I've never considered visiting until I see these posters. Maybe creative tourism destinations/providers need more varied and visible marketing campaigns in order to attract a market that they never knew existed! I think, and my research will hopefully clarify this, that everyone would like to learn a new skill or activity that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives. However, the tricky part is convincing them that this is better than a week on a sunny beach doing nothing. It's all about marketing the product in a way that makes people believe it's the best holiday that they can take!

Anyways, as you can tell, I have lots of questions and I'm really excited to get some answers. It's going to be a great experience travelling around England and visiting a few of these creative tourism providers. I think I'll be learning a lot and hopefully I'll even be able to provide some useful research to the creative tourism community!

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research

Since my last post, I did more research about my area of interests in order to complete the draft research proposal. Here is what I came up with:

Proposed Project Title/Broad Question:

There seems to be two recurring questions in the research on creative tourism which are: what are the characteristics of creative tourists and why don’t tourists understand the term “creative tourism”? I intend to research the characteristics and motivations of creative tourists in England and compare the results to the current marketing strategies of creative holiday providers. I am interested to see if current marketing strategies are targeting the right segments and if not, how market research can be used to create more effective marketing campaigns and raise awareness for creative tourism in general.

Title: Creative Tourism Marketing: Does it Target the Appropriate Segments?

Broad Question: What are the characteristics of creative tourists and is current creative tourism marketing targeting the right segment groups?

I think I spent most of my time trying to come up with a creative title! I tried out many different versions but nothing sounded right. What I ended up with sounds really boring to me. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make my title more interesting and appealing to potential readers, please let me know!

My research objectives and questions were as followed:

Research Objectives / Questions:

My first objective is to identify the main characteristics and motivations of creative tourists.

My question is whether creative tourism providers are targeting the right segments (as defined by the initial market research proponent of the dissertation) through their marketing strategies. If they are not targeting the right segments, how can market research improve marketing strategies and create greater awareness of creative tourism?

Other questions that I hope to answer during my research include:

-Why don’t tourists recognize or understand the term “creative tourism”?

-How do creative tourists find creative holiday providers? (Which marketing channels are most successful? i.e., radio, television, magazine adverts, Internet, etc.?)

-How can marketing be used to make creative tourism more appealing to a wider audience? In other words, why is creative tourism a “niche” segment and will it always remain one?

In terms of the methodology, I think I am going to be using a mixed methods approach. I will distribute surveys (quantitative research) to collect information about the characteristics and motivations of creative tourists. I will also conduct interviews (qualitative research) with the marketing managers of a few creative tourism providers in order to compare the market research to the current targeted markets and see if they match up.

I was happy with my chosen methodology until our lecture with Sven. He said that it is very difficult to do mixed methods as a Master's student and that I should stick to either quantitative or qualitative. I was a bit disappointed but then Peter said it was fine to do both. However, after our coding exercise, I thought maybe I should stick to just quantitative! I found coding the interviews to be extremely difficult! I started thinking immediately about how I should just distribute surveys to the marketing managers of creative tourism providers instead! However, I realized that it would be more interesting for me to interview the marketing managers and it might even give me more answers to the questions I have about the creative tourism industry. Therefore, it looks like I'm just going to have to learn how to code interviews!

This week, I will be meeting with my dissertation supervisor: James. I am looking forward to working with him because he has expressed an interest in creative tourism and I believe he has some contacts in the industry that I could get in touch with. I hope that our first meeting will make me feel more confident about the direction I'm heading in and that I can ask some questions about my chosen methodology.

Jessica

About Me

Hello!

I thought I would start this blog with a little bit about myself. I was born and raised in a suburb of Washington, D.C. along with my three sisters. I really enjoyed growing up there but when I was in high school I studied in Barcelona for one summer and decided that I wanted to live in Europe when I "grew up." Ever since then, I have loved travelling and sought out interesting and unique experiences abroad. I went to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville where I studied Psychology as well as doing a Master's in Elementary Education at the same time. I spent one semester during my third year in Ireland at University College Dublin. I also spent one summer teaching English at a children's camp in France. I realized through these experiences that I really loved travelling and decided that I wanted to go back to school for a Master's in Tourism.

I decided that teaching was not the right profession for me but I still love working with kids and young adults. Therefore, my dream job would be to work for a company that offers educational tours/programs for students interested in learning about other cultures, languages, and destinations.

Following this theme, I decided to research creative tourism for our first assignment in Foundations of Scholarship. I found it really interesting because it is not something I have done before and it falls into the category of "educational tourism." I think it's really great that there are people out there looking for a holiday that is more than just sitting on the beach while sipping a mojito. I have learned about many different types of creative holidays from painting courses in Italy to week-long cooking retreats in rural Portugal.

There is not much research done on creative tourism since it's still considered to be a "niche" tourism category; however, I did manage to find a couple of really interesting articles. The three main articles that I used in my literature review for Foundations of Scholarship were:

Lindroth, K., Ritalahti, J., and Soisalon-Soininen, T. (2007) ‘Creative Tourism in Destination Development.’ Tourism Review, 62(3+4), pp. 53-8.

Richards, G. (2011) ‘Creativity and Tourism: The State of the Art.’ Annals of Tourism Research, 38(4), pp.1225-1253.

Richards, G. and Wilson, J. (2006) ‘Developing creativity in tourist experience: A solution to the serial reproduction of culture?’ Tourism Management, 27, pp. 1209-1223.

The three main ideas that I gathered from these articles were that creativity can serve as a solution to the "serial reproduction of culture", creative tourism gives more power to the local community, and creative tourism gives tourists an authentic experience that allows self-development and active involvement with the local culture.

The main issue with creative tourism is that most people do not know what it is! Here is an excerpt from my Foundations of Scholarship literature review:

According to the results of a case study by Lindroth et al (2007) in Finland, there is little awareness of what creative tourism actually means. Richards points to some research by the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education, which indicated in 2004 that only around 5% of cultural visitors in Europe identified their holidays as being “creative.” Therefore, he suggests that tourists either do not understand what “creative tourism” means or tourists do not identify with creativity. Thus he thinks that, “…it is unlikely that [creative tourism] will move into the mass market of cultural tourism” (p. 1245).

I think that this issue would be very interesting to look at for my dissertation. Basically I want to know why there is little awareness of what creative tourism is, what the characteristics of creative tourists are (which one of the articles mentioned has not yet been identified), and whether creative tourism is currently being marketed to the right target groups.

I think I could contribute interesting research (even if it's on a small scale) by looking at the characteristics of tourists participating in creative holidays at a few destinations in England and seeing how that compares to the current marketing strategies for these holidays. I don't know yet if this is a good enough dissertation topic so I will update when I have some feedback!