BMO6630 Business Research Methods: Survey on Consumer Behavior

This reflective report details the survey administration process conducted to evaluate consumer buying behaviors within the tourism industry, focusing on luxury goods consumption. The report covers the selection of the convenient sampling technique and face-to-face interviews, along with their advantages and disadvantages. It evaluates the success of the administration process, including improvements, necessary questionnaire changes, and key lessons learned. The survey aimed to understand the cultural values and motivational factors influencing consumer behavior, while adhering to privacy regulations. The findings indicate preferences for luxury items, driven by status, self-esteem, and social factors. The report concludes that a combination of face-to-face, online, and mobile surveys, along with clear and user-friendly questions, is essential for effective data collection and analysis.

Running head: BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Business research methodology
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Reasons for selecting this method of survey administration...........................................................3
Evaluating the success of the administration process......................................................................4
Suggestions to improve the administration procedure.....................................................................5
Necessary changes made to the questionnaire before the administration procedure.......................6
Key lessons learnt from the survey administration process.............................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The reflective report is prepared to discuss about the survey process conducted to
evaluate the buying behaviors of the consumers within the tourism industry. Here I will explain
about data and information collected regarding the consumption of luxury goods by the tourists.
The reflective report will also present about the cultural values and motivational factors that can
contribute to the influencing of consumer behavior and furthermore manage the various activities
in accordance with the Privacy Act. The questionnaires are provided to the respondents who
provided their useful views and opinions and ensured that the fieldwork is done appropriately. I
will make sure that the most appropriate methods are selected during the survey process and
make sure to provide some explanation regarding the improvement of administration procedure
as well (Onyango and Wanyoike 2014).
Reasons for selecting this method of survey administration
The convenient sampling technique is selected as the most suitable non-probability
sampling technique because it allows for providing a suitable time for the individuals when they
can be present to take part in the survey process. It is both convenient and inexpensive and
require very little planning. It needs to select a well-defined population, develop a list of
members of the population and randomly select the samples from the entire population list. After
engaging them in the survey distribution process, responses can be obtained regarding the
number of times they have visited the place or destination, the actual purpose of visiting the
place and companions who will accompany the individual during his visit to places (Church and
Waclawski 2017). Here, I came to know about the consumption behaviors of the individuals and

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the luxury items that have been purchased by them during their travel. The face-to-face interview
in the survey process is effective for conducting market researches and gain valuable insight. The
face-to-face interviews have helped in understanding the mindsets of individuals, furthermore
asked for clarification, and even controlled the question sequence. There are both benefits and
drawbacks of the survey process (Wells, Bailey and Link 2014).
The advantages include generalized results, appropriately using the lower literate
respondents, clarification of questions for the respondents and reduced chances of incomplete
questionnaires. The researcher managed to connect with the respondents through empathy and
personal interaction, which helped in understanding their feelings and gain a positive experience
along with clarity of questions asked. The disadvantages faced were labor intensive and lack of
accuracy for the sensitive questions asked to the respondents. I found that the face-to-face
interviews were sometimes costlier, due to which online and mobile surveys were conducted
where the respondents were provided with a survey questionnaire that was sent by emailing (Van
der Aalst 2013). Another drawback faced was the processing of data and information, which had
been overlooked at certain stages of the planning process. The face-to-face interview serves as an
effective survey process for qualitative methodology that utilized in the market research
(Brinkmann 2014). The research, being quantitative, questioned the analysis of actions
undertaken.
Evaluating the success of the administration process
The survey administration process was successful in terms of the collection of data
required to conduct the research effectively. The respondents were provided with relevant
information about the research topic and they understood the questions properly as well. There

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was no such missing data or information, which further helped in understanding the effectiveness
of the questions. The respondents took nearly one week for providing their useful responses and
views during the survey process. They were not much confused because they were already
informed about the purpose of the research. They prepared themselves so that the responses
provided by them during the survey process are without any bias (Mahfoud et al. 2015). The
respondents provided their perception of the luxury items that they purchased during their travel
and their behaviors regarding the purchases were understood. The survey administration process
was also successful because I understood the cultural values and it was found that the customers
purchased the luxury items to create a differentiable status, self-esteem, for impressing people
while the others fascinate these kinds of products. The respondents even missed few of the
questions because they were unable to understand the questions properly, which hindered
successful answers provided for the questions answered during the survey process. As it is a
quantitative research, so the face-to-face interviews with the respondents and sending them
survey questionnaires through emails and even managing the telephonic interviews have been
successful for me to conduct the research accurately (Szolnoki and Hoffmann 2013).
Suggestions to improve the administration procedure
To improve the survey administration process, it is necessary for me to make the
questions much more simplified and easy to be understandable by the respondents. It should be
more convenient in obtaining the responses of the individuals engaged in the survey process by
conducting online and mobile surveys, because the survey questionnaires would be provided to
them by emails, where they could present their views and opinions without any bias. It is
necessary to keep the respondents informed about the purpose of the research so that they can

