Field Guide to Case Study Research in Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure: Volume 6

This chapter is a general introduction to the field of case study research in tourism, hospitality, and leisure. The chapter presents a brief review of the literature on the intra-individual logic of case study research. The chapter describes the “four horsemen” for doing case study research: accuracy, generality, complexity/coverage, and value/impact. Examples in the chapter that illustrate this perspective for undertaking case study research may impassion the reader to read through the field guide and personally engage in case study research – at least that is the hope of the editors of this field guide.

The Field Guide opens with a series of chapters addressing somewhat disparate issues – touristification of the countryside, emotions experienced in a secular pilgrimage, assessment of museum performance, tourists’ packing for travel and the role of the hospitality receptionist. Yet, what these chapters hold in common is their broad approach to case study research. Each chapter presents findings based on the analysis of texts. Here we use the term texts in its broadest sense, to mean the written word, spoken word or visual image intended to express meaning. Thus, amongst these chapters we see research findings generated from the analysis of words and images in tourism promotional materials; analysis of the diaries of tourists; computer software analysis of concepts generated from focus group discussions amongst museum stakeholders; verbal protocol analysis and videotape analysis of a tourist packing for travel; analysis of story, poetry and metaphor used by hospitality reception staff to express their lived experiences of their jobs. Each of the chapters concludes with comment on lessons learned about the processes of data gathering and analysis.

Rural tourism agents and operators occupy a central role in the use and diffusion of certain social representations of rurality through the mobilization and utilization of specific (yet increasingly global) signs and symbols that, in the urban imaginary, characterize typical and traditional rural settings. Rural tourism promotional materials may contribute to the reconfiguration of the countryside more in accordance with an idealized rural than with the reality of local features. This chapter examines how rural areas and rurality are presented and commodified, using an exploratory content analysis of online and offline materials combined with a survey directed at rural tourism entrepreneurs in five municipalities of two different Italian regions – Campania and Tuscany. Evidence strongly suggests a discrepancy between the real and the portrayed rurality, pointing at the emergence or reinforcement of rural reconfiguration processes, shaped by external and often global images and imaginaries.

This chapter focuses on tourism from Australia to Gallipoli to attend Anzac Day commemorations. The research examines diary excerpts of tourists to Gallipoli using theory on emotions to gain insights into the consumption experience. We describe this tourist experience as a pilgrimage, as it is purposeful and is aimed at reaching a specific destination that has spiritual meaning for the consumer. We found that this tourist experience elicits both positively and negatively valanced emotions. The findings highlight that not all tourism experiences elicit hedonically related emotions; however, the outcome of the experience can be positive. Further research on emotions that explores this paradox between emotions in consumption and emotions in post-consumption will assist to understand the ways in which consumers process their emotions within this context.

This chapter describes a participatory case study undertaken at a museum in New Zealand, involving a varied range of museum stakeholders. The research investigated aspects of museum performance assessment in the context of public accountability from the perspectives of different communities of interest, including Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. The complex research design involved identifying key stakeholders, and then conducting focus groups with a diversity of stakeholder types. Through a brainstorming process, these groups co-created texts which formed the raw data for the study. The stakeholder-generated texts were interpreted at various stages to produce ‘Possible Performance Statements’ which reflected the understandings and concerns of the various stakeholders in relation to the case museum's performance. Adopting the concept mapping approach developed by Trochim, the focus group participants then sorted the statements into conceptual constructs which made sense to them, and also rated the statements according to their relative importance as criteria for assessing their museum's performance. Proprietary software that is used to analyse the sorting and rating data produced concept maps and pattern matches which facilitated interpretation of the participants’ perspectives. The visual representations of the quantitative analyses enabled qualitative consideration leading to the development of a framework for museum performance assessment which would be more holistic and locally relevant and which would address stakeholder concerns.

The application of this intricate hybrid research design provided lessons which suggested other ways to gain richer data and deeper insights from the concept mapping approach, especially in a cross-cultural context. Participatory approaches which allow collective, as opposed to individual, interpretation of the co-created texts may be more suitable in certain cultural contexts, in this instance among Maori participants. The approach adopted was resource-intensive, requiring tight organisation and flexibility, greatly assisted by piloting the processes and using a professional editor to prepare the texts for interpretation by the participants. To maximise the insights from the focus groups, audio-recording of the research participants’ discussions as they generated their texts relating to museum performance assessment should be considered, as well as involving participants in the interpretation of the concept maps.

