Part II. There are six reasons to conduct tourism and hospitality research:

There are six reasons to conduct tourism and hospitality research:

1. To identify, describe and solve problems in order to increase the efficiencies of day-to-day tourism operations.

2. To keep tourism and hospitality firms in touch with their markets in terms of trends, changes, predictions, etc.

3. To reduce the waste produced by tourists and tourist organizations.

4. To develop new areas of profit in terms of finding new products, services, markets, etc.

5. To help promote sales in situations where research findings are of interest to the public.

6. To develop goodwill – the reason being that the public thinks well of firms that are doing research in order to meet consumers’ needs better.

Unfortunately in tourism and hospitality, many smaller organizations feel that ‘real’ marketing research is a costly and time-consuming luxury only available to large companies with professional research staff, sophisticated computers and an almost unlimited budget. Other organizations see marketing research as something to be undertaken when a major event is about to occur – the introduction of a new product, the acquisition of a new property or a change in target markets. It happens when the information is not in accord with the prevailing view of management or when the information has not been properly analyzed and clearly presented.

Questions:

1. What way has research in tourism and hospitality marketing matured in?
2. What is the most important point of the evolution of management?
3. What will tourism managers who understand the point do?
4. What is the key to good customer service?
5. What reasons to conduct tourism and hospitality research are there?
6. Summarize the text.