Our travel and tourism study suggested that many people come to Texarkana to visit friends and relatives.  It is possible that these visitors do not spend a lot of money while in Texarkana; we really do not know what these visitors do when they are visiting, where they spend their money, or what kind of entertainment or recreational activities might be of interest to these visitors.

One possible way to explore this issue is to interview Texarkana residents who have recently been visited by out-of-town friends, relatives, or acquaintances.  These Texarkana residents could be asked about the reasons for the visits, the length of stay, where the visitor stayed, and such.  Of greater interest, however, would be an exploration into what the visitors do for recreation and entertainment while visiting, and what is not offered by Texarkana that they would like to do.

Below is a letter that could be sent to our client from last summer's MBA class.  If the client were to agree that a telephone survey should be conducted in the manner proposed in this letter, write the script for the this telephone interview.

Your survey should include a combination of quantitative measures as well as exploratory qualitative probes.  Refer to our Tourism Recruiting Screener assignment: your telephone survey must be based on the same general research objectives of that study as well as follow the same general issues of quota sampling.  In these telephone surveys, however, we would like to to interview a total of 100 respondents with 75% being within the immediate area of Texarkana, and 25% from the outlying areas.

Note that you might not be administering the survey yourself.  Therefore, anything not to be read on the phone should be put in bold and capital letters.  Be sure to clearly identify branches and skips when needed.  Don't forget to identify your survey form with the study number and study title.

Dear Ms. S,

As a followup to the travel and tourism study done by my MBA students last summer, here is a proposal to continue finding answers to the kinds of questions that you had.  Although we found some answers regarding the economic impact of tourism on the local economy, we still don't know what travelers/tourists do for recreation and entertainment while they are here and we don't know how much they spend on these things.  Importantly, we don't know what people would like to see that we do not have.

Objectives

The present study would be an initial exploration into questions associated with what travelers/tourists do for recreation and what isn't offered that they would like to see.

Methodology

Finding actual travelers/tourists could be expensive and time consuming.  Since the information posted by the Texas Department of Economic Development suggests that the majority of travel to Texarkana is to visit friends and relatives, a quick and easy starting point for an exploratory study would be with those friends and relatives who are visited.  Rather than find travelers/tourists and ask them directly, we propose identifying local people who have recently been visited by friends or relatives and asking about recreation and entertainment activities.  A limitation of using this kind of sample is that it would still would not tell us what might cause other kinds of travelers (people who have no friends or relatives in Texarkana) to stop and spend money in Texarkana, but it should nonetheless give us a reasonable start without spending a lot of time, effort, and money.

Our proposal is to randomly call Texarkana area residents, limiting respondents to a quota sample that includes people within the confines of Texarkana and some people who live in areas that are in outlying areas (e.g., Ashdown, AR).  The respondent's location would be determined by asking the zip code as an initial screening question after the introduction.  The next screening question would be to ask people if they have been visited by an out-of-town friend, relative, or acquaintance within the past year.  Once past these screening questions, we would continue to interview the respondent if s/he is willing and is a major household decision maker.  The total number of respondents in the study would be 100, including 25 from outlying areas and 75 in the immediate vicinity.

Question Areas

Recommended survey flow is as follows:

1. Initial screening questions regarding the appropriateness of the person on the phone to participate in the survey (e.g., not a child), zip code, and whether or not the household had been visited within the past year by a friend, relative, or acquaintence.

2. Questions regarding entertainment and recreational activities during the visit and how much money was spent in these activities.

3. Questions regarding entertainment and recreational activities desired during the visit but not available within the Texarkana area.

Analysis

Some of the questions will be quantitative (attitude scales) and some questions will be qualitative (open ended).  We will provide you with a summary of the numerical averages of responses to quantitative questions, and will provide a written summary of the qualitative responses.  Where appropriate, these will be broken out by the respondents' geographic locations.

Timeline for Course Students

Our estimated timeline is as follows:

Weeks 1 and 2: Write and edit a telephone questionnaire.

Weeks 3 and 4: Conduct the telephone surveys

Weeks 5 and 6: Compile and analyze data, write reports.

Week 8: Present results to you orally and in written report form.

Budget

Since the materials that we would consume are part of the normal, reasonable costs for a student, there will be no cost to you for materials.  Since this is a student learning project, there also would be no cost to you for time.  However, since students cannot be asked to incur the costs of long distance phone calls to outlying areas, you would have to allow these calls to be made from your shop.

Ms. S., please let me know if you need any additional information.  Thanks for these opportunities for my students to work with you.

Sincerely,