Christina

oh, come on, you guys give Justin a break. I used to work professionally in marketing research and also was a TA in the marketing dept in grad school, and this is a typical school project. A lot of students at that level don't have the experience to formulate a good questionnaire -- that's because they are learning and haven't done it a lot yet. This one wasn't as bad as many I've seen.

Also, Ira, don't be so grumpy. I have conducted plenty of marketing research myself and we did not always pay people anything, believe it or not. This is a learning experience, why not help the guy out. As a matter of fact, Cornell has some problem because there was a guy on here with the exact same project from Cornell some time ago, if anyone remembers that. I don't think he had a web page for you to fill out, though, so that is fairly convenient. I think Cornell's professors are lazy in not thinking up new projects for the students, which also helps promote plagiarism, unfortunately. I think Cornell has had this same project for a long time.

Interesting use of the four-point scale, I prefer five or even 10 point and wonder if that was a conscious choice or not.

Demographics are bad, not detailed enough. Maybe it doesn't matter for this question, but I sure think "sex" does, which is missing. The age categories aren't that good for the professed purpose, a study of baby boomers.

Some open-ended questions are too vague and I didn't even want to bother answering them (like what do you usually look for in lesure travel?). Time for vacation is going to be useless in analysis because no time frame is given for it (one vacation or one year?) the hotel info is difficult to answer correctly (or easily) given the open-ended box. I didn't fit into this kind of survey very well because I don't stay at these kind of places, so the whole thing is like another world to me, but I can understand it is for some people, and those at Cornell. I think it would have been better to provide a checklist and asking if the respondent had ever stayed at these places/resorts, and then given a list of similar ideas, to get a better sense of what kind of leisure market the respondent was in. I'm not.

The funniest marketing research I did (where we payed not a single penny, Ira), was clown research for an unnamed company in the Midwest who wanted to compete with fast food restaurants (namely Ronald McDonald character, who has since disappeared). In those days (I am pretty old), we actually did door-to-door research to get the stay-at-home mom set, and we had images of clowns and various clown questions to find out what appealed. For example, (show picture of clown with big red nose and polka dots): do you think this clown is: hilarious, too funny, rather funny, not funny enough, or scary.

That's hypothetical, I specialized in food and did taste tests of pickles in the morning (not a good idea) and some chocolate drink in NY called yoohoo or something. We paid those folks about $5 at that time (about 1978), but the money went to their clubs who had recruited them. We didn't pay the poor women having to endure the clown research anything.

ira

Hi Christina,

I'm not being grumpy, just having fun; and I am willing to help.

You've also given Justin some good pointers.

StephenG

Ira: Well I sure had fun with this one and learned something too!!
Even more unbelievable nobody gave us the line: Shouldn't this be on a marketing forum?? What does it have to with travel, really?

ira

Justin,

Where are you?

Tangata

I?m with Happytourist on this one. It was a very amateur questionnaire and as drafted, would give very little useful information.

If I was Justin and his mates I would repost this with a chance to add comments to each question, then redesign the questionnaire! However, after this would anyone reply?

dkw

Having graduated from Michigan State's school of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management in 1983, I can safely say that this is the type of research project routinely assigned in the hospitality marketing classes. In my college career I have done 5-6 of this type of survey (without the benefit of the internet) and NEVER paid any participants.

It's part of the learning process.....so cut Justin a break. He's a student, and I'm sure he's learning how to develop a efficient and useful survey. In retrospect, I can't say that I am proud of the quality of every college project I completed...but I learned from every one.

nytraveler

Sorry - there's a disconnect here. Justin doesn;t say this is a class project he needs help with - he says "I am representing the school's Department of Marketing to ask for your help". this sounds like an offical survey being done by the University - which I think is why peole are being so critical of it. Also, this is really quite deceptive - he's not representing the school - just himself.

Need to clean up the act Justin - misrepreenting yourself in market resarch is a real no/no.

ira

Aw, c'mon.

Justin admitted to being a student and doing this as a project.

Cornell_Marketing

Thank you for all your comments and suggestions. We understand that the survey has a lot of flaws and we should have taken more care to revising the survey prior to publishing it. Many of your suggestions are very helpful and we will take them into consideration in the future. We have learned a lot from this discussion.

We apologize for any inconvenience that we have caused. Thank you again.

ira

Hey Justin,

It's been fun. Don't be upset about the nasty remarks. As you will learn, there are lots of folks out there like that.

Come on back, if you think we can help.

marcy_

Justin,
I have to say that I admire your consistently good manners throughout this sometimes difficult and negative discussion.

Keep up the good work, and good luck with your studies!