Skip to Main Content

Tourism & Outdoor Recreation Management

TOUR 112: Market and marketing research

Market and marketing research can be tough - you'll find that quite often there isn't a perfect ready-made report for you, so you'll need to piece together information from a variety of sources (academic and popular) to answer the questions posed in your assignment.

This guide can point you towards some good places to start. 

Check out the tabs under Find Industry and Market Research for a list of places to search for information.

On this guide: 

  • Library Workshop (videos)
  • Where to search: Library databases
  • Where to search: Google

Library Workshop

Learning Outcomes

  1. Use subject specific databases to find academic journal articles on consumer behaviour in a specific tourism sector  
  2. Access the CapU Library’s Tourism and Outdoor Recreation Management research guide to locate industry and market specific research  
  3. Use Destination BC and Destination Canada to find statistics and research in industry reports 
  4. Identify an industry association website to find specific tourism sector information 

Method

  • Watch the following three videos: 
    • TOUR 112 Research Guide
    • Library Database Research
    • Destination BC and Destination Canada
    • Exploring the Research Guide
  • Practice research skills by answering questions on worksheet (below videos)
  • Attend TOUR 112 Library Session to ask follow-up questions

Videos:

Worksheet:

Who cares?

Where you look will depend on what you're marketing and who you're marketing to.

One way to figure out where to search is to ask "Who cares?"

  • What organizations would care about this market?
  • How would it benefit their organization to make information about the market publicly available? If it won't benefit them, they likely won't post it.

For example, tourism associations like the TIABC want to make information available to their members because it'll support their businesses; however, a small kayak touring company might not want to share information since it may give their competitors an advantage.

Still lost?

Make an appointment with your librarian! 

Email darcyelovsin@capilanou.ca

Where to search: Library databases

In addition to searching Google for industry and consumer associations, don't forget the databases available through the library. You can access news articles, academic research, and some reports on markets and marketing.

Try searching for your product/service AND consumer AND tour*

Hint: the * is a wildcard symbol and when you search for tour*, you'll get tour, tours, tourist, tourism, and any variation on the root (tour).

I'd recommend starting with these databases:

Where to search: Google

Try finding an industry association specific to your marketing idea. If not, you may find information on these tourism association websites:

Look on Find Industry and Market Research - By sector page for more ideas