E-surveying for tourism research: Legitimate tool or a researcher's fantasy?
Journal of Travel Research; Boulder; Feb 2001; Stephen W Litvin; Goh Hwai Kar;

 This article presents an analysis in the findings established between a mall-intercept and an on-line survey. While this article is targeted at the whole tourism industry, it does relate extremely well to the adventure tourism sector due to the demographic factors found to be consistent with e-surveys. While it is unlikely that an adventure tourism company would undertake in a large scale research project due to the size and limited financial resources, government tourism departments may seriously consider such project.

Abstract:
Tourism researchers continually seek to improve their primary data collection methods. With the spread of Internet and e-mail technologies, various researchers have begun to explore the potential and efficacy of electronic data collection. This article reports on a study that compared respondent data from two data sets based on the same survey instrument. The first, collected via a traditional mall-intercept-type data collection exercise and the second, an "e-sample" collected from random e-mail addresses. Analysis of the responses found similar travel psychographic characteristics but significant differences in demographics and travel patterns. The article concludes that while there seems to be legitimate potential for tourism research "e-surveying, " current logistical problems and issues of sample bias remain serious stumbling blocks precluding widespread use of the method

Summary:

Caroll (1994) has suggested that the medium's lack of format and layout flexibility results in less attractive forms destined to yield unsatisfactory response rates.

This is very significant if the researcher cuts costs in the creation of the survey, however there is potential for the survey to actually become easier through more interactive means.

It has also been argued that e-mail respondents find unsolicited mail to be more of an intrusion of privacy than they do such mail received via post (Mehta and Sivadas 1995).

This has found to be the case and researchers must be very careful with there approach.

The e-sample was found to be higher educated, from a household earning a higher income, and more likely to be single than the sample collected using the mall-intercept method.

The finding regarding the demographics of the survey participants is very significant and complements the adventure tourism market. The most likely reason for this being that these participants actually use the Internet more and feel more comfortable with its use. 

For travel frequency, the data revealed that e-survey respondents took 50% more vacation trips in the past 12 months.

This finding is not overly significant because of the finding that participants have higher incomes.

Psychographically, there were no differences between the two populations. The three variables tested-travel innovativeness, subjective travel knowledge, and travel opinion leadership-each yielded similar results between the samples.

While there may not have been any significant differences based on these variables, due to the demographic factors, there is an extremely high likelihood that they would differ on another set of psychographic factors. Eg: are they more open to new things and experiences?

Mehta and Sivadas (1995) have also concluded that the marginal costs of collecting data electronically are much lower than costs of interviewing, telephoning, and sending questionnaires through the mail.

This is very significant, and added to these features is the fact that if an Internet page is used, the data can be inputted straight into a spreadsheet, that way avoiding data entry.

What is surprising, though, for both samples, is the limited dispersion of online travel purchasing, with only 11% of the e-mail sample and 6% of the mall-intercept sample reporting having made online travel purchases. Respondents are, however, using the Internet to research travel (77% of the e-sample and 56% of the mall-intercept sample report having done so)

The percentages within this are not surprising due to the numerous studies performed that have come to the same conclusion. A more useful set of findings could be why people are purchasing on-line in the tourism industry and generally.

At the current time, it seems that the Internet has been a plus for travel agencies. Consumers' apparent willingness to do their own research should result in more informed customers-and informed customers tend to be good customers. In this time of decreasing travel agency commissions, having clients share in their own research is an advantage for which travel agencies should be grateful, as long as agents remain the booking channel of choice.

This is a point that has not been widely circulated but holds merits. The majority of discussion in this area is how the Internet will destroy this intermediary, not making it easier for them. This finding is logical due to the percentage figures found in this study and many others.

At this time, many respondents undoubtedly find electronic survey participation novel, which may explain the decent response rate in the current research. Bombard these same people with multiple requests, however, and it is likely they may begin to click and delete future survey requests as quickly as one can say "click and delete."

This will become more and more obvious, with the bombardment of this research technique. In addition the inability to include incentives are another factor that researchers must overcome to increase participation rates.

* All text in red indicates quotes taken from the full text article.