Packing for travel is an intriguing aspect of tourist behavior. Until recently, no research has sought to explain what the modern traveler packs for air journeys or why these items are packed. Perhaps for some observers these questions appear mundane, and the answers appear obvious, yet these issues attract a great volume on commentary on websites, blogs, in travel books, in magazines, and conversations between travelers. From these sources, Hyde and Olesen (2011) developed a grounded theory of packing for air travel. The purpose of this article is to test the grounded theory of packing for air travel using video-ethnographic case study data. The findings are that the grounded theory for air travel is able to explain what possessions are packed and the motives for these items being packed. The emphasis that any individual places on the possessions they pack and the role these possessions play during a journey will differ by traveler. This adds to extant literature on packing for travel.

This chapter examines how hospitality and tourism researchers can use ‘expressive text’ (or writing) to express the lived quality of an experience in order to ‘show what an experience is really like’ rather than ‘tell what it is like’. Expressive text refers to written language forms such as narrative, poetry and metaphor that can be used as tools in research to vividly represent the meaning and feeling conveyed in an experience. The expressive text-based approach to researching lived experience provides a textual link between experience and its expression. For this reason, it is especially useful when working with lived experience accounts of phenomenological and hermeneutic research.

The expressive text-based approach suggested here is still a relatively under explored arena within hospitality and tourism research. As a relatively under explored arena, the rich insightful knowledge that can be gained from understanding practitioner experience is rarely a central focus of scholarly writings about the workplace in hospitality and tourism contexts. However, in order to be fully appreciated as a discipline in its own right and to advance knowledge of the field, understanding the typical and significant attributes of hospitality and tourism work will be decidedly helpful.

One of the difficulties of working with lived experience accounts is finding a suitable research approach that helps to both retain the lived elements of the experience and ensure the rigour of the inquiry. An expressive text-based methodological framework that has a phenomenological and hermeneutic philosophical underpinning is argued to be suitable for this purpose. Therefore, the focus of this study is to discuss such a methodology and explain the reasons for its content, style and structure in researching lived experience. The approach that is proposed here consists of a five-tiered textually expressive methodology that is employed to contextualise, portray and interpret the lived experience meanings in order to understand the significance of the experience in relation to relevant discourses in hospitality and tourism studies, and to consider implications for policy and professional practice. The guiding questions of the five-tiered framework cover the following issues: (1) What is the context of the lived experience? (2) What is the lived experience of this practice like? (3) What is the meaning of this experience for the practitioner? (4) What is the significance of the experience in contributing to the advancement of knowledge within the field? (5) What are the implications for practice and professional development?

To illustrate uses of this methodology in research, the study here includes an example showing portrayals and interpretations of the typical and significant lived nature of hospitality reception work. This shows and communicates the full meaning of the episode, circumstances or situation. The chapter then concludes with some reflections on benefits as well as tensions in working within an expressive text-based phenomenological and hermeneutic framework.

Each of the three chapters in this part of the Field Guide has, as its primary data source, interviews with tourism and hospitality executives. Sushma Seth Bhat (2012), in her chapter titled Single Case Study Research: The Development of www.purenz.com, explains how she compiled a single case on the development of a destination website, based on interviews with tourism industry executives in New Zealand. In her chapter titled Fashions in Tourism: The Views of Russian Tourists and Experts, Olga Lysikova (2012) utilises information from interviews with travel industry executives to address the question, are there fashions in tourist behaviour? Cindia Ching-Chi Lam and Clara Weng-Si Lei's (2012) chapter, Case Studies in Multicultural Contexts in Asia, presents experiences acquired in undertaking two case study projects in Macao, with much of the data gathered from interviews with executives in the Macao hotel industry.

This chapter shares with readers the author's reflections on the process of deciding upon and carrying out research using a single case study. The purpose of the research was to understand the nature and dynamics of co-operation in destination marketing and to contribute to the development of a relevant theoretical framework for the study of co-operation in destination marketing. Fig. 1 summarises the process used to carry out this study; each stage of this process is further elaborated upon in the chapter. The chapter concludes with the author's reflections on what has been learned from this project about the joys and perils of case study research.

It is fashionable among Russians to travel all over the world. The author researches the social and cultural phenomenon of fashions in tourism based on analysis of the views of Russian tourists and experts from the tourism sphere. The criteria for prestige of a tourism destination are considered. Fashion trends in the practices of Russian tourists are analyzed.

