Report
This is a research-based assessment in which you undertake your own piece of research and present the findings in a report. Through this report you will:
apply the theories and concepts that you are learning in the unit;
identify and analyse the positive and negative impacts of tourists on destinations and communities; and
describe and explain various approaches to tourist behaviour research.
Your report will be based on a semi-structured interview that you undertake with either a friend or family member who has recently been a tourist (domestic or international). In deciding who you should interview you should consider selection criteria which may include: how recent their holiday was (the more recent the more the person should remember) and how long they were travelling (the longer and more complex the holiday, probably the more they will have to talk about) among others.
Finalise interview questions
a. Revise the interview questions you wrote for Assessment 1, according to the marking comments and feedback (see MyGrades)
b. Rewrite or add more questions to ensure that you can write a report that discusses the interviewee’s:
reasons/motivations for travelling
why they selected their destination
what attracted them to the destination and how they made their decision
what they were expecting from their holiday
the extent to which they were satisfied with the various components of their holiday
what activities they engaged in and how important these were (for example sight-seeing, shopping, photography, eating)
ability to identify any impacts that they may have had on the destination or community that lived there.
c. Email your participant a copy of the Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form and schedule a time for the interview (allow up to 30 minutes). This can be in person or online, e.g. via Zoom.
d. Conduct and record (audio-only) your interview.
2. Transcribe and code your interview
Type up your interview (you might like to play it back at a slower speed, to assist)
Read through the transcript several times, highlighting key words/terms/concepts used by the interviewee
Paraphrase/make summaries of what they have said, perhaps grouped around the seven key themes listed at 1(b) above.
3. Write your report
Before you begin, download and review the Learning Zone guide to Writing Reports. Your report should be structured like this:
Executive Summary
Write this last. It should be a concise summary of what you did, what your interviewee said, and what you concluded from that. It is NOT an introduction. Review this guide to writing an executive summary before commencing this section.
Contents
Use the References-Table of Contents function of your word processing software to inset this table with headings and page numbers.
1. Introduction
Note the purpose of the report and list key sections.
2. Literature Review
Overview the key literature related to each behaviour or interaction. This guide to writing a literature review will help you with this section.
3. Method
Detail the steps you took to construct the questionnaire, select your participant and analyse the data. Refer to the research method literature (Topic 6), in your discussion.
4. Findings
You can structure this section using your interview questions as sub-headings.
5. Discussion and Conclusions
In this section you will compare and contrast what your participant said to the literature (discussed earlier), adding your own interpretation as necessary.
References
Include five to ten references formatted according to the Harvard style. These can be from the MyReadings list.
Appendices
Include the signed consent form (see below), your interview schedule (list of questions), and the transcript of the interview, plus any other relevant information.