Toward an Agenda of High-Priority Tourism Research

Abstract

The Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA) creates networking opportunities to share perspectives on research issues related to the planning and marketing of travel and tourism. While its publications offer numerous suggestions for case- and context-specific research, rarely have attempts been made to develop a membership-wide agenda of priority topics. In an age of increasing resource scarcity and calls for accountability, the need for such an agenda is growing. This study prioritizes management- and method-related research topics deemed by TTRA members to be critical to travel and tourism decision makers over the next decade. It describes the member-based process used to establish these priorities, and suggests specific directions for investigations associated with each of them. It calls for greater dialogue around the relative priority placed on these topics by practitioners and academics within TTRA, as well as extending the discussion to other influential industry and professional travel and tourism organizations.

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Peter W. Williams, Kent Stewart and Donna Larsen
Toward an Agenda of High-Priority Tourism Research
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Introduction
The Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA)
creates networking opportunities for members to identify
and share perspectives on research issues related to the plan-
ning and marketing of travel and tourism. This is primarily
facilitated through the Association’s ongoing set of interna-
tional and regional conferences, webinars, newsletters,
and The Journal of Travel Research (JTR). As the flagship
research publication of TTRA, JTR highlights research
approaches and findings that offer substantive insights into
the theoretical and/or applied dimensions of travel and tour-
ism planning and marketing. It uses the collective wisdom of
its editorial board and manuscript reviewers to assess what
is substantive and relevant for publication. JTR reflects these
viewpoints by publishing a combination of unsolicited refer-
eed articles, invited articles, themed editions, research notes,
conference summaries, and editorials that provide fodder for
discussions among academics and practitioners concerning
how best to support travel and tourism professionals through
research.
While almost every JTR article and conference proceed-
ing provides recommendations on areas for future research,
rarely have steps been taken to provide a collective
agenda concerning high-priority research directions for the
Association’s overall membership of practitioners (60%) and
academics (40%). Many of these people are either research
suppliers or users, and they have a significant interest in the
timeliness, direction, and potential utility of tourism research
generated. In an age of increasing resource scarcity and greater
calls for accountability, the need for such an agenda is espe-
cially great.
It was within this context that a small group of TTRA aca-
demics and practitioners used their collective resources to
initiate an Association-wide discussion on research topics
meriting high-priority attention over the next decade. Using
the 2011 TTRA International Conference theme (“Seeing the
Forest for the Trees”) as a catalyst, they undertook a multi-
stage process with TTRA members to identify and prioritize
research topics they considered most important to tourism
decision makers over the next 10 years. The intent was to use
this agenda to:
•stimulate ongoing dialogue and collaboration
among TTRA members on high-priority topics,
•help frame discussions with research funding orga-
nizations on high-priority topics,
•encourage TTRA-related publications to communi-
cate research findings on high-priority topics,
427824JTRXXX10.1177/0047287511427824
1Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
2Western Management Consultants, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
3DataPath Systems, Marsh Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada
Corresponding Author:
Peter W. Williams, Centre for Tourism Policy and Research, Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby, BC, Canada, V7T 2G4
Email: peterw@sfu.ca
Toward an Agenda of High-Priority
Tourism Research
Peter W. Williams1, Kent Stewart2, and Donna Larsen3
Abstract
The Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA) creates networking opportunities to share perspectives on research
issues related to the planning and marketing of travel and tourism. While its publications offer numerous suggestions for
case- and context-specific research, rarely have attempts been made to develop a membership-wide agenda of priority
topics. In an age of increasing resource scarcity and calls for accountability, the need for such an agenda is growing. This study
prioritizes management- and method-related research topics deemed by TTRA members to be critical to travel and tourism
decision makers over the next decade. It describes the member-based process used to establish these priorities, and suggests
specific directions for investigations associated with each of them. It calls for greater dialogue around the relative priority
placed on these topics by practitioners and academics within TTRA, as well as extending the discussion to other influential
industry and professional travel and tourism organizations.
Keywords
agenda, priorities, dialogue, tourism research

4 Journal of Travel Research 51(1)
•extend the dialogue concerning “Research That
Matters” to other academic and professional tourism
associations
•establish a more robust consensus on high-priority
research themes.
