E-Surveying for Tourism Research: Legitimate Tool or a Researcher’s Fantasy?

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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.