Variations in tourism market potential in an emerging economy: Theoretical perspectives and analytical insights

Tourism researchers investigating demand forecasting and measurement have consistently indicated that an acute need exists to examine the impacts of the demographic, socio-economic, cultural, and technological environments on tourism development. The existing tourism demand measurement studies are based either on macro (country or industry level) or micro (individual tourist or business traveler level) constructs. The focus of our study is on the first stream of research. Despite the usefulness of data that captures diverse opinions of respondents from different regions, businesses, and companies in an aggregate fashion, analysis of data according to groups may reveal important differences possibly concealed in global averages. This article addresses these research concerns by focusing on differences between groups of the sample respondents. In particular, the study re-analyzes the data set for variation with respect to location and experience of the firms of the sample respondents. The study findings indicate that there are few significant variations by location or experience. This finding illustrates to us that there is no evidence of sample heterogeneity or severe generalizability limitations.