Agenda-Building Process
Initially a review of available published tourism research
agendas provided insights into approaches to creating such
priorities. Depending on the context, the development pro-
cesses used varying levels of literature review, key informant
interviewing, and stakeholder priority-setting opportunities.
In this project, research agendas associated with 45 published
tourism research priority-setting processes (post 1999) were
identified and reviewed. For the most part, these agendas
focused on identifying priorities for specific tourism sectors
(e.g., Lumsdon and Page 2004), niche travel markets (e.g.,
Weed 2009; Page 2009), management issues (Ceron 2006;
Carlsen and Liburd 2008), and geographic jurisdictions/insti-
tutions (Buckley 2002; Dickson and Ritchie 2007).
Various dimensions of the approaches employed in other
studies (e.g., Holmes et al. 2007; Edwards, Griffin, and
Hayllar 2008) informed the priority setting process adopted.
The research design used the sequential steps of identify-
ing a set of research topics for prioritization, determining the
initial priorities of TTRA members, discussing these priori-
ties with Conference delegates, and then asking them to
review the initially ranked priorities based on the preceding
discussions. All of these functions were conducted as part of
the research agenda-building process associated with TTRA’s
2011 International Conference in June 2011.
Research Topic Development
The initial topics identified for potential inclusion in the
priority-setting process emerged from the review of tourism
agendas published post-1999. The agendas were derived
from refereed tourism publications identified in two exten-
sive online searches.1 Eventually 33 items generic to a vari-
ety of management or method research contexts were kept
for priority setting.
To ensure that emerging topics not yet reported in the pub-
lished literature were also captured, an online survey with a
small set of TTRA academic, government, and consulting
organization informants was conducted. Chosen via a snow-
ball sampling referral process, 8 of 12 invited informants
(4 academics and 4 practitioners) offered their unaided
research suggestions. This process expanded the initial set
of research topics to 41 items.
To help TTRA respondents navigate through this list, the
items were further subdivided into subsets. Those in the
management research grouping (17 items) were organized
into subsets related to Innovation, Consumer Behavior, and
Destination Management. The research “method” grouping
(24 items) contained categories concerning Performance
Measurement, Data Collection, and Data Analysis. These
subgroupings and the items they encompassed formed the
content frame used in the next phase of research agenda-
building process.
Pre-Conference Online Survey
To encourage as inclusive a process as possible, an online
survey targeted at TTRA members was developed and
implemented a month prior to the conference. It included
probes concerning respondents’ previous research experi-
ence, as well as perspectives on the importance of each of
the previously identified research items. Administered
by DataPath Systems, the survey used an e-mail list of 493
unique Association members provided by TTRA as its sam-
pling frame. After two nonresponse follow-ups, the survey
process captured the responses of 108 members or about
22% of the sampling frame’s population. This resulted in a
Finite Population Corrected Margin of Error of ±8 at 95%
confidence level.2 Of those responding, 57% were practitio-
ners and 43% were academics. Overall, respondents aver-
aged 17 years working in tourism research–related settings
and almost half (46%) of them had more than 15 years of
such experiences. Conversely, about a quarter (26%) of the
respondents had less than 8 years of such exposure. The col-
lective priorities of all of them provided the baseline data on
which an ensuing dialogue and follow-up priority-setting
workshop with TTRA conference delegates was built.
Conference Priority Setting Dialogue
A plenary session with TTRA conference delegates provided
the venue for an interactive dialogue designed to review,
discuss, and revisit the top-priority research topics identified
in the pre-Conference survey. An experienced facilitator at
Western Management Consultants managed the session in
two sequential phases.3 The initial phase involved conduct-
ing 18 round table dialogues (maximum of 10 persons/table)
with Conference delegates. These discussions explored the
rationale and core issues associated with each of the top five
research management and method topics identified in the
pre-Conference survey. TTRA Canada members followed
written facilitation protocols designed to ensure that similar
dialogic approaches were used in each of the round table
forums.4 The facilitators were also responsible for recording
key themes and perspectives emanating from their dialogues.
Overall, 126 or about 40% of the TTRA conference attend-
ees participated in the round table dialogues. Each dialogue
lasted about 40 minutes.