Networking, gatekeeper access, understanding of “localized talks,” and jargon are revealed to be influential factors on the quality and richness of case study research (CSR) data. Rapport between the researcher and the interviewee not only affect the depth of the data collected but also the credibility and completeness of the final research output. This chapter discusses these features of CSR by employing two different CSR studies. The chapter provides practical insights to promote the interviewee's confidence in revealing sensitive data, through a three-step procedure.

In the first chapter in Part Three, Jan Louise Jones provides useful practical advice for the first-time tourism researcher for doing participant observation research. Keep a daily journal and actually talk with participant actors to learn their plans, actions, and interpretations of outcomes are two takeaway proposals to look for when reading Jones’ contribution. The references are very useful sources that expand of Jones’ recommendations. The mistake to avoid is thinking that you will be able to remember all the daily details and nuances of your observations without a written daily journal.

The purpose of this research is to highlight some of the experiences and lessons learned from participating in qualitative research abroad for the first time. The chapter provides an overview of an international research trip to Cuba to study the impact of tourism on a tourist's value stance and highlights some of the feelings and emotions a researcher may experience when embarking on this type of trip. Tips for conducting research before, during and after a trip, are provided throughout the chapter.

Scholars tend to examine knowledge spillover particularly with reference to science-based and hi-tech industries, but little is known about this phenomenon within cultural industries. Some entrepreneurship scholars try to figure out how new ventures can arise starting from knowledge spillovers. This chapter shows how knowledge spillovers can occur within cultural industries and why it is usually difficult for these moments to give rise to entrepreneurial initiatives. The chapter offers a case study to provide a deep understanding of the phenomenon and to identify areas for future research.

The study uses assisted-subjective personal introspection (ASPI) to analyze, assess, and critique a traveler's adventure as well as uncover the rationale behind why participating in a long trip with global implications was important to this traveler. Coupled with a thorough ASPI analysis, the study constructs an autoethnography: a form of autobiographical personal narrative that explores a traveler's experience of life. To equip the traveler with the necessary skills and tools to perform this analysis, the study includes research using ASPI and autoethnography. Finally, participating in Harvard University's “Implicit Association Test” (IAT) provides an external analysis and better understanding of own conscious–unconscious divergences. Using causal mapping, the study delineates a 14-week trip into weekly increments identifying positive and negative relationships while assessing the strengths of those relationships. The goal of this exercise is twofold: (1) to increase understanding of the human condition and (2) how that understanding can influence international marketing.

Tourism literature tends to focus on passive tourists, who constitute the majority of tourists today. However, there is a growing number of individuals who overlap their study, work, and business with tourism activities. These independent tourists have created a new segment in the tourism industry, where tourists develop and experience their own tourism activities. However, there is a lack of current research on these independent tourists, especially in terms of how they function in the experience management process and how this can be translated into various new types of offers.

This study investigates the functions, experiences, and behaviors of this type of tourists. Accordingly, this study makes use of purposive sampling, employing direct observation, in-depth interviews, and analysis of personal social media (e.g., blogs). The findings show that while some independent tourists function in a multitude of ways, from searching for ideas to composing, creating, and experiencing their own products, others are less active and tend to piggyback their efforts on those of more active tourists. The study finds that the motivational matrix is highly important for individuals who combine work and tourism. Working persons with a strong motivation for tourism relative to work maintain high levels of commitment, activity, and creativity in the tourism sphere, especially when they face problems with their work. Highly satisfied independent tourists initiate future actions by either revisiting the same destination or leading others to have similar experiences at the same location. Finally, the chapter discusses some methodological lessons learned from direct observation and in-depth interviews and studying social media.

We report field research undertaken in five sites in New Zealand in which we explored the process of tourists’ in-destination decision-making. We then critique our experiences of conducting this project.

This section of the Field Guide presents an alternative paradigm for case study research, stakeholder participatory research. Such research takes an alternative viewpoint from that of researcher as owner of the research process, or researcher as disinterested creator of knowledge for general consumption. Instead, the four chapters here present an alternative view on who should own the research process and who should benefit from the knowledge that research generates. In answer to both of these questions, stakeholder participatory research has a singular answer: the local community-based stakeholder should own and benefit from case study research.

Participatory Action Research, or PAR, draws on the paradigms of critical theory and constructivism (Whyte, W. F. (1989). Advancing scientific knowledge through participatory action research. Sociological Forum, 32(5), 499–623) and aims to influence the design and outcomes of behaviours occurring in a case study (Woodside, A. G. (2010a). Case study research: Theory, methods and practice (p. 13). Bingley, UK: Emerald). In tourism studies, this methodology is relevant for renewing research orientation and paradigms for stakeholder collaboration, as the approach focuses on the principle of empowering local actors in community-based development processes.