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know about its usage for academic purposes only and not for any commercial benefits (Steffen et
al. 2014). This would create a positive mindset among them and allow them to provide answers
to the questions present in the questionnaire with ease and effectiveness. The telephonic
interviews could be beneficial for better response rate and at the same time, mail surveys could
assist in sending the survey questionnaire to a group of individuals at the same time and ensure
obtaining their feedbacks and responses easily. The survey administration process was further
improved by creating multiple options for each of the questions. This allowed for influencing the
respondents to select a particular option by just clicking or putting tick part to it and thus the
responses were collected with much ease and efficiency (Deakinand Wakefield 2014). With the
new age technologies, I even involved social media platforms like Facebook, Skype, etc. to
perform video conferences and make the respondents attend the interviews to provide their
useful responses.
Necessary changes made to the questionnaire before the administration procedure
I have made the questions simpler and made the respondents understand about the
purpose of research at first. The questions provided by me were user friendly and this helped in
influencing the respondents not to skip any question and answer each one of them properly. After
sending the survey questionnaires to the respondents, I provided them with information
regarding how they could fill the questionnaire. The respondents completed the survey
questionnaires electronically by using a computer system connected to the internet or via email
to ensure that the responses were without any bias. The targeted population was assessed by me
to enable selection of a particular sample size who were engaged in the survey administration
process. While collecting the data from the respondents, there were times when they were not

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available or present at the same time and place, which created difficulties (Robinson 2014). I
made sure to inform them previously so that that they could be present at the allocated time and
provide their useful views and opinions regarding their preferences for the luxury products and
services.
Key lessons learnt from the survey administration process
From the survey administration process, I understood that most of the respondents
preferred to try out some kinds of luxury items during their travel to some place. Among the
respondents, most of them believed that the luxury goods provided them with enough scopes to
show their status, gain respect and reflect own styles to become popular and improve the social
circle. Few of them strongly believed that the luxury goods favored their social status, showing
off their financial success and even presenting something that could suit their personality and
character (Janghorban, Roudsari and Taghipour 2014). From the survey administration, I
understood that creating awareness among the respondents would be essential for enhancing their
level of participation, furthermore make them know about the consent process. As I was quite
straightforward towards them and the questions were simple, it became easy for me to conduct
the survey process effectively and provide an initial introduction about the entire survey process.
It was important for me to obtain their feedbacks as well, which might create more scopes and
opportunities to improve the ways data should be collected as well as enhance the efficiency of
the survey administration process (Edje et al. 2013).

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Conclusion
From the reflective report, I obtained a lot of skills and knowledge that were required to
conduct a research appropriately and manage proper collection of data and information. The face
to face interview was though effective, still I preferred the online and mobile surveys because it
was more convenient for gaining their responses quickly and without any bias. There were few
situations when the respondents were not available to take part in the survey process, because of
which, it became a daunting task for everyone’s responses and me to obtain each properly. I
made sure to send them the survey questionnaires through emails and even obtained their views
and opinions via telephonic interviews. The user friendly and simple questions designed by me
helped them to understand the purpose of the research easily and provided responses, which were
collected and used for further analysis during the survey administration process.

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References
Brinkmann, S., 2014. Interview. In Encyclopedia of critical psychology (pp. 1008-1010).
Springer New York.
Church, A.H. and Waclawski, J., 2017. Designing and using organizational surveys. Routledge.
Deakin, H. and Wakefield, K., 2014. Skype interviewing: Reflections of two PhD
researchers. Qualitative research, 14(5), pp.603-616.
Edje, L., Miller, C., Kiefer, J. and Oram, D., 2013. Using Skype as an alternative for residency
selection interviews. Journal of graduate medical education, 5(3), pp.503-505.
Janghorban, R., Roudsari, R.L. and Taghipour, A., 2014. Skype interviewing: The new
generation of online synchronous interview in qualitative research. International journal of
qualitative studies on health and well-being, 9(1), p.24152.
Mahfoud, Z., Ghandour, L., Ghandour, B., Mokdad, A.H. and Sibai, A.M., 2015. Cell phone and
face-to-face interview responses in population-based surveys: how do they compare?. Field
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Onyango, J.W. and Wanyoike, D.M., 2014. Effects of training on employee performance: a
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practical guide. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 11(1), pp.25-41.

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Steffen, M.W., Murad, M.H., Hays, J.T., Newcomb, R.D., Molella, R.G., Cha, S.S. and Hagen,
P.T., 2014. Self-Report of Tobacco Use Status: Comparison of Paper-Based Questionnaire,
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Szolnoki, G. and Hoffmann, D., 2013. Online, face-to-face and telephone surveys—Comparing
different sampling methods in wine consumer research. Wine Economics and Policy, 2(2), pp.57-
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