1Basically, research mainly consists of several methods. The main task is achieved through a survey and the application of the segmentation method. The method of survey is basic in the field research work in various scholar disciplines.
- 1 Petkov, V., Cultural tourism, tourists, destinations in Bulgaria, pbl. Inkoma, 2020.
- 2 Stoyanova, M., Consumer behavior in tourism, Konstantin Preslavski Publishing House, 2019
2Key methods used. Experimental research, such as the current study, aims to control the environment, the effect of certain variables on consumer consumption, the quality of service, etc. According to many authors (Penerliev, 20141, Stoyanova, 20192, etc.), field investigations are the most appropriate research methods. According to Stoyanova (2019), “… their reliability is much higher than in-house research and concrete results are observed. They are not expensive and they do not take too much time… ”.
3Survey research is one of the most commonly used field methods in research work. It is a unique and unified "tool" in seemingly disparate disciplines – investigation of public attitudes, of settlements and their population, of tourists, etc. In this study, this is also the main research method applied. According to the authors mentioned above, a survey even engages the user as an active party, bringing additional information.
- 3 Ilieva, S., “Sociology. 18 selected lections”, Konstantin Preslavski Publishing House, Shumen, pp. (...)
4Theoretically, here we highlight only the most important features. According to Ilieva (2017)3, in this method the source of information is the self-consciousness of the surveyed person. It can be of several types: direct survey, indirect survey, home survey, postal survey, ballot-box survey, electronic survey.
5Home survey. In this type of survey, the interviewer has received the list of persons to be surveyed by visiting them. The interviewer explains to each one who has initiated the survey and for what purpose, requests them to fill in the questionnaire personally by hand and settles the means of taking it back.
6Postal survey. It is a cheap method of gathering empirical information. It requires 2 envelopes with 2 stamps. All explanations and instructions to the respondents are written on a piece of paper. The questionnaire is sent to the respondents in one envelope, and it contains, except the questionnaire and instructions, a second envelope in which the completed questionnaire is placed and returned. This type of survey has a very low return – 25-30%, which immediately raises the question about the representativeness of the study. Usually, the agencies that use this method accompany it with reward incentives.
7Ballot-box survey. This is a typical Bulgarian method, very efficient, fast and short, which allows covering a large sample of people, but which works effectively only in nesting research (always accompanied by the question "Do you want to participate?"). There is no doubt about its reliability and representativeness.
8Direct survey. In this type of survey, the questionnaires are distributed to the respondents individually and are left with them for some time – from a few hours to several days so that they can fill them in. Distributing the questionnaires, the interviewer explains the purpose of the survey and, if necessary, gives some explanations for completing the questionnaire. The interviewer also agrees with the respondents when the completed questionnaires can be collected. This method is convenient in organizational terms, but also has some drawbacks. For various reasons, some of the questionnaires are not returned to the interviewer. This compromises the representativeness of the information, which affects the quality of the study. Also, due to the fact that the questionnaire stays with the respondent for a certain period of time, it is possible for the respondent to consult other adjacent people when filling it in. Thus, from an individual, the survey can become a collective one. In organizational aspect, this necessitates maximum efforts to minimize the possibility of collective completion of questionnaires. It is best when the interviewer has the opportunity and conditions to wait for the respondent to fill in the questionnaire and take it back from them on the spot.
9Indirect survey. It is characterized by a number of features. In addition to the self-consciousness of the surveyed person, it uses many other available information sources that can characterize personal views, attitudes and preferences. These sources are usually: the behavior of the subject; the personal documents and belongings; the opinions and attitudes of relatives, friends and colleagues towards him/her.