This chapter explores PAR with an exploratory case study in a rural area of Piedmont, Italy. The case study demonstrates that PAR is a valid approach when the research purposes are not only to produce a deep understanding of forms of collaborations but also to create a co-operative climate by planning actions with local actors. The research approach involves evaluating deliberated actions and thereby stimulating strategic thinking in resource allocation processes.

Sustainable tourism development is a concept that recognizes both environmental and socio-cultural limits to development. It also recognizes that as tourist numbers increase, socio-cultural and environmental costs increase. As such, sustainable tourism considers social and cultural liability, economic productivity and ecological sensibility in all its processes. The sustainability of the tourism industry can only be assured through maintaining the natural, social and cultural values of regional areas that rely on a tourism industry.

In this case study of tourism on Gökçeada (Imbros) Island in Turkey, a model is developed which explains the maintenance of social, cultural, natural and architectural environments to achieve sustainability in tourism. The case study research employs interviews, observation and Delphi techniques. A SWOT analysis on how best to protect and develop the social and cultural identity of Gökçeada is completed based on the findings of the interviews, observations, Delphi analysis and literature. A Sustainable Tourism Tree Model is presented for tourism in Gökçeada. Future applications of the Sustainable Tourism Tree Model, both for generating development of tourist destinations in a sustainable way and for resolving socio-cultural challenges in development, are discussed.

Tourism destinations are facing intense and increasing competition worldwide, while consumers are ever more demanding, requiring not only service quality but also socially responsible and sustainable destinations. In this context, developing accessible tourism at a destination may help gain competitiveness in an underserved, typically most loyal market. Developing accessible tourism may also create a culture of social responsibility. This would enhance a shared, human and involving vision of the destination amongst stakeholders, including tourists who increasingly value socially responsible positions of economic actors in the tourism industry. The development of this approach is shown for Lousã, a small tourism destination focusing on accessible tourism as a core of its development strategy, a strategy developed through a stakeholder participatory approach. In this chapter, we present a study that helped develop the strategic positioning of Lousã, combining qualitative and quantitative methods and integrating visions of several relevant stakeholders.

The DIT-ACHIEV Model recognises that tourism is an important source of revenue, investment and employment throughout Ireland. It is particularly important in rural regions, given the unique selling point provided by the beauty and character of rural Ireland that must be managed correctly and in a sustainable manner to ensure its success and longevity. Tourism's impacts (direct and indirect) on areas such as the environment, transport, regional planning, business and trade mean that policies and plans must be coordinated and integrated to avoid one area of policy pressurising or hindering the success of another.

The main thrust of this chapter is on learnings from piloting the Model, which is an indicators-based tool for evaluating the state of tourism in a destination. In developing appropriate methodologies, a variety of innovative research approaches have been tested and the resultant efforts to reach appropriate and valid results in each instance are the focus of this chapter. All of the research tools require local participation in varying degrees from volunteers, residents, students, businesses, organisations, etc. In some instances, these processes have proven to be highly successful; in others, more challenging. One of the key outcomes of developing the methodologies is increased learning in the area of local agency empowerment/facilitation. These are lessons that can be transferred in a practical and real way to any local-level tourism research project.

Those promoting tourism often seek to highlight that which is unique about their destinations in order to attract tourists. Many countries have beautiful landscapes, rich histories and heritage, and the tourist may come to see linkages of landscape and history across different countries and indeed possibly across continents. However, in the search for the unique, those countries with ethnic minority or other minority groups demarcated by factors other than ethnicity but characterised by special belief systems or ways of life living within their borders (e.g. the Amish) are truly able to offer the tourist a glimpse of something that will not be found in other parts of the world. Accordingly, and being aware that holiday makers are not lay anthropologists and may be seeking little more than an entertainment, minorities and their culture have become in many places a staged show based primarily on song and dance. Indeed, such has been the process that Xie (2011, p. 196) provides an example from the island of Hainan, China, where tourism promoters have created ‘the authentic Chiyou tribe’ to entertain tourists – a tribe developed purely for entertainment based on concepts of the exotic and primitive and only loosely based on the culture of the native Li people. One partial result described by Xie (2011) has been that the Li themselves have become confused as to their own culture.