Informed by the perspectives offered in the round table
dialogues, each participant was then invited to take part in a
nominal order ranking of the top-priority research items dis-
cussed. Their priorities were collected, summarized, and
reported back in live time via a touch screen tablet voting

Williams et al. 5
system and/or web-based survey link available at each of
the dialogue tables.5 Overall, 105 or approximately 33% of
the Conference delegates provided their priority rankings.
About 52% of the respondents identified themselves as
being either practitioners (45%) or other nonacademics
(7%). For the purposes of this study, they were grouped
together as practitioners; the rest of the respondents (48%)
were academics.
Findings
Participants in the pre-Conference online survey systemati-
cally pared down the initial listing of 41 research items to
their top 10 management and method priorities. A nominal-
order ranking process and associated weighted index sys-
tem was used to determine the collective priorities for each
group of items. Tables 1 and 2 report the rankings.
Initial Management Research Priorities
The top five management research priorities concerned
understanding and managing the effects of various social
media support systems, destination strategies, shifting
sociodemographics, sustainability practices, and niche travel
markets on tourism performance. These rankings varied
between academics and practitioners.
Initial Research Method Priorities
The top five method research priorities reported by the
online respondents included developing standardized proto-
cols, performance indicators, and methods for conducting
return on investment research, case study best practice,
international/regional travel survey, tourism experience
measurement, and multimethod tourism research. Table 2
identifies the top 10 overall priorities identified by the online
respondents.
Dialogue Delegate Priorities
The pre-Conference survey probed the priorities of TTRA
delegates and nondelegates. Respondents offered their rank-
ings prior to any formalized face-to-face discussions with
other TTRA members concerning the relative merits of each
research item. In contrast, the TTRA Conference dialogue
session provided a useful venue for collectively exploring
the rationale and critical dimensions of each of the top pre-
Conference priorities initially identified, as well as review-
ing the rankings associated with them. It was felt that the
perspectives expressed during the round table dialogues
Table 1. Top 10 Nominal Order–Ranked Management Research Priorities (TTRA Online Survey)
Management Research Items Overall Rank
Social media communication/marketing support system strategies and their effects on travel market behavior 1
Performance effects of destination marketing/management strategies 2
Sociodemographic structures of travel-generating market regions and their influences on travel behavior 3
Destination sustainability “best practices” and their effects 4
Consumer travel propensities and behaviors associated with niche travel experiences 5
Product/service development and delivery systems and their effects 6
Marketing communication support systems and their effects 7
Destination governance systems and their effects 8
Destination quality-of-life expectations, management strategies, and their effects 9
Natural and human induced hazards/crisis management strategies and their effects on travel propensities and behaviors 10
Note: Priority ranking based on cumulative weighted index score assigned to each item by each respondent through a top 3 nominal order–ranking
process. Weightings assigned were as follows: first priority, 3; second priority, 2; and third priority, 1.
Table 2. Top 10 Nominal Order–Ranked Method Research
Priorities (TTRA Online Survey 2011)
Research Methods Overall Rank
Standardized marketing return-on-investment
performance assessment approaches
1
Best practice case study development protocols 2
Standardized international/regional travel surveys
that are culturally similar and comparable
3
Tourist experience measurement scales 4
Multimethod approaches to identifying and
validating program performance
5
Community social impact measurement scales 6
Web based marketing performance indicators and
measurement scales
7
Consumer behavior modeling methods 8
Standardized Tourism Satellite Account
performance indicators, data interpretation
protocols comparable between regions.
9
Online survey panel selection and response bias
assessment and validation protocols
10
Note: Priority ranking based on cumulative weighted index score assigned
to each item by each respondent through a top 3 nominal order–ranking
process. Weightings assigned were as follows: first priority, 3; second
priority, 2; and third priority, 1.

6 Journal of Travel Research 51(1)
Table 3. Top Five Nominal Order–Ranked Management Research Priorities—TTRA Conference Dialogue Participants 2011
Management Research Items Academic Rankings Practitioner Rankings Overall Ranking
Social media communication/marketing support system strategies
and their effects on travel market behavior
2 1 1
Performance of destination marketing/management strategies 3 2 2
Destination sustainability best practices and their effects 1 4 3
Consumer travel propensities and behaviors associated with niche
travel experiences
4 3 4
Sociodemographic structures of travel-generating market regions
and their influences on travel behavior
5 5 5
Note: Priority ranking based on cumulative weighted index score assigned to each item by each respondent through a top 3 nominal order–ranking
process. Weightings assigned were as follows: first priority, 3; second priority, 2; and third priority, 1.
might provide crisper lenses with which to confirm or adjust
the items considered most critical to address.
