Havainnointimenetelmän soveltuvuus matkailutuotteen ulkoisessa testauksessa
Keywords:
participant observation, travel product, customer involvement, new service developmentAbstract
In the field of business research science there has been increasing tendency to adopt qualitative methods such as observation in order to gather data for product and service development purposes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how appropriate and suitable participant observation is as a method for collecting data in the external testing phase of a tourist product. The data was collected from three different testing events with questionnaires, interviews and participant observation. The analysis was completed by comparing collected data (observation vs. questionnaires) by using constant comparison. Based on the findings participant observation is a suitable method for data collecting purposes in external testing of a tourist product. With participant observation it was possible to collect such information that could not be gathered via questionnaires. Furthermore, participant observation offers direct and immediate information. Participant observation also helps to link the testers’ different kind of comments in certain situations and contexts and therefore assists to understand the testers’ point of views. However, in order to gather more reliable information in external testing phase it is recommendable to combine participant observation with traditional methods such as questionnaires and inter-views, preferably with both.
