What are the impacts of changing trends in customer demand in mud flat hiking tours on the Stichting Wadloopcentrum Pieterburen within the next 10 years? Research Report Supervisor: Ben Wielenga Principal: Students: Wadloopcentrum Pieterburen Margriet Melchers (392626) Lidy Weenink (401293) Date: 26.01.2017 Frauke Genze (419230) Education: BBA International tourism management Natalie Walter (406732) Table of contents: Table of figures: ................................................................................................................................... 2 1. Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... 1 2. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 2 2.1 About Mud Flat Hiking ................................................................................................................... 2 2.2 The Aim of the Report ................................................................................................................... 2 2.3 Structure of the Report ................................................................................................................. 2 3. Literature Review ................................................................................................................................ 3 3.1 Motivation of Mud Flat Hiker ........................................................................................................ 3 3.2 Future Trends in Adventure and Eco-Tourism .............................................................................. 4 3.3 Changing Customer Behaviours in Adventure and Ecotourism .................................................... 5 3.4 Service quality measurement tools ............................................................................................... 7 3.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 9 4. Additional information ...................................................................................................................... 11 4.1 Characteristics of Mud Flat Hiking............................................................................................... 11 4.2 Characteristics of the Products of the Stichting Wadloopcentrum Pieterburen ........................ 12 5. Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 14 5.1 Approach ..................................................................................................................................... 14 5.2 Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................................... 15 5.3 Research Questions ..................................................................................................................... 16 5.4 Methods & Techniques ............................................................................................................... 16 5.5 Ethics ........................................................................................................................................... 17 5.6 Population and Sample ............................................................................................................... 17 5.7 Reliability and Validity of the Research ....................................................................................... 18 5.8 Limitations ................................................................................................................................... 18 7. Research Results and Analysis ........................................................................................................... 20 7.1 Customer Characteristics ............................................................................................................ 20 7.2 Customer Motivation .................................................................................................................. 22 7.3 Past and future trends ................................................................................................................. 24 7.4 Application Gap Model ................................................................................................................ 28 8. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 33 8.1 Customer characteristics ............................................................................................................. 33 8.2 Customer motivation ................................................................................................................... 33 8.3 Past and future trends ................................................................................................................. 33 8.4 Identification of gaps between service provision and customer expectations ........................... 34 8.5 Identification of the impacts of changing trends in customer demand on the Stichting in Pieterburen ........................................................................................................................................ 34 9. Recommendations ............................................................................................................................. 35 9.1 Recommendations for the Stichting Wadloopcentrum Pieterburen .......................................... 35 9.2 Recommendations on Further Research ..................................................................................... 35 10. Reference List .................................................................................................................................. 36 11. Appendix .......................................................................................................................................... 39 Appendix 1: Project Brief .................................................................................................................. 39 Appendix 2: Timing + Research Matrix .............................................................................................. 44 Appendix 3: Result Tables ................................................................................................................. 48 Appendix 4: Qualitative Analysis ....................................................................................................... 52 Appendix 5: Declaration of Own Work.............................................................................................. 20 Table of figures: Figure 1 Gap Model ................................................................................................................................. 9 Figure 2 Conceptual Framework ........................................................................................................... 15 Figure 3 Age division (N=224) ................................................................................................................ 20 Figure 4 Cross Table: Age vs Tour Duration (N=224)............................................................................. 21 Figure 5 Participation in Routes (N=224) .............................................................................................. 21 Figure 6 Why did people chose the tour? (N=224) ............................................................................... 22 Figure 7 Why do people go mud flat hiking? (N=224)........................................................................... 23 Figure 8 Why are people choosing Wadloopcentrum Pieterburen? (N=224) ...................................... 23 Figure 9 Cross Table: Age vs Travel Company (N=224) ......................................................................... 25 Figure 10 What service should be included in mud flat hiking tours? (N=224) .................................... 26 Figure 11 Gap Model Wadloopcentrum Pieterburen ........................................................................... 31 1. Abstract This research report has been developed to gain information about a rather unexplored topic: mudflat hiking. In order to investigate this topic, quantitative research in the form of questionnaires and qualitative research in the form of semi-structured interviews have been conducted to develop this research report. To start with, a literature review gives information about mud flat hiking as well as characteristics and trends in adventure tourism and ecotourism. This is followed by a description of the research methods, where the approach for the interviews and the questionnaires is explained. Moreover, research questions about characteristics, motivations and changes within the last as well as next 10 years were developed in order to answer the problem statement “What are the impacts of changing trends in customer demand in mud flat hiking tours on the Stichting Wadloopcentrum Pieterburen within the next 10 years?”. The outcome of the research is presented in detail in the results chapter of this report. Therefore, the results chapter will focus on customer characteristics such as age and preferred mud flat hiking tour offered by Stichting Wadloopcentrum Pieterburen. Furthermore, the motivations of the participants
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