Investigation and Evaluation of the Satisfaction of Chinese Tourists Aged 45-59 Years with Sustainable Experience in Cairns

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- Rating scales

Rating scales can usually be used to assess an object along some measurement, such as satisfaction (Lewis-Beck 2003). This survey uses 5 dimensions to rate the satisfaction of tourists because it is usually perceived that five categories are the most understandable for participants without visual support (Lewis-Beck 2003). Rating scales can offer vaguely deeper information –offers an extent of how strongly tourists feel about sustainable experience of Cairns. More specifically, Likert scales is used in this survey, according to Chen (2015), will take an average mark to obtain an overall satisfaction.

- Sample selection

- Research population

Every single Chinese tourist who has visited Cairns.

- Target population

Every single Chinese tourist aged 45-49 years who visited Cairns during December to February 2016-2017.

- Sampling procedure

Probability sampling is selected for the proposed study. According to May (2010), by using probability sampling, every participant in the population of interest has the same chance of being included of the sample. Notably, having a comprehensive (or as comprehensive as possible) list of the target population is fundamental for probability sampling. In this case, each attraction’s ticket list would be useful.

Based on certain characteristics such as age group, location, stratified random sampling can be used (May 2010). For this study, the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest are the most popular attractions of Cairns, which means the tourist satisfaction of them can be fully presentative in the sample. Neuman (2003) reported that stratified sampling will be applicable under such contexts, hence stratified sampling has been selected for the proposed research. Stratified sampling is considered by Yang (2010) to be effective of presenting the strata. Furthermore, it ensures a more even representation of separated categories in the final sample (Chen 2015). Therefore, stratified random sampling is suitable for present research.

- Sample size

the research will be conducted during December to February 2016-2017, consequently, there is no statistics of target population available. In terms of past tourism data of Cairns, the sample size is determined to be 400.

- Ethical consideration

Informed consent will refer to a voluntarily given agreement to become subject of the research. Furthermore, an adequate understanding of the aims, procedures and potential risks of the proposed research will be fully explained. Moreover, it will contain any consequences that follow from its usage or publication in the public field (May 2010). Finally, how participants’ privacy will be maintained should be declared.

With increase of the potential for a usual offensive of personal privacy (May 2010), according to Siewert and Udani (2016), risks of ethics violations might appear, such as carelessness with confidential information, mistreatment of confidential information which leads to disclosure of personal privacy. To prevent those happening, all measures will be taken to protect the privacy of any participant of any information being used (May 2010). Any information that is obtained in connection with this study will be stored carefully and remained confidentially and will be disclosed only with their permission. In addition, anonymity in this study will not be an issue as personal information of this research only refers to the age of participants.

- Data analysis techniques

7.1. Data analyse process

The first step in preparing raw data for computer analysis is data coding. When a scale has a neutral category, such as five-point, the questions will be collected and pre-coded into score from -2 (strongly disagree/ extremely dissatisfied) to score =2 (strongly agree/ extremely dissatisfied) for positive information. For age group, as Bell (2010) suggested, codes can be categorized from 1(under 15 years) to 5 (60+), and 9 for non-response. Those are for closed questions, and for open-ended questions, it requires to type out all replies and attempt to identify any repeated replies (May 2010). Next step will be data entry. Entering the data from the present survey into the computer manually. The third stage in the process is data checking. It needs researchers to check with carefulness and to correct inaccurate codes entered before into the database. After finishing all those steps, data analysis can be carried out.

7.2. Forms of analysis

The selected particular form of analysis for data is univariate analysis - frequency distribution. A percentage frequency distribution is a demonstration of data that specifies the percentage of observations that recorded for each data score or grouping of data scores (Lewis-Beck 2003). By using percentage frequency distribution, the distribution of varieties of degrees of tourist satisfaction with overall sustainable experience, cost of tour, different attractions of Cairns as well as tourism management can be illustrated clearly. Moreover, it is able to show the tendency of revisiting and recommending Cairns to others of Chinese tourists.

7.3. Present analysed data

The frequency table will be used for presentation of analysed data. According to May (2010, p.123), for category answers, nominal and ordinal, a frequency table is universally employed since it “gives a breakdown of the number and percentage of respondents answering each category”.

Analysis and presentation of survey data will be done by using a computer, utilizing varieties of statistical analysis software package (May 2010). For this present study, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) will be applied.

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Reference List

Bell, J 2010, Doing Your Research Project (5), Open University Press, England, viewed 1st February 2017, .

Chen, L 2015, MNG00415 Tourism and Hospitality Research and Analysis: topic 4, PowerPoint slides, Southern Cross University, viewed January 18 2017, .

Davies, B 2003, 'The role of quantitative and qualitative research