John Coshall

Measuring brand associations for museums and galleries using repertory grid analysis

This paper is a contribution to the literature on the branding of cultural institutions. In particular it focuses on visitor motivation in the field of museums and galleries. Measurement of visitor motivations and associated brand strength of cultural institutions is a relatively new concern for marketers. The need to develop further understanding of how best to market museums in the twenty‐first century motivates this research. Repertory grid analysis was used as the survey method in order to get data that were “rich” in terms of concepts, but also malleable in terms of statistical analysis. The results of an exploratory study of museum brand associations are reported, along with a discussion of the method of repertory grid analysis that was used to obtain the data. A total of 11 museums in London were targeted, with a special focus on the Tate Gallery.

Spectral analysis of international tourism flows

Abstract This study applies the methods of univariate and bivariate spectral analysis to international tourism flows. Spectral analysis detects cycles within and between time series data sets. Its application presented in this article establishes relationships that are less readily found by more conventional time series methods. Specifically, leading cycles of dependencies are established between exchange rates and passenger flows. Not only does spectral analysis offer a fuller description of time series data, it can assist in the development of models that have historically been more commonly used in the study of tourism flows.

A Selection Strategy for Modelling UK Tourism Flows by Air to European Destinations

Given the importance of tourism demand forecasting as a research topic, the search for more accurate modelling processes continues. A model selection strategy is presented for UK outbound tourism by air to a set of the most popular European destinations. The first stage in this process presents an objective method for assessing whether seasonality should be modelled by additive or multiplicative means. The strategy moves on to the derivation of appropriate difference filters for ARIMA models of these tourism flows, a process which inherently considers alternatives for modelling increasing seasonal variation. Unlike studies involving longer-haul tourism, it is found at this spatial scale that no generalizations can be made about the stochastic or deterministic nature of trends or seasonality in the tourism flows over the destinations examined. The results also suggest that the commonly applied logarithmic transformation is not the most appropriate way to model increasing seasonal variation.

Seasonality of Overseas Tourism Demand in Scotland: A Regional Analysis

Coshall J., Charlesworth R. and Page S. J. Seasonality of overseas tourism demand in Scotland: a regional analysis, Regional Studies. This paper examines patterns of seasonality in international tourism to the regions of Scotland. Quarterly numbers of overnight stays are disaggregated by trip purpose. Seasonality in vacation tourism to Scotland is shown to be defined by more than a simple rural–urban division. Overseas visiting friends and relatives (VFR) tourism is largely an urban phenomenon and is consequently less seasonal than vacation tourism. Lower seasonal concentration of VFR tourism is not uniform across the regions. Although levels of seasonal intensity of business tourism to the three principal cities of Scotland are approximately the same, there are noticeable variations over time.

Sociopsychological methods for tourism research

Abstract Noting that tourism researchers frequently encounter multivariate statistical data sets, this paper aims to demonstrate the benefits that are likely to accrue to such workers employing a hand-operable non- parametric method of analyzing such data sets. The approach that is reviewed was originally devised to enable repertory grids to be analyzed by hand, but it is shown how this method can be extended to all manner of multivariate data sets. The basic methodology is illustrated via the worked analysis of a tourist-oriented repertory grid. Wider aspects of the employment of the method are considered by means of a research example involving the analysis of social, economic, and demographic conditions in Barbados.

Tourists' Preference Structures for London's Tate Modern Gallery: The Implications for Strategic Marketing

Abstract The uncertain market for tourism in the UK means that visitor attractions must work harder to understand what visitors want. The research reported here is the use of Conjoint analysis applied to visitors at the Tate Modern gallery (559 interviews) in London. The factors examined in the conjoint study came from a Repertory Grid analysis (144 interviews at 11 London museums and galleries). The findings show that although visitors correctly associate the functional characteristics of this gallery, there remains a gap in the knowledge of what it means to be “interesting” from a visitors point of view. This knowledge gap has implications for how to position the attraction to different visitor segments within the tourist market.