This research examines, in a case study of Pitcairn Island, the meaning of community. Such meanings emerge in the empirical field whereby the ‘field’ offers its own cues to both issue and method. The main lesson learned from this ethnographic study stems from the experiential nature of fieldwork whereby ‘community’ is viewed as a cluster of embodied dispositions and practices. Influenced by Anthony Cohen's ethnographic work (1978, 1985) the case study demonstrates the centrality of the symbolic dimensions of community as a defining characteristic. Described as one of the most isolated islands in the world accessible only by sea, Pitcairn is the last remaining British ‘colony’ in the Pacific, settled in 1790 by English mutineers and Tahitians following the (in)famous mutiny on the Bounty. It represents in an anthropological sense a unique microcosm of social structure, studied ethnographically only a handful of times. Results show symbolic referents contribute to a sense of ‘exclusivity’ of Pitcairn culture that facilitates co-operation and collectivity whilst also recognizing the internal–external dialectics of boundaries of identification. The study reveals culture as a symbolic rather than structural construct as experienced by its members, seeing the community as a cultural field with a complex of symbols whose meanings vary amongst its members. Thus, connection and contiguity of culture continually transform the meaning of community, space and place. As such, community continues to be of both practical and ideological significance to the practice of anthropology.

The aim of this chapter is to reflect on some of the implications in doing fieldwork in a small and relatively isolated island community. In 2009, a Danish island in the Wadden Sea National Park, only reachable by motor vehicles when the tide is out, was selected to host one of the many events taking place during the biannual Wadden Sea Festival. The aim of the project was to create vanishing art depicting the quality of life (QoL) on the island by use of materials found in the island's natural environment. Prior to the implementation of the event and as a part of the project, the authors were invited to qualitatively investigate the QoL among island residents, specifically focusing on subjective well-being. Through a description of stakeholder connections and conflicts, a number of lessons are discerned and pondered upon. In addition to applying the case to demonstrate and discuss how researchers can investigate QoL in tourism and how research(ers) impact small communities, we also reflect on the unforeseen consequences and entanglements of a seemingly (because of its size) ‘straightforward’ field of research. It is argued that field studies in very small communities more easily expose not only ‘outside’ interference, but also controversies and conflicts between neighbours, within families and between dwellers and professions of multiple sorts. Consequently we argue that researchers must continuously reflect on their own role in and relations to the places and communities – the ‘cases’ – which they investigate.

Triangulation of research methods is crucial to thoroughly explore how tourism can be better linked to the local economy in the Pacific's ‘Small Island Developing States’ (SIDS) because it includes the use of multiple data collections, analytical methods, data sources and theories or perspectives (Rocco et al., 2003). The exploration of the interactions between the various stakeholders in tourism and the wider economy will help linkages to be understood and enhanced. The research focuses on the following stakeholders: tourists, growers, small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs), government officials and village councils. The study explores the ways in which each of these stakeholder groups interacts with each other and their perspectives on the issues surrounding the linkages between tourism and agriculture.

The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the use of a case study of Niue and multiple data-gathering techniques to collect critical information on the linkages between tourism and agriculture in Pacific SIDS. The findings and lessons learned from a single case study of Niue using a mixed-methods approach potentially benefit other island nations in the region. This chapter begins with a discussion on the usefulness of case study research and then justifies the use of a mixed-methods approach and multiple stakeholders to better understand the linkages between tourism and agriculture in SIDS. The complexities of the inter-sectoral analysis being undertaken and the lack of prior data in this area necessitated a mixed-methods approach to the research. The chapter thoroughly discusses the research process and participants, including the design of research tools and the conduct of field work. Then the chapter focuses on research findings and concludes by reviewing the lessons learned from this research approach and its use of a case study and mixed methods to gain a holistic insight into the potential for enhancing the linkages between tourism and agriculture on Niue.

This chapter examines how values relating to sustainability of indigenous cultures together with values relating to establishing economic autonomy through entrepreneurial initiatives can be accommodated in developing tourism policy. Specifically, the Hopi tribe of Arizona in the United States is investigated. Sustainable entrepreneurship, cultural sustainability, and cultural citizenship are used as theoretical frameworks to comprehend capacities for tourism policy that consider social, economic, and cultural impacts, as well as the integrated nature of these impacts on the Hopi tribe. Survey data was used to operationalize the concepts. Embodying core principles for protection of culture within a tourism policy along with procedural elements for compliance has the best chance for achieving the aims of preservation and development of cultural identity.