Table 3 provides an overview of the management research
priorities identified by respondents after the round table dia-
logues. Overall, highest priority continued to be placed on
understanding and managing the effects of various social
media communication/marketing support systems and
assessing the performance of destination strategies. In
contrast, the rankings shifted in the remaining items. More
emphasis was placed on developing credible and comparable
case studies of sustainability best practices, and understand-
ing niche travel market propensities and behaviors. As well,
the implications of changing sociodemographic structures
moved down the overall priority scale to fifth position from
its initial third rank (Table 3).
Differences in priorities also existed between academics
and practitioners. While practitioner respondents ranked
social media research as their highest priority, academics
placed developing better appreciation of sustainability best
practices at the top of their list. Generally, practitioners were
most interested in studies examining the performance of
markets and marketing strategies implemented in destina-
tions, while academics tended to be more concerned with
broader destination management research issues (Table 3).
Management Research Directions
The expressed intent, rationale, and critical directions for each
of the identified research priorities were collected from the
round table dialogues. The following sections elaborate on
each of the management-related research priorities.
Social media. This involved exploring ways in which
emerging social media might shape future traveler propen-
sities and behaviors. With an ever-increasing ability to facili-
tate social networking, social media are promoted as a vehicle
for influencing traveler motivations, expectations, prefer-
ences, trip planning, behavior, and experience satisfaction
levels. Seemingly ubiquitous consumer access to the Internet
and other social media technologies (at work and in leisure)
is opening opportunities for new and diverse sources of
information concerning traveler behavior. While destination
marketing organizations are increasingly employing emerg-
ing interactive technologies for marketing purposes, there is
less appreciation of the effectiveness of these approaches in
improving destination performance. Little is known about
how to best mine, interpret, and use the data generated
through these mediums. Research is needed to determine
how best to use these technologies for management and
marketing purposes and how to measure their impact on
destination performance.
Specific questions to be addressed included the following:
•What are the ways in which travelers use various
social media for tourism purposes, and which meth-
ods are most effective in meeting consumer needs?
•What are the best indicators of social media perfor-
mance, and what tracking tools provide the most
accurate and relevant measurements of impact?
•What types of dynamic performance tracking and
analysis systems are available to monitor live-time
responses to social media marketing initiatives?
•What types of protocols are needed to guide the
ethical tracking of social media use?
Destination performance strategies. This involved identify-
ing the strategies and tactics that contribute most effectively
to the long term competiveness and sustainability of tourism
destinations. Despite the emergence of several destination
performance monitoring schemes, there is little standardiza-
tion of the dimensions, scales, and data collection procedures
employed. Most focus primarily on measures of marketing
and related economic performance, as opposed to including
broader sets of sustainability concerns linked to social,
quality-of-life, environmental, and ecological performance.
Identifying the roles these factors play in shaping tour-
ism performance and establishing the tools to measure

Williams et al. 7
such accomplishments is crucial to providing credible indi-
cations of the value of various marketing and management
investments, and monitoring the longer term sustained com-
petitiveness of destinations. More information is needed to
provide a rounded perspective on what constitutes destina-
tion performance.
Specific questions to address included the following:
•What performance indicators and measurement sys-
tems best capture the effects of specific management
activities on noneconomic dimensions of destina-
tion performance (e.g., environmental, quality of
life, ecological, sociopolitical, community stake-
holder engagement, and trust)?
•What types of monitoring systems best capture the
extent to which various management strategies con-
tribute to the social capital needed for destination
resilience?
•How can monitoring systems and their findings be
made more relevant to destination management
stakeholders? What indicators of destination perfor-
mance are most important to destination stakehold-
ers? What approaches are most effective in sharing
such information?
•What dynamic modeling tools can be estab-
lished to forecast the impacts of various destina-
tion management strategies on the performance
of destinations?
