Chapter 4 addresses the research design and methodology in detail. This section however, briefly outlines the main components of the research design. The research was directed by the collection of data and the resultant analysis and presentation of results. The main sources of information and data collection were the literature study (secondary research) and the empirical research (primary research). These are briefly introduced below.
1.4.1. Secondary Research
The secondary research consisted of a literature review. An extensive review of existing literature was conducted to ensure that the research topic was thoroughly investigated. A range of sources were used including articles, academic dissertations and electronic databases, internet websites, books and journals. The review of published literature established what previous research had been conducted. Chapter 2 reviews the literature from various sources on the marine tourism industry, scuba diving tourism in general and scuba diving tourism in the EAME. Chapter 3 draws from the literature concerning the external risks in the tourism industry, domestic and international risks and risks in the dive tourism industry.
1.4.2. Primary Research
The primary research was conducted with the purpose of collecting data to achieve the primary research objective, with a predominantly quantitative approach being chosen. The primary research consisted of two phases – first was a structured interview while the second (the main phase) included the construction and dissemination of the structured survey.
The structured interview
Structured interviews were conducted with selected dive operators. The aim was to assess the relevance of external risks to dive operators that the researcher had identified in the existing literature, and thus gain further insights. Four structured interviews were conducted in each of the four countries along the east coast of Africa where dive operators are present (i.e. Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa). The four dive operators were selected based on their years of experience and by word of mouth. The structured interviews took place between July and October 2015. These interviews allowed the researcher to ask some open-ended questions, and to interrogate and probe the existing external risks as well as those not previously considered. The findings obtained from these interviews were collated and subsequently assisted in the construction of the structured survey.
The structured survey
Survey research entails obtaining a quantitative description of the trends, attitudes and/or opinions present in a population by studying a sample of that population (Fowler, 2009). The structured survey that was drawn up will be introduced in this chapter under the following
headings: objective of the survey, design of the structured survey, the sampling and survey methods, and the analytical methods (Graziano and Raulin, 2004).
a. Objective of the survey
A structured survey (online web survey), involving a Likert-type scale, was used to collect data from respondents (dive operators) to determine the level of impact of external risks on dive operator businesses. A Likert scale was used involving a descending scale from very high impact (5), high impact (4), moderate impact (3), low impact (2) to no impact (1). The structured survey measured the importance respondents attached to each of the identified external risks. These external risks were grouped under one of four risk categories, namely, environmental, economic, social and political risks. The risk categories were further classified as direct/domestic external risks or indirect/international external risks.
b. Design of the survey
The purpose of the structured survey was to extract primary data. This involved gathering quantitative data using a web survey sent out to dive operators identified along the coast of East Africa. Initially, a review of the relevant literature provided background information for developing questions for the structured interviews. The information collected in the structured interviews was then used as the basis for formulating the primary research instrument, the online web survey (see Appendix B). The tool used to construct this survey was Survey Monkey©. The questions included were developed in line with the research objectives and were arranged into 12 sections which worked together to address the research objectives (see Table 1.3).
Table 1.3: Construction of the structured survey Research
objective Research objective of the study Section of the structured survey 1 Identify the scuba diving operators in the EAME 3 Compare individual external risks experienced by
each of the countries in the EAME (Kenya, 4 Assessed the perception of dive operators regarding
whether external risks would influence a dive
Biographical information was collected in sections 2 to 7. A Likert scale was used in sections 8 to 11 of the structured survey to indicate the level of impact that dive operators perceived the external risks (by risk category) to have on their dive tourism businesses. Section 12 required the respondents to select one option based on the risk category they perceived to have the highest impact on their dive operations both currently and in the future. They were also asked to indicate the adaptation strategies they had implemented to mitigate external risks to their businesses.
c. Sampling and survey method
The target population was all the dive operators operating along the east coast of Africa. The geographical scope of the population included dive operators who at the time of the study were engaged in scuba diving tourism as their primary business activity, and operated within the coastal zone of the EAME. Survey Monkey© was the medium used to distribute the survey to, and collect responses from, all the dive operators identified as operating along the East African coast. Subsequently, the structured survey was sent to 77 respondents using their email addresses, thereby meeting the selection criteria. The period during which the online web survey was conducted was July to September 2016.
d. Analytical methods
Once the responses had been collected on Survey Monkey©, the raw data was exported using the Microsoft© Excel©.csv format and then entered in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)© program for statistical analysis. As this study was explorative in nature, descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) were used to describe the characteristics of the sample. A factor analysis was used to determine whether any meaningful constructs could be established by identifying variables that were more strongly related than others (Field, 2009). Principal axis factoring was used as an extraction method with eigenvalues greater than one, which explains a significant amount of variation in the data, and a rotated factor matrix was applied to determine the factors (Pallant, 2007). Kendall‟s tau (τ) was used to test the significance of the correlation of the population to measure strength of association (Pallant, 2011). Given the small population size it was also important to measure the statistical significance between the different countries in East Africa against each of the risk categories, allowing for a comparison of scores. This was achieved by running a Kruskal-Wallis test to measure the significance of the variables between countries (Pallant, 2011).
Another method of analysis was to assess the internal consistency reliability of the variables
that were considered for measurement as indicators of the underlying constructs (Pallant, 2011). The average of these values was calculated based on Cronbach‟s alpha, which is the most common measure of scale reliability (Pallant, 2011). The findings of the quantitative analysis were then presented in tabular format, and included graphs and diagrams to enable the reader to interpret the results.
e. Ethical clearance
Prior to the collection of any data, the researcher gained ethical clearance from the University of South Africa (UNISA). An ethical clearance certificate for the research was granted by the Ethics Committee of the School of Economic Sciences (Appendix C). This was in compliance with the UNISA Policy on Research Ethics.