Using Thematic Analysis in Tourism Research

Abstract

This research note uses a case study approach to illustrate when and how to apply thematic analysis as a tool to interpret empirical material in tourism research and suggests a variety of research contexts in which its use may be appropriate. The case study demonstrates the value of thematic analysis in understanding and unpacking a body of rich, descriptive media text (such as magazine articles, social media, and marketing material). This note also establishes that thematic analysis can be successfully used with visual material, taking intertextuality into account to facilitate a well-balanced interpretation of underlying cultural meanings. A further strength is the ability to produce graphic representations of the analysis, which then provide a suitable structure for discussing the findings. Using research carried out on second-home articles in a New Zealand magazine from 1936 to 2012 to illustrate the process, a step by step description of how to apply thematic analysis to written and visual text is provided. It also provides a set of criteria to ensure the trustworthiness of the research output, and as such is a valuable guide to carrying out a rigorous thematic analysis of texts in a variety of tourism research contexts.

Planning for Intangible Cultural Heritage in Tourism: Challenges and Implications

“…Thematic Network Analysis, an increasingly widespread tool for qualitative data analysis in tourism and hospitality (Esfehani & Walters 2018), was used. Thematic network analysis involves a number of steps, including familiarization with the raw data, generation of codes, and exploration of themes, followed by analysis of the themes to identify logical relationships and interpretations (Walters, 2016). The technique was implemented by verbatim transcribing the interviews, and adding all notes pertaining to the informal conversations and the observation to the body of data.…”

Impacts of COVID-19 on tourism education: analysis and perspectives

“…The use of the application positively contributes to the efficiency of the analyses by adding rigour to the study (Alhojailan, 2012). The authors, then adopted thematic analysis (Hannam & Knox, 2005;Walters, 2016) to investigate the personal opinions of tourism educators (Percy et al, 2015). Thematic analyses look for themes and interconnections that occur in the data (Fox et al, 2014).…”

A review of communication trends due to the pandemic: perspective from airlines

“…Thematic analysis was utilized to achieve a holistic view of the pandemic communication trends within airlines. Thematic analysis is a valuable tool in analysing descriptive media texts in tourism research (Walters, 2016). The research followed a comparative process and theoretical sampling (Glaser & Strauss, 2006).…”