10Another feature of this method is that not the respondent fills in the questionnaire, but the interviewer. This methodological feature makes indirect survey similar to interview and in particular to entourage interview. The documents related to the person are studied by the method "Content analysis". This is an extremely valuable research method, because it ensures a high degree of reliability of information by comparing data and information obtained from different sources. Its main drawback is the characteristics of violation of individual rights, which are involved in the study of documents and circumstances related to the life and behavior of the subject. Moreover, in principle, this person does not know about the organized collection of information concerning him/her. This serious shortcoming of indirect survey makes it a difficult research method to apply, which is used relatively rarely. In Bulgaria, this method was used in the 1960s in a study on the problems of religiosity.
11According to the same cited author, a survey consists of two main parts:
121-Introductory-constructive section. Its importance should not be underestimated, as in the conditions of part-time communication the introduction is the only means for motivating the respondent to fill in the questionnaire, to induce an attitude of sincerity in the answers. The introduction informs who initiated the survey and for what reasons, and gives the necessary comments and instructions on how to deal with the survey.
132-Questionnaire. This is the main part of the survey. Designing an unambiguous, unbiased and productive questionnaire is not easy. It is very important that the possible answers exhaust all possible options.
14Types of questions. The following types of questions are classified:
15Direct questions – they afford the respondent to express their own position.
16Indirect questions – they give the respondent the opportunity to express agreement or disagreement with the position of others.
17Filter questions – called so because they allow separating some of the respondents on some criterion. For example, gender, age, profession, etc.
18Dichotomous questions – they suggest two mutually exclusive answers.
19Menu question – suggests multivariate answers, so the respondent can choose a combination of answer options.
20Scale questions – questions in which answer consists in a predetermined scale of possible ratings.
21Tabular questions – their answer is in the form of filling in a table.
22Open-ended questions – they do not contain any answer options, and the respondent writes down an answer by their own discretion in a special field in the questionnaire.
23Semi-closed questions – some of the answer options have been suggested in advance, which may satisfy the respondents, but they are also free to add their own option.
24For the purpose of our research we apply a direct survey. This is one of the most commonly used specific registration methods. The direct survey means that the questionnaire is filled in by the respondent.
- 4 Ilieva, S., “Sociology. 18 selected lections”, Konstantin Preslavski Publishing House, Shumen, pp. (...)
25One form of direct survey is the postal survey. One of the serious weaknesses of the postal survey is the large relative portion of unreturned questionnaires, which penalizes the representativeness of the information (Ilieva, 20174).
26A direct survey is also the direct group survey with a ballot-box – it is characterized by economy, speed and relatively high scientific reliability. The surveyed subjects are summoned to a neutral place (school, community center, etc.) with writing facilities. A ballot-box should be placed in front in advance. If possible, the interviewer should not be from the same settlement, and if the settlement is large – from the same area. The interviewer should be introduced to the respondents by an authoritative local public figure, after which the latter leaves. The interviewer briefly tells about the essence of the research, makes the necessary explanations on the questions included, on the principles of selection of the persons to be subjected to research, as well as on the anonymity issue. If there are some queries, the interviewer answers. If some of the persons refuse to participate in the survey, they are free to leave. The interviewer then distribute the questionnaires. As completed, the questionnaires are placed in the ballot-box by the respondents themselves, the box is stirred in front of them after which the questionnaires are taken out.
- 5 Nonchev, A. Monitoring and evaluation of public policies and programs. Training Manual - Part 1. Ce (...)
27Quantitative methods for collecting information are included in all the methods listed below, some of which we use for the purposes of our study (Nonchev, 2009, p. 62)5.
28Survey is the most common quantitative method for collecting information about the subjective world and behavior of the respondents. It can be exhaustive or based on samples, depending on whether all units of a given population are reached or only a part of them is selected. Separate units of the investigation can be not only individuals, but also different social objects, separated by some common feature – households, schools, hospitals, municipalities and others. The complete number of such units is called overall set. When the number of units in an overall set is too large so that all of them to be covered, a part of them (the so-called sample) is selected to participate in the survey. The way this part is determined is called selection method. Only the basic principles of the different selection methods will be considered here, without describing in detail their technology and variations.