Sustainability practices. This involved exploring the impact
of sustainability best practices impact on the overall eco-
nomic, social, and environmental performance of tourism
destinations. Despite the rhetoric that exists about the advan-
tages of sustainability practices, there is still limited appre-
ciation of how markets and destination stakeholders will
respond to proposed or existing sustainability initiatives, or
what the short- and long-term implications of implementing
sustainability practices are for tourism industry operations.
More standardization of terms and approaches to analysis
and reporting of sustainability program performance assess-
ment are needed.
Specific questions to be addressed included the following:
•How do natural, sociocultural, and socioeconomic
drivers shape tourism industry and travel market
responses to sustainability opportunities?
•What are the cause-and-effect relationships between
implementing sustainability practices and specific
dimensions of destination performance?
•What common protocols are needed to ensure com-
parability and credible benchmarking of sustain-
ability practice outcomes?
•What types of sustainability practice impact mea-
sures are most relevant to the interests of tourism
destination managers and operators?
•What factors constrain and/or facilitate the imple-
mentation of sustainability practices within and
across jurisdictions?
Niche travel market experiences. This involved understanding
the drivers, emotional reaction, and implications of niche
travel markets for the tourism industry. There is a growing
focus on specialized tourism experiences that cater to prefer-
ences of niche travel markets. However, novel market niches
are constantly emerging and considerable confusion exists
with respect to the processes for their identification, mea-
surement, and management. This leads to uncertainties
about their overlap and compatibilities with other market
niches, magnitude, and relevance to destination manag-
ers and operators.
Specific questions to be addressed included the following:
•What generic and/or inclusive niche travel market cat-
egorization systems can be created to clarify overriding
similarities and differences between various niches?
•What common set of defining factors would assist
tourism operators and destination managers in
assessing the relevance of specific market niches to
destination decision makers?
•What types of dynamic live-time modeling sys-
tems can most effectively help individual experi-
ence seekers align their interests and preferences
with available destination experience options?
•What aspects of travel experiences are the most crit-
ical motivators for trips by various travel niches?
Sociodemographic structures. This involves examining
the sociodemographic structure of nations and geographic
regions to establish their propensities for travel in general,
and specific niche experiences in particular. Most current
investigations remain at a “herd dynamics” as opposed to a
more micro or niche market behavior level. This is problem-
atic as often the cultural mix, social value structures, and
more psychographically based aspects of potential travelers
are not well understood. Without such information, estimat-
ing the potential travel propensities and behaviors of poten-
tial visitors (especially emerging markets) is challenging.
New technologies for data mining, analysis and information
sharing provide opportunities for addressing this important
knowledge gap. However, effective tourism applications of
these technologies are limited.
Specific questions to be addressed included the following:
•What aspects of the sociocultural and psychographic
structure of emerging markets are the most relevant
indicators of travel preferences and behavior?
•To what extent is the primacy of the baby boom
generation as a driver of markets in North America
fading, and what factors will be most influential in
shaping future travel behaviors?

8 Journal of Travel Research 51(1)
•How nontraditional data mining techniques can
be used for tracking social media to build more
robust appreciations of the travel propensities of
potential markets in emerging travel-generating
regions?
Method Research Priorities
The top five research method topics meriting priority
attention were also identified by the dialogue participants
(Table 4). Overall, the top priorities were developing multi-
method approaches to validating tourism program perfor-
mance and creating standardized approaches to assessing
return on investment. The remaining top priorities concerned
establishing standardized and culturally similar travel survey
methods, developing accurate tourism experience measure-
ment processes, and creating common protocols for conduct-
ing best practice research. While academics and practitioners
emphasized the importance of developing multimethod
approaches to validating destination performance, practitio-
ners were more fixed on resolving destination performance-
related measurement issues. Conversely, academics were
inclined to place higher priority on developing systems for
effectively handling cultural and experiential aspects of
tourism research design (Table 4).
Method Research Directions
Clarification concerning the rationale and directions deemed
most important to method research development were pro-
vided by the dialogue participants. The following sections
capture their overriding views on each of the ranked method
priorities.