This section of the book comprises three chapters written by Oksana Grybovych, Susan Slocum, Ken Backman, Elisabeth Baldwin and Chris Ryan. The first two by Grybovych (2012) and Slocum, Backman, and Baldwin (2012) respectively report research processes related to specific projects, while the last seeks to provide an analysis associated with cross-case study research. By definition cross-case analysis relates to comparisons being made across different places, or of the same place across different times (a longitudinal analysis such as that by Gu & Ryan, 2008, 2011, in their studies of Shi Chi Hai Hutong in Beijing) or indeed of different places at different times, but related to each other by the commonality of a theme identified by the researcher.

This chapter explores methodological aspects of designing a qualitative multi-case research study to examine the issues of citizen participation, new democratic forms of planning, and community tourism planning. The study discussed below took place during the months of June 2007–March 2008 in three North American communities – two in the United States and one in Canada. The purposes of the study were to compare and contrast the current practices of citizen involvement in community tourism planning with the framework of deliberative democracy, to expand the literature on tourism planning, and to contribute to the development of a model of participatory community tourism planning to be adopted by communities and planners pursuing tourism as a development tool. This chapter focuses on methodological intricacies of designing a qualitative multi-case research study, those wishing to explore the project more are referred to Grybovych (2008).

Tourism is being utilized as a key economic development tool of the 21st century. Serious concern over the benefit of tourism for the poor has contributed to discussion on community involvement and community participation in contemporary literature. In particular, sustainable development has become a way to address the long-term viability of income and employment in least-developed countries while attempting to preserve traditional customs and culture in the face of globalization. Sustainability refers to finding solutions to poverty without compromising the natural and cultural resource base needed by future generations to pursue their own economic goals. This task requires attention to the economic, cultural and social needs of all groups while focusing on solutions that are also viable for the long term (Bramwell, 2001; Davidson, 2007; Mfaume & Leonard, 2004). It is also important to note that social structures and cultural references vary noticeably within countries and regions. Therefore, three separate, independent instrumental case studies (also known as collective case studies) were conducted in three distinct Tanzanian communities in or around tourism destinations. The objective was to allow for the autonomy of specific cultural, social and business networks to be reflected in the research methodology.

Case studies allow for the investigation of constraints to economic participation within real-life experiences, as there is no clear distinction between the phenomenon and the context. Instrumental case studies strive to develop theory, or in this case, facilitate understanding of pervasive problems and do not require typical study populations (Stake, 1995). An instrumental case study is utilized where a ‘particular case is examined mainly to provide insight’ into a phenomenon and the case supports understanding of the phenomenon (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). The emphasis is placed on specific issues rather than on the case itself. The case in then used as a vehicle to develop a better understanding of the situation or problem (Stake, 2003). Single case studies are ideal for investigating a phenomenon that has not been previously studied and can make a significant contribution to knowledge (Yin, 2003). Since constraints to economic participation within Tanzania have not yet been empirically studied, each individual case study is exploratory in nature.

Once the specific case studies were independently derived and themes developed, a cross-case comparison offered insight into reoccurring themes or case-specific constraints. Using an iterative process, the strength of this methodology lies in the inductive approach that provides suggestive rather than definitive analysis (Welch, 1994). The first phase of analysis results in ‘within’ themes specific to a particular region. Using cross-case comparisons, emergent patterns provide similarities and differences between the three communities.

Prior to the development of low-cost computing and the ease of completing statistical analysis, case studies played a significant role in the development of the social sciences. However, since the mid-1990s statistical modelling and empirically driven work has come to dominate academic literature; yet there remain epistemological similarities between some forms of case study work and statistical modelling. Nonetheless, issues of the qualitative versus quantitative divide and the purported role of value judgments made by the researchers have in part muddied the waters until quite recently, when the researchers using statistical methods started to adopt the use of the first person in their writing and began to recognise that the choice of a given statistical technique is just as surely a value judgment or exercise of experience and expertise as is any interpretation of text by a qualitative researcher. Similarly, qualitative researchers have become increasingly familiar with textual analysis using software programmes based on neural network theory, and a new generation of researchers have become comfortable with a mixed method mode of analysis.

Maria Amoamo is a post-doctoral fellow in Te Tumu, the School of Māori Pacific and Indigenous Studies at University of Otago in New Zealand. Maria's research interests include the representation of indigenous, cultural and heritage tourism. Her PhD thesis examined the issue of identity in relation to Māori regional tourism within a post-colonial framework. She is currently examining the economic value of identity in relation to determining ‘what is the profile of Māori tourism in Dunedin?’ Maria is also examining the issue of social vulnerability and resilience of Pacific Island communities in relation to tourism.