The Delphi Technique: A Tool For Long Range Travel and Tourism Planning

1. The Delphi Technique: A Tool For Long Range Travel and Tourism Planning Chapter 39 Research Methodologies

2. Why Study the Future? • If measured by the time between events, time is actually speeding up • To cope with the accelerated rate of time, one needs to plan to meet anticipated change • Tourism planning and management require looking to the future for events that are likely to influence current decisions, as well as to evaluate future impacts of current decisions • Futurism can make a significant contribution to solving tourism planning and management challenges in the next decade and beyond

3. The Uncertainty Barrier • There is a period of time, perhaps three years, beyond which the ability to understand and suggest future events become extremely hazy and uncertain • Some uncertainty barriers: • There are few experts to call on in gauging future political compromises or in assessing public sentiment • Growing world interdependence and intercommunication have grossly complicated the models and the number of parameters involved in the study of future tourism business environment

4. Future Methodologies • Trend extrapolation: • The most common way to make projections is to extrapolate historical experience or past trends • These techniques are based on the restrictive assumption that casual relationships that have produced past trends will continue to operate in the future • However, it is reasonably certain that the future will be nothing like the past

5. Future Methodologies cont… • Scenarios: • A scenario is simply a series of events intertwined to form a concept of the future • It awakens one to the potential problems that might accompany a proposed action • It can help people to decide whether they want to do something and how to do it

6. Future Methodologies cont… • Analytical models: • They are based on mathematical relationships between relevant elements that are thought to produce or influence the outcome of the process of interest • Theses models are flexible so that the relationships between modeled elements and the absolute levels of elements themselves can be changed for estimating the effect on the performance of a system

7. Future Methodologies cont… • Expert opinion: • “Consultants” that make forecasts based on their own special insights and knowledge • Their counsel helps one to understand what may be encountered in the future and how the future can be dealt with

8. The Delphi Technique • Description: • It is a method used to systematically combine expert knowledge and opinion to arrive at an informed group consensus about the likely occurrence of future events • It is based on the assumption that although the future is uncertain, the probabilities can be approximated by individuals who are able to make informed judgments about future contingencies. • It is intended to provide a general perspective on the future rather than a sharp picture

9. Delphi Technique cont.. • It encourages individual input by maintaining anonymity among those who take part in the process • It replaces direct open debate with a series of questionnaires sent to a selected panel of experts • The results are then summarized graphically to show the interquartile range of predictions

10. Critique • This technique has been subjected to much criticism: • They say it is difficult to get the experts to stay on a Delphi panel for an extended period of time • The study director can have an effect depending on the way in which the statements are phrased can easily lead to misinterpretation • This technique usually treats events as independent of one another • Although based on many restrictive assumptions, the Delphi technique is useful where decisions have to be made quickly with limited knowledge.

11. Conclusion • Travel and Tourism planning and management require looking into the future for events that are likely to influence current decisions. • The rapid change that underlies the future tourism and related travel activities is frequently attributed to advancing technology • If planners and managers are to cope, they must focus on the future and plan to meet it through today’s program decisions