Multimethod Performance Assessment. This involves
developing and using multiple lines of inquiry and associated
evidence to measure and assess program performance. Often
the nature of tourism activity means that it cannot generally
be fully assessed using a single methodological approach. A
triangulation of methods and associated measures can help
create more credible and reliable outcomes for decision mak-
ers. Multimethod approaches offer a wider set of lenses with
which to judge performance and may lead to more innovative
approaches to future policy, planning, marketing, and man-
agement practices than would normally be the case with sin-
gle method research tactics.
Specific research questions included the following:
•What protocols for multimethod performance
appraisal are considered most relevant to tourism
decision makers?
•What approaches to multimethod program assess-
ment used in other industry sectoral contexts are
most relevant and applicable in tourism destination
performance assessment and management?
•What types of more qualitatively oriented proce-
dures can be effectively incorporated into destina-
tion performance appraisals?
Return on investments. Return on investment (ROI) research
is designed to determine the monetized measures of impact
associated with specific programs (e.g., marketing) in rela-
tion to the input costs incurred with their development and
implementation. As the range of approaches and costs of mar-
keting and other program initiatives escalate, so do the calls
for greater accountability and transparency with respect to the
determinations of their ROIs. This is particularly challenging
to do well, because of the wide range of outcomes that mar-
keting programs may create, and the many intervening,
unexpected, unmeasured, and often unknown influences
that can shape what occurs. There is a growing need for the
creation of more standardized and credible approaches to
measuring and comparing ROIs associated with different
marketing programs. Currently, the inconsistent application
of approaches to measuring and interpreting ROIs creates
unnecessary uncertainties about the actual value of market-
ing and management initiatives.
Specific research questions to be addressed included the
following:
Table 4. Top Five Nominal Order–Ranked Research Method Priorities—TTRA Conference Dialogue Participants 2011
Research Methods Items Academic Rank Practitioner Rank Overall Rank
Multimethod approaches to identifying and validating program performance 1 2 1
Standardized marketing return-on-investment performance assessment
approaches
4 1 2
Standardized international and regional travel surveys and implementation
strategies that are culturally similar and comparable
3 3 3
Tourist experience measurement scales 2 5 4
Best practice case study development protocols 5 4 5
Note: Priority ranking based on cumulative weighted index score assigned to each item by each respondent through a top 3 nominal order–ranking
process. Weightings assigned were as follows: first priority, 3; second priority, 2; and third priority, 1.

Williams et al. 9
•What types of ROI indicators and assessment meth-
ods are credible and relevant to destination manage-
ment organizations and their stakeholders?
•How can noneconomic indicators of destination
performance (e.g., human and social capital, eco-
logical capital, and reputational capital) be incor-
porated into a standardized form of triple–bottom
line performance reporting?
•How can emerging interactive technologies help
identify the impacts of marketing strategies at
different stages in the product purchase life
cycle?
Culturally comparable international/regional travel surveys.
Standardized and culturally comparable travel survey instru-
ments and implementation procedures facilitate the collection
of market and survey data that can be meaningfully compared
across markets and regions. It also helps identify market and
industry activity within and between regions. While signifi-
cant progress has occurred in standardizing the structure,
content, and approaches to travel survey design and imple-
mentation (e.g., UNWTO International Travel Survey and
Border Entrance Cards), much remains to be accomplished.
This is especially the case with respect to their development
and implementation in domestic contexts where regional
concentrations of culturally unique populations may exist.
Similar challenges emerge regarding the development of
culturally comparable tourism employment and labor sur-
veys that are useful at varying geographic scales. Better
communication concerning definitions, terms, and imple-
mentation procedures associated with such surveys is needed
at all geographic levels. This will lead to more credible and
relevant findings for decision makers.
Research questions to be addressed included the following:
•What core content, scales, and processes should be
incorporated into the design and implementation of
international outbound travel surveys?
•How can such travel surveys be used at various
geographic scales so as to contribute to a prac-
tical understanding of global tourism flows and
behaviors?
•What types of incentives can help ensure compli-
ance with established travel survey protocols within
and between geographic regions?
