Choosing Your Population for a Tourism Dissertation: GBTS, ONS and Local Sources (UK, 2026)

Key finding: most tourism dissertations go wrong at the population step, not the data step. The national datasets (the Great Britain Tourism Survey, the International Passenger Survey and the ONS tourism accounts) describe tourism at national scale, so they give you context and benchmarks, but your own sample has to be a group you can actually reach: visitors at one destination, owner-managers of small accommodation or hospitality businesses, tourism workers, or local residents.

Which national tourism sources can you use, and what does each cover?

Check each publisher’s page for the latest release date before you quote a figure, and state the year and survey name in the text each time you use a number. Our guide to UK data sources by subject shows where else to look.

What are the realistic populations for a tourism dissertation?

Pick the population first, because it decides your design, your access route and your ethics paperwork. These five work within a single academic year.

1. Visitors at one destination or attraction

Typical design: a short intercept or online questionnaire on motivation, satisfaction, spend or intention to return. Access: written permission from the site manager, and a clear plan for where and when you approach people. Watch out for: convenience sampling. Say plainly that your sample is not representative of all visitors, and use the GBTS only as a benchmark, not as proof that your findings generalise.

2. Owner-managers of small accommodation, food or activity businesses

Typical design: a short survey or semi-structured interviews on pricing, seasonality, staffing, digital marketing or sustainability practice. Access: through the local destination management organisation (DMO), a trade association or a chamber of commerce, ideally with a supervisor’s introduction. Watch out for: low response rates. Our guide to realistic survey response rates will help you set a defensible sample size.

3. Tourism and hospitality workers

Typical design: a validated scale on a work outcome such as job satisfaction or burnout, or interviews on seasonal work and career paths. Access: through employers, which means you need the employer’s consent as well as the worker’s. Watch out for: power dynamics. Staff may feel pressure to take part or to answer positively, so build anonymity into your design.

4. Local residents

Typical design: attitudes towards tourism development, visitor numbers or short-term lets, using a survey or focus groups. Access: through community groups, parish or town councils and social media groups, with the group administrator’s permission. Watch out for: self-selection, since people with strong opinions are more likely to respond.

5. Organisations and documents

Typical design: a case study of a DMO, a visitor strategy or a destination management plan, using documents plus a few expert interviews. Access: most strategies and reports are public. Watch out for: a case study of a single organisation cannot prove general claims, so frame it as an in-depth illustration.

How do you choose between the five?

If you can reach fewer than about thirty respondents, a qualitative design usually gives you a stronger dissertation than a thin survey. Our guide to sample size for an undergraduate dissertation explains how to justify the number you can reach.

What does a worked example look like? (illustrative)

This example is invented to show the reasoning, not to report real findings. Suppose your question is how small accommodation providers in one rural area use digital marketing. You choose owner-managers as your population. Your sampling frame is the member list of the local tourism association, which you obtain by asking its manager. You set an inclusion rule: businesses with fewer than ten staff that have taken bookings in the last twelve months. You plan fifteen interviews, because the businesses are few and the topic needs depth. You use the national surveys only in your context chapter, for example to show how domestic overnight trips have been measured and what the GBTS says about seasonality, always citing the survey name and year. Your ethics application covers consent, anonymity of business names and data storage.

Notice what that design does. The population is reachable, the data are first-hand, and the national sources have a clear and honest role.

Which sampling method fits each population?

• Convenience sampling fits visitor intercept surveys, but you must say it limits generalisation.
• Purposive sampling fits owner-managers and organisations, where you choose participants for what they know.
• Snowball sampling helps with hard-to-reach groups such as seasonal workers, though it can produce a narrow network of similar people.
• Quota sampling can help with residents if you want a spread of ages and areas, but you need a way to check the quotas.

Whichever you choose, link the method to your claims. A purposive sample of fifteen business owners supports rich description of those businesses, not statements about every business in the country.

How do you get ethics approval and access?

1. Write an information sheet that says who you are, what you are asking, how long it takes and how data will be stored.
2. Get gatekeeper permission in writing from the site, association or employer before you recruit.
3. Use your university’s ethics process before collecting any data. See our guide to ethics approval for an undergraduate dissertation.
4. Choose your survey tool carefully. Some platforms restrict student use, as explained in our guide to survey platforms for UK student dissertations.
5. Keep your instruments simple. Our questionnaire and interview templates give you starting points.

