The Conduct of Marketing Research in Tourism

Abstract

This article reports on a study of some aspects of the marketing research (MR) practices of more than 300 tourism organizations. The characteristics examined included organi zational MR structure, MR expenditure, MR employees, MR activities conducted, tourism sector, organizational revenue, and organizational employees. The results were compared with those of a continuing study of the MR activities of ap proximately 400 members of the American Marketing Association (AMA). Tourism organizations tended to conduct pricing research more often than AMA members, while both sets of respondents reported low levels of promotional research. Relationships between the variables were examined. According to several measures, the travel sector tended to conduct less research than the hospitality or other tourism sectors. Some managerial and theoretical implications of this benchmarking study are discussed.