Tourism experience measurement. This involves develop-
ing the instruments and approaches needed to measure the
emotional responses of visitors to the experiences they have
during their travels, as well as identifying the perceived drivers/
stimulators of those responses. The value of destination
assets and the competitiveness of places tend to grow as their
economies shift from producing commodities to creating
experiences for consumers. Creating such value additions
for tourism destinations requires a stronger appreciation of
those factors that contribute to the power of those experi-
ences and how these values can be leveraged throughout the
travel purchase cycle. Credible and systematically applied
approaches to understanding the nature and dynamics of
tourism experiences are needed.
Specific research questions to be addressed included the
following:
•What roles do social media play in shaping tourism
experience preferences and outcomes?
•What core qualitative and quantitative compo-
nents should be included in experience measure-
ment scales?
•What types of live-time modeling procedures can
be developed to guide consumers towards the mix
of products and services that match with their expe-
rience preferences?
•How can experience satisfaction levels be tracked
at various stages in the trip cycle?
Best practice case study protocols. This involves creating
standardized approaches to identifying, describing, and ana-
lyzing specific cases of destination practice. Such protocols
can offer more credible and comparable insights into a range
of policy, planning, marketing, and management practices in
tourism systems. Individually, case studies tend to be context
specific and difficult to transfer to other situations. How-
ever, their findings become more transferable and valuable
to others when they explore common issues using similar
approaches (e.g., criteria, measures, data collection, and
analysis procedures). The development of protocols for iden-
tifying, analyzing, and reporting “best practice” case study
results is limited in most tourism contexts and leads to
wasted opportunities to share and compare “lessons” in an
effective fashion.
Specific research questions to be addressed included the
following:
•What criteria and methods of analysis are most
relevant to the study of various tourism policy,
planning, marketing, management, and opera-
tional issues?
•What types of case study protocol–building pro-
cesses and topics are considered most relevant to
tourism decision makers?
Discussion
This agenda-building exercise was pursued with the intent of
catalyzing a dialogue about overriding tourism research
priorities. Its design and implementation processes in them-
selves created much discussion among the authors about
how to facilitate and what to include in such dialogues.
Consequently, its narrative is bounded by the processes and
perspectives that shaped its development. Notwithstanding

10 Journal of Travel Research 51(1)
these limitations, several opportunities emerge from the pro-
cess. They are discussed in the following paragraphs.
Inclusiveness
The preceding priorities reflect the perspectives of only those
TTRA members participating in various phases of this agenda-
setting process. As such, it is only a starting point for poten-
tial ongoing deliberations on research that matters most to
TTRA’s academic and practitioner communities. Its topics
are generic enough to offer opportunities for further elabo-
ration on both dimensions of the current set of top research
priorities and other subjects that might surface through an
extended dialogue process. (Because of conference time
constraints, discussions addressed only the top five research
and method subjects identified in the initial pre-Conference
member survey to the exclusion of all other prioritized top-
ics.) In addition, its utility to tourism researchers and deci-
sion makers could be heightened if the agenda-building
process was extended to include a wider group of tourism
stakeholders. Several participants in this agenda-building
process constructively suggested that it would be valuable to
inject the perspectives of non–TTRA-based tourism industry,
destination management and marketing, and government
organizations into the process.
Utility
Tourism research agendas can serve a variety of purposes,
ranging from being tightly focused blueprints for action, to
longer term direction-setting frames for strategic research
investment, to consensus-based touch points for synergistic
collaborations between organizations and individuals. Their
utility in these respects depends on the perceived credibility
of the process that created them and the extent to which the
recommended directions for action are supported by “influ-
entials” such as professional associations, industry lead-
ers, and government policy makers. As an internationally
respected organization of leading researchers and research
users, TTRA could be a credible vehicle and platform for
promoting the merits of such a research agenda. A wider
communication of this research agenda and/or creation of a
more inclusive version of it with other tourism organizations
would create the credibility and awareness needed to turn
the agenda into a practical action-oriented tool. In addition,
perhaps TTRA’s publishing and research awards pro-
grams could encourage support for action on the Agenda’s
priorities.