What are ten researchable tourism titles, by population?

1. Why do visitors choose one named heritage site over another? A short intercept survey on motivation and satisfaction.
2. How do owner-managers of small rural accommodation providers use social media to attract off-season bookings?
3. What drives intention to return among visitors to one coastal town?
4. How do seasonal workers in hospitality describe job security and career progression?
5. Local residents’ attitudes towards short-term holiday lets in one town: a survey.
6. How does a destination management organisation define and measure sustainable tourism in its visitor strategy? A document-based case study.
7. Accessibility information and booking decisions: what do disabled visitors look for on small attractions’ websites?
8. Do visitors to a national park understand and follow its countryside code? An observation and survey design.
9. How do small food and drink producers participate in local food tourism trails? Interviews with producers.
10. Student views on staycations: motivations, budget and trip planning in one university city.

Each title names a population, a place and a method, which is what a supervisor needs to see to approve the topic.

How do you write the population section of your methodology?

Use this order and adapt it to your study: define the target population, say how you will reach it, describe the sampling method and why it is justified, state any inclusion and exclusion rules, give your intended sample size and the reasoning behind it, and explain how you will deal with non-response. An illustrative paragraph might read: “The target population was owner-managers of accommodation businesses with fewer than ten staff in one rural district. Participants were recruited purposively through the local tourism association, and fifteen interviews were planned, with recruitment stopping when no new themes emerged.” Invent nothing you did not do, and report the actual numbers once your fieldwork is finished.

How should you use the national sources in the context chapter?

Use them to set the scene, not to prove your argument. A good pattern is three moves. First, state the national picture and name the survey: what it measures, who runs it and the period it covers. Second, say what the national picture cannot tell the reader about your place or group. Third, introduce your own data as the way to fill that gap. This keeps your claims honest, shows you understand the limits of each source, and gives you a natural link into your research question.

What mistakes do markers see in tourism dissertations?

• Treating national statistics as your sample. They describe a population; they are not your participants.
• Quoting a figure without the survey name and year. Always attribute it to the publisher and the period.
• Assuming access. An unanswered email is not permission.
• Overclaiming from a convenience sample. State what your findings can and cannot say.
• Choosing a population too broad to reach. “UK tourists” is not a sample; “visitors to one named heritage site in one month” is.

Tesify helps you structure the chapters around your chosen population, so your research question, sampling and methods stay aligned while you write every word yourself. Over 9,000 students have used it across more than 15,000 chapters. Plan your tourism dissertation with Tesify.

Tourism dissertation population FAQ

What is the best population for a tourism dissertation?

The one you can reach with permission inside your timeline. Visitors at one site, small business owner-managers and local residents are the most common feasible choices.

What is the Great Britain Tourism Survey?

It is a national consumer survey measuring the volume and value of domestic overnight trips and day visits by Great Britain residents, sponsored by VisitEngland, VisitScotland and Visit Wales.

Can I use the International Passenger Survey for my own sample?

No. It is run by ONS at ports, and you use its published statistics as context. Your dissertation sample must be people you recruit yourself or secondary data you have permission to use.

Where can I find tourism employment data?

The ONS UK Tourism Satellite Account reports employment in the tourism industries, but check the publication date because the edition we found was for 2017.

How many participants do I need for a tourism survey?

It depends on your analysis, so calculate it rather than guessing. If you can reach only a small group, interviews may fit better than a survey.

Do I need ethics approval to survey visitors?

Yes, through your university’s process, and you also need permission from the site or organisation where you recruit.

Can I study residents’ attitudes towards tourism?

Yes. Recruit through community groups with the administrator’s permission, and acknowledge that self-selected respondents may not represent the whole community.

Is a case study a good option for a tourism dissertation?

Yes, especially when access to participants is limited. Use documents and a few interviews, and avoid generalising beyond the case.

How should I cite tourism statistics?

Name the survey, the publisher, the period the data covers and the date you accessed it, following your department’s referencing style.