Causal network methodolgy: Tourism Research Applications

Abstract

Causal network methodology is evaluated as to its effectiveness as a means of identifying tourism issues in peripheral locations and is specifically applied to North Scotland. The aim of this applied research was to build models or diagrams for each respondent interview and to aggregate these to highlight the variables that are influential in three case study regions. This iterative process starts with the initial variables being drawn up as a result of the literature review, key informant feedback and prior knowledge, and the development of causal streams representing respondent feedback. The process concludes with the final model representing the views of all respondents from each case study region.