"Of the many books on tourism research methods, Smith's Practical Tourism Research stands apart. It meets the essential needs of a researcher, right from planning a project, designing a questionnaire to conduct interviews and finally preparing a research report...The excellence of the book is in the simplicity of language and lucid prose...Practical Tourism Research is recommended to tourism graduates, researchers, planners, and consultants."Tej Vir Singh, Editor-in-Chief for Tourism Recreation ResearchTraining in research methods is increasingly important for students of tourism, and this broad, accessible textbook outlines the concepts and tools essential to understand, manage, and conduct research. Taking a practical approach throughout, this new edition provides advice on the use and cautions associated with some of the more common research designs and tools used by tourism researchers.Fully updated throughout, it:- covers core techniques such as questionnaire design, sample selection, and interviewing- reviews analytical tools such as the development of scales and indices, assessment of advertising performance, benchmarking, market segmentation, case studies, and content and visual analysis.- uses recent real-world examples and focus boxes throughout to assess new aspects of research such as blogs, narrative analysis and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)- retains the approachable, personal writing style of the previous edition.Also including an increased use of handy pedagogical features to aid learning, this new edition is an essential overview for undergraduate and postgraduate students of tourism research, as well as a useful resource for researchers, consultants and managers.