The value of visitor surveys: the case of Norfolk Island

Abstract

This article reports on research undertaken to establish a socio-demographic profile of Australian tourists visiting Norfolk Island, an Australian Dependency located in the South Pacific Ocean. Prior to this research the island’s tourism industry has not had available a detailed profile of its visitors or their motivations for travelling to the destination and, in the absence of data of this nature, had relied on their collective assumptions about the market. Before conducting a visitors survey, members of the island’s tourism industry were interviewed and the assumptions they relied on for developing marketing strategies were identified. Many of the assumptions were not valid. As one example, the industry assumed that most visitors had visited the island previously. Findings indicated that only 18 per cent of the survey respondents fell into this category. The article highlights the need for accurate quantitative research data as the basis for market segmentation and marketing strategy development.