29In the stochastic (random) method of selection, all units of the overall set have an equal chance of being included in the sample. In this way, the structure of the sample represents with certain accuracy the structure of the overall set. This ensures the representativeness of the information obtained for the sample which can be assigned to the overall set with a certain stochastic error. The larger the absolute sample size, the greater the degree of representativeness of the data. Surveys typically use samples of 500 to 2,000 people, the most common samples including 1,000 to 1,200 respondents.
30In the quota method of selection, researchers must have information on the main structure-determining ratios in the population. For example, there may be no list of adult residents in a city, but there is available information on their demographic structure by gender, age, education, ethnicity, or other characteristics that are important for the purposes of the specific assessment. Then the sample is modeled so that on these grounds it represents the real ratios in the overall set. If the city population consists of 80 percent Bulgarians, 5 percent Turks and 15 percent Romani people, this should be their ratio in the sample. If among Bulgarians the ratio between men and women is 49:51, and among Romanies – 40:60, it should also be represented in the sample, etc.
31The typological method of selection is usually applied when researchers have neither a list of the overall set nor information on the distribution of the main characteristics in the population. In such case, the units in it are divided into subgroups according to the criteria of interest and the survey includes a certain number of units from each subgroup. If the above example is used, the sample should include a certain number of men and women, people of different ages and educational groups, Bulgarians, Turks and Romanies, and their ratio does not have to be the same as in the overall set. In this case, the data and the conclusions of the investigation are tentative and apply only to the specific study subgroups, but are not representative of the overall set.
- 6 Nonchev, A. Monitoring and evaluation of public policies and programs. Training Manual - Part 1. Ce (...)
32There is another method of selection, which is not performed by the researcher – the so-called "respondents method". In this method, according to Nonchev (2009)6,
“…the questions from the survey are announced publicly or in a place accessible only to the population we are interested in, for example in the mass media, on the Internet, in shops, public institutions, sent by mail, etc. The main disadvantage of this method is that the response depends more on the psychological attitudes of the subjects than on their level of concern and awareness of the problem. As a rule, these surveys are characterized by a small proportion of those who responded to the invitation to participate in the survey. In this case, as a rule, the surveys cannot be representative either for the whole population or for individual groups in it ... ”
33a sample survey of the type “responding persons” is carried out.
- 7 Mihailov, S., Extract Studies, В: The Empirical Sociological Research, Sofia, 1980.
34Methodological basis for the development and conduct of a survey research under the "respondents method” is the study of S. Mihailov (1980, pp. 190-2047). According to him, it is an "Empirical sociological research" for conducting a sample survey "as per the respondents". The author describes it in detail as follows [55, p. 191]: “Usually the questionnaire is targeted at a certain social audience... Each member of the relevant audience, not the relevant stratum of the population, the boundaries of this stratum being not strictly defined, can fill in the questionnaire and send it to the organizer of the survey. The questionnaire is in most cases sent by post. ... Participation in such investigations is voluntary.”
35The author describes two shortcomings of the "responding persons" study as follows:
„1. The boundaries of the overall set are not strictly defined because it is largely indeterminate;
2. The more active ones participate. "As a result, it is not possible to scientifically calculate the representativeness of such information. In principle, the latter is not representative".
36Bearing in mind that one of the specific objectives of this study is to seek opinion and express attitude towards the question asked, as well as the objective impossibility of setting a representative sample, the sampling method "as per the respondents" is the best choice for the particular case.
37There is also indirect survey among the field survey methods. As Ilieva (2017) claims, “indirect survey is superior to direct survey on the diversity of information sources and the possibility to verify any answer, as well as to avoid not answering some questions. Indirect survey is similar to interview, because the answers are recorded by the interviewer. But in interview this is done only on the basis of a conversation with the subject, i.e. the source of information turns out to be the respondent’s self-consciousness”. In the present study, the authors believe that such a survey does not meet the needs of the experiment.