Matthias Muskat

A growing number of studies use mobile ethnography and mobile devices to collect data, yet studies reveal a lack of coherent definition and inconsistencies in validity criteria. We draw on relevant literature from tourism, health and retail, and connect research designs utilizing mobile ethnographic methods. We show how these existing studies capture mobilities and social phenomena in boundaryless dynamic settings, allowing researchers to co-create knowledge with their participants. As a result, we offer a framework for mobile ethnography, consisting of four explanatory dimensions: the role of the researcher; focus of research; data collection and tools; and data analysis. Our methodological contribution specifies validity criteria and derives concrete implications for research practices in qualitative interpretive mobile ethnography.

Service quality and design researchers in tourism have long been directed by demand-driven paradigms and consumer-centred rationales. Ontologies and epistemologies are largely output orientated and customer centred, that is, performance of services, number of satisfied customers, loyal repeat visitors, overnight stays, financial performance and others. We argue that a need exists to reduce this imbalance. This conceptual article reviews the relevant literature before developing five fundamental premises regarding the enabler-oriented view of the tourism industry. Future research should conduct empirical studies to validate and/or modify the premises presented in this conceptual article.

The impacts of globalisation and cultural convergence theory have been discussed in various research areas. Scholars agree that global consumer behaviour becomes increasingly homogenous. However, in tourism, there is still evidence that visitor markets are distinguished and segmented according to their nationality. This study argues that national borders have lost in significance to separate markets. By means of a correspondence analysis, this study provides evidence that European travel behaviour in Australia shows similar activity patterns. The findings highlight that country-based visitor segmentation has lost momentum.

Purpose: This paper suggests mobile ethnography as a method for data collection, where Generation Y customers are integrated as active investigators. The paper aims to contribute to the debate on museums as experience‐centred places, to understanding how the experience is perceived by Generation Y, to identifying the customer journey, to providing an insight into service experience consumption and to deriving managerial implication for the museum industry of how to approach Generation Y.Design/methodology/approach: Mobile ethnography is applied to the National Museum of Australia in Canberra with a sample of Generation Y visitors as the future visitor market.Findings: The paper finds that there is a need to involve museum management in measuring museum experiences, especially with regard to the definition and improvement of the service‐delivery processes. Service experience must be appropriately managed by museum operators by collecting, evaluating, storing and reusing relevant data on customer experience. Mobile ethnography and tools such as MyServiceFellow offer an important potential source of sustainable competitive advantage by improving customer experience, particularly for Gen Y.Research limitations/implications: The most significant limitation is the exploratory nature of the single case study derived from a small sample within only one museum.Originality/value: This is one of the few studies to have addressed mobile ethnography in a service context and examined the museum experience of Generation Y. The paper finds that there is a need to involve museum management in service design to improve the service‐delivery process, especially with regard to the different mindsets of the Millennials.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the causes that have led to a rather fragmented view of quality management among tourism marketing organisations in Germany. The aim is to identify and to interpret the relevant societal cultural factors underpinning German management. The paper examines the influence of culture on the perception and performance of quality management in tourism organisations.Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on a data set which previously explored and analysed the diffusion of total quality management in German public tourism marketing organisations. In this paper, the data set has been re‐analysed and mapped against societal cultural elements. The analysis evaluates cultural factors that influence perceptions among German tourism marketing organisations on quality management.Findings: This paper identifies cultural aspects that influence the perception and performance of quality in tourism organisations. The findings relate cultural antecedents in three identified core issues of quality: underdeveloped training and motivational events for staff; unbalanced strategic positioning in terms of quality; and weak commitment to standards and guidelines.Practical implications: The implications that can be drawn from the findings of this paper are twofold. First, the results could be integrated into future educational policies in tourism. Second, implications and learning for tourism managers from this paper relate to a holistic, integrative, and systems‐based approach to quality management instead of only implementing individual quality aspects.Originality/value: This paper is one of the first studies to consider the influences of societal culture on the perception and performance of quality management in the German tourism sector.

The article depicts a mixed methodology case which uses a qualitative-quantitative-qualitative approach. The research described used qualitative work with expert interviews for data collection, a quantitative analysis of the interviews and then a qualitative method of final scenario development for analysing and presenting the results. The case is offered to demonstrate that the introduction of the quantitative step of a cross-impact-analysis, which gives a mixed methodology, was beneficial for the overall research leading to surprising results that could not have been achieved with only a qualitative approach. Having a quantitative analysis step in-between, which demonstrated the most frequent and consistent results out of a wide range of overall possibilities, helped reduce researcher bias, thereby increasing the credibility of the findings. The paper concludes that judiciously used mixed methodology in general, and this approach in particular, will give researchers using qualitative data collection a much stronger foundation in terms of the analysis and display of data.