Interactive Technologies
Emerging and several existing technologies make the cre-
ation of comprehensive, consensus-based research agen-
das potentially easier to establish than ever before. Even
with limited resources and strict time schedules, emerging
technologies can be used quite effectively to bring together
the perspectives and information held by informants in geo-
graphically quite dispersed locations. In addition, these tech-
nologies can provide the type of rapid feedback and interactive
systems needed to make face-to-face dialogues with large
groups of discussants more efficient and effective. TTRA
should consider incorporating such technologies more regu-
larly into future conference sessions so that the perspectives
of a greater set of participants can be represented and poten-
tially incorporated into the record of what transpires at such
forums.
Practitioner–Academic Priority Discrepancies
Discrepancies in the priorities identified by academics and
practitioners occurred at both the initial and final ranking
stages of this agenda’s development. While complete align-
ment between these groups is neither necessary nor wanted,
it is clear that much more dialogue is needed to lessen the
gap in priorities. In times of limited resources and increasing
competition between and within tourism destinations and
businesses, it is important to be addressing those research
topics that matter to the long-term competitiveness and sus-
tainability of destinations. Perhaps this agenda-building
process or a more customized version of it can help bridge
the research priority gap this study’s process identified. This
exercise suggests that research priorities can shift when con-
structive dialogues between tourism research stakeholders
happen. Certainly more dialogues of this nature can help
identify research that really matters.
Conclusions
While research agendas serve a variety of purposes, two
rationales are most common. In practical terms, they focus
research resources on answering questions that have the
potential to make work more effective and/or efficient. From
a theoretical perspective, they provide a reason, direction,
and foundation for dialogue on those topics that merit a more
basic understanding of their dimensions, dynamics, and
effects on various aspects of society. The research agenda
presented in this paper serves both purposes. While only a
starting point, it can direct researchers toward more in-depth
investigations into topics that can make a difference to the
management of tourism. However, the agenda is not intended
to box in options for creativity and practice. Rather it is
intended to provide the strategic ambiguity needed within
these priorities to encourage a wide range of interpretations
of how best to address and answer the questions that will
arise through the dialogues the research agenda stimulates.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the executive of TTRA International, TTRA
Canada round table dialogue facilitators, Aliaa Elkhashab of
Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Tourism Policy and Research,

Williams et al. 11
Mike Larsen at DataPath Systems, and Brian Singh at Zinc
Research for their invaluable assistance in designing and conducting
this research.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. The initial literature review was largely conducted by Ms. Aliaa
Elkhashab, a research associate of Simon Fraser University’s
Centre for Tourism Policy and Research (CTPR) in March
2011. It was subsequently used to inform the design of the
agenda-setting process developed by Dr. Peter Williams of the
CTPR and the other authors of this article. Further, A compre-
hensive internet search by David Dillard of Temple University
(March 2011) provided a wealth of useful tourism research
agenda publications that contributed to the initial research.
2. The online survey and its analysis were conducted by TTRA
members Donna and Mike Larsen of Datapath in May-June 2011.
3. The round table dialogue process was led by TTRA member
Kent Stewart of Western Management Consultants. He guided
the respondents and facilitators through the dialogue process, as
well as live-time priority-setting exercise.
4. The TTRA Canada Chapter Board embraced this initiative, and
several (~18) Canada Chapter members voluntarily facilitated
the round table dialogues and priority-ranking processes. A
written set of dialogue facilitation protocols helped them direct
the delegates through dialogues and priority-ranking processes
at each table in a relatively similar fashion.
5. The live-time Conference reporting systems were custom-
developed by TTRA member Brian Singh at Zinc Research, who
also provided the initial statistical summaries of Conference
delegate responses.
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Bios
Peter W. Williams, a Past President of TTRA International, is
Director of Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Tourism Policy
and Research. He directs research related to policy, planning, and
management issues confronting tourism destinations and busi-
nesses. His specialties include resort planning, product develop-
ment, and impact assessment.
Kent Stewart, Director at Western Management Consultants, has
worked with private sector, not-for-profit, and public sector clients
throughout Canada and abroad. His tourism specialties include
strategic planning, business planning, marketing strategy, regional
development planning, feasibility assessment, and economic and
social impact.
Donna Larsen, a Past President of TTRA International, is partner
at DataPath Systems, Market North Promotion Systems, and
OverView Research. Her specialities are travel and tourism
research and strategic planning, sample frame and methodology
design, and northern and remote destination studies. Her primary
focus is on market research, methodology, data collection and
reporting.