{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.020471224410969487, 'fraction_numerical': 0.005793742757821553, 'mean_word_length': 5.507537688442211, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 1, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Tourism Research Methods: Integrating Theory with Practice

The second half of the twentieth century saw a burgeoning of tourism activity, a trend which will probably continue far into the present century. The study of tourism has also picked up pace and complexity, particularly since the first Masters courses began in the 1970s. In academic circles tourism courses at undergraduate and postgraduate or post experience levels continue to proliferate. Partly in response to this, but also as a consequence of the increasing social and economic significance of the industry, formal research into tourism, its organization, consequences and its participants has itself become something of an industry. Tourism research is now supported by over 40 academic journals, and many conferences such as CAUTHE, TTRA, ATLAS and APTA are held annually as well as others convened on an ad hoc basis. Tourism research is also found as a theme within other major conferences dealing with subjects such as geography, retailing or computer systems. It is perhaps curious in these circumstances that there are relatively few books which deal specifically with tourism research methods. Ritchie, Burns and Palmer have made a significant contribution to bridging this gap with a book which sets out to make the link between theoretical study and practical application. Tourism Research Methods, Integrating Theory with Practice will be welcomed by students embarking on a PhD and it will be a useful resource for lecturers supervising Honours or Masters students undertaking research based dissertations. Tourism Research Methods, Integrating Theory with Practice consists of 17 chapters. Following an Introduction by the editors, the contributing authors deal with Ethics in Tourism Research, Feminist and Gender Perspectives, Multi Method Case Study Approach, Visual Evidence, Participant Observation, Tourist Geographies, Delphi Technique, Qualitative Techniques in Interviewing, Mystery Shopping, Longitudinal Methods, Framing Analysis, GIS, Focus Groups, Content Analysis, Cluster Analysis and, in conclusion, a chapter examining the Future of Tourism Research. As implied in their titles (abbreviated above) most of the chapters are technical discussions introducing a specific research methodology: clearly for any given reader some of these chapters will be more relevant than others. The general pattern is to provide a sound and reliable introduction to the topic, with an illustrative practical example, often interesting in its Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Vol. 12, No. 1, March 2007