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All ROUTES lead to ROME
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Introduction Introduction
 When a young ventures into the entrepreneurial journey, the starting point for success certainly is the territory. As a ready and existing knowledge base, the territory is made up of what works and what not, of particular needs and, at the same time, of hidden and explicit potentialities. The territory can tell a young entrepreneur whether there is room and support for his/her idea, whether there is a good chance for his/her business to grow, whether the expected results are worth the effort. However, in order to get this kind of message, the territory should be properly decoded: this is the goal of the current module, where you will learn to identify a market, as well as to conduct a survey on potential customers, where complete information on them is missing. Finally, you will learn to process the data of interest. Decoding the territory: needs and opportunities
Decoding the territory means analyzing the market in order to secure the future of a business idea. The potential size of a market defines market opportunities: therefore, knowing about the current customer base allows for safer choices, when starting a business. 3 elements are particularly important to be determined:
How many potential customers are available? Are they available always or in a particular season? How are they?
Are potential customers willing and able to spend on the services of interest?
Are there signs, studies or sources the market size will grow, stay relatively static, or decrease?
Have you ever imagined all these informations are just a click away? And that they are very precise, reliable and updated?
They come from the so-called “official-sources”. They might be national and international bodies who produce government census, statistical data, cultural tourism surveys and reports; they might be social media, who define size and features of groups of interest, as well as websites devoted to market research. A characteristic element of data provided by official sources is that they concern a whole “population” (e.g. all the tourists registered in a date-time period, in a country). Such data are either stored in downloadable database or available online for direct consultation. The most important official sources for public cultural tourism/entrepreneurship data are:
They represent the starting point of a larger information research that might help in getting a clearer picture of how large your customer base could be and what kind of sustainability you can expect for the future. Public databases include a great amount of information at different levels of granularity and in different forms: that is why it is important to know how to “query” them and how to look at data visual representation.
The Virtual Tourism Observatory
The VTO aims to support policy makers and businesses to develop better strategies for a more competitive European tourism sector. Their website offers a first ready-for-consultation representation of data: it helps getting a first glimpse on what is going on in the sector.
The visualization options are customizable, as well as the level (either the global EU or the country level) to be examined. The different options include dynamic representations of
The VTO and Eurostat databases
The VTO website provides a Country Profile area. By clicking on it, you will have the possibility to customize the data of interest you want to collect. Data available in the VTO come from the Eurostat database In the VTO Country Profile section, let us say we want to explore how our country of interest is positioned in the European context. We might do so by comparing our country of interest with the European union.
Then, the Compare button will display online data comparisons. By clicking on the Export to… buttons, your tables will be at hand for further investigation with powerful tools such as Microsoft Excel.
The Eurostat database is much larger, therefore it needs a more focused research: the database page, in fact, concerns more than just information about tourism. Even though it might seem complicate to navigate these data, they carry information that might be crossed and looked at globally. The database area allows you to look at data by themes and timespan Additional Resources: TIPS and TRICKS
Data are certainly useful. However, contextualizing them into your own entrepreneurial idea is what will boost their informative power.
When consulting data, either on graphical or tabular form, the recommendation is to progress through filtering questions: the starting point might be very generic (e.g. what is the sector trend over the years? How does it look like in the EU at a global level?); answer by answer, the questions get narrower, perhaps concerning the specific territory you want to create your idea in, or even comparing your territory with a more global level. As you get insight from the official data, you might want to know more about psychological features of your target customers. Sources such as social media (e.g. Facebook Audience Insights, a free tool available on Facebook) might help you: if you’re interested in a particular region where Roman Routes in your entrepreneurial idea are located, you might search that area, define the features of the target customers you have in mind, verify their presence and interests; or you can even look at potential customers starting from their interests, and then reconsider/reframe your idea in light of the global data insight. The VTO, as well as the European Travel Commission, also direct towards official reports and surveys. Reports and surveys might provide insightful, focused and more qualitative information.
The examination and integration of different sources substantially increases your awareness of the territory, allowing you to identify your market size, the profitability of your idea and its potential of growth.
Data gathering and processing methodology
Once you got insight from official data and identified your potential customers and subjects of interest, you might want to investigate the territory at a more granular, specific level. When you enter this level, you often find out that no data are available from the official sources/bodies. No worries! There is still a possibility to carry out an investigation on your own... If you know how to do it! In fact, the process of conducting a survey must be guided by precise criteria, as one might be limited with respect to the official bodies (running a census on a global population is often expensive and time consuming).
Prior to any concrete investigation, you must have a clear idea of your reference framework. Let yourself be guided by the 5 W and the H:
Once this information is in your mind, it’s time to take a look on:
That is, to know about data collection and processing techniques.
The sampling
Sampling represents a fundamental strategy: allows one to estimate the population parameters/results/perceptions by leveraging part of it. Sampling consists of extracting units from the population according to criteria that help generalize findings. In other words, a sound sampling strategy gives the possibility to state it is likely that a specific kind of customer would behave and perceive in a given way, based on the results obtained on part of them. However, generalizability depends on the sampling method itself. Sampling criteria might be divided into:
Known probabilistic sampling strategies include:
Data Collection Techniques
After determining the sampling criteria, it is time for the definition of the data collection tools: there is a very broad range of data collection tools, differing by their degree of structuredness (e.g. interviews move without a specific structure, living respondents free to develop their responses, while questionnaires are more rigorous and ask for shorter, defined answers). The Internet is a powerful source to find out whether somebody else already developed a data collection tool (such as a questionnaire) which is valid, reliable, appropriate to the sector you want to investigate, and perhaps… Directly downloadable! If you won’t find out any already existing tool, you might create one. However, it is important to keep some criteria in mind here, as well. Specifically, a questionnaire is a tool designed to collect information about aspects of interest (variables). 3 are the main steps of a questionnaire construction:
Both forms of collecting information respectively have advantages and disadvantages, as you can guess by considering the table below:
The question form also concerns formulation and order.
Simple Language (avoid aulic/flowery language);
Simple Syntax (avoid double negative, avoid requiring cognitive effort to the respondents);
Simple Content (investigate one feature at time, therefore avoid multiple statements in the same question).
Easiest answers first;
Follow a logical order;
Open-ended/sensitive questions at the end;
Alternate length and type.
In practice, these aims are not always reachable. What matters is to keep in mind (and be aware) of the limits and the restrictions of the conclusions of the survey. It is desirable to collect data in particular formats: a table, where the elements of your data are separated by tabulation, comma or semicolon (.txt, .csv) or an Excel form (.xlsx). Once opened with Microsoft Excel, data processing can start.
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Keywords
Data Analysis, Survey, Data Visualization, database
Objectives/goals● Identify a potential Market by exploring the online databases and previous researches.
● Sample potential customers
● Define tools to collect data using the theory to develop appropriate and reliable questionnaires.
● Analyze and interpret data with a friendly (and yet very powerful) approach based on Excel and Pivot Tables.
This module will be divided into two main activities: first, you will learn how to evaluate needs and opportunities from the territory; the second activity is devoted to show the quantitative approach to data analysis; there, you will learn to extract knowledge from data collected from both the territory and potential customers.
