Sample size is the base on which the data are analyzed. Generally it is the number of people who responded to a survey, but in the case of travel, it may also be the number of Trips or Stays, particularly if these are the "population" you are counting or describing.
Not in the DKSA data where information is collected for each destination visited (Stays) on a trip including the purposes of the stay and the activities participated in.
This question has a two part answer. First, we survey a national representative sample of adults. This sample includes both travelers and non-travelers. Because we include non-travelers, we can determine the proportion of the total U.S. population who is traveling.
Second, to ensure the incoming sample remains representative, it is re-balanced each month against the U.S. population on gender, age, education, income, and residence geography.
DKSA's TRAVEL PERFORMANCE/MonitorSM is a comprehensive study measuring the travel behavior of US residents. DKSA contacts 50,000 distinct U.S. households monthly and has done so since 1991. DKSA is able to provide current behavior and long term trended analyses on a wide range of travel.
DKSA data are collected using an online methodology employing KnowledgePanel®, an address based sample panel offered by Knowledge Networks. The sample is drawn as a national probability sample and returns are balanced to ensure representation of the U.S. population according to the most recent U.S. Census. Key factors used for balancing are Origin State, Age, Income, Education, Gender, Ethnicity/race and return rates. The Knowledge Networks sample is used to create benchmark weights which are applied to surveys returned from other managed panels used by DKSA.
Both traveling and non-traveling households are surveyed each month enabling DKSA to generate the best estimate of travel incidence (volume) within the total U.S. population. Among those who have traveled (overnight in the past three months, and daytrips in the past month) details of their trip(s) are recorded for each month. This overlapping, repeating monthly approach boosts the observed number of trips for each travel month and controls for seasonality and telescoping biases. "Travel" is defined as either an overnight trip defined as going someplace, staying overnight and then returning home or as a day trip defined as a place away from home and back in the same day. Respondents report travel behavior for each stay of each trip; an approach that enhances reporting for specific travel events, activities and spending.
A wide variety of general travel information is collected including travel to destinations at a city level, hotel stayed in, purpose of stay and activities, expenditures, mode of transportation, party composition, length of stay, travel agent and group tour usage, satisfaction and value ratings, and demographics, including origin markets.
Several questions are asked as open-ends to ensure that the responses are not influenced by a pre-listed set of response categories. Each respondent identifies the actual destination visited with an open-end response. This is particularly significant for obtaining accurate data for smaller cities and counties and representing total travel. This increases time and expense to accurately capture these responses but quality requires it.
Extensive coding lists are updated regularly to ensure that all data is recorded accurately. DKSA's quality control committee conducts bi-monthly meetings to review survey results and examine methods to maintain and improve quality control.
Breaking the Hotel/Motel Industry into mutually exclusive segments allows greater discrimination of behavior and flexibility. To define the segments, chains are clustered by business/leisure mix, competitive set and room rate. Small Chains and Independents (SC/I) are clustered by room rate. Every year room rate ranges are re-evaluated to determine whether room rate ranges need to be increased. Following is the three and six segment breakdown:
|Luxury||Upscale||Upper Moderate||Moderate||Lower Moderate||Budget|
|Fairmont Hotel||Adams Mark||AmeriSuites||Ameri Host Inn||AmericInn||Best Inn|
|Four Seasons||Club Med||Clarion||Baymont||Comfort Inns||Budget Host Inn|
|Helmsley Hotel||Crowne Plaza||Compri||Best Western||Days Inn||Crossland Suites|
|Inter-Continental||Disney||Country Inns & Suites||Candlewood Suites||Ext. Stay America||Econo Lodge|
|Loews Hotel||Doubletree||Courtyard||Comfort Suites||Homestead Studios||Inn Town Suites|
|Nikko Hotels||Embassy Suites||Four Points||Drury Inn||Ramada Limited||Knights Inn|
|Preferred||Hawthorn Suites||Hilton Garden Inn||Fairfield Inn||Red Roof||Microtel|
|Ritz Carlton||Hilton||Holiday Inn||Hampton Inn||Sleep Inns||Motel 6|
|Sofitel||Holiday Inn Select||Lexington Suites||Hotel Indigo||Studio Plus||Rodeway Inn|
|Steigenberger||Holiday Inn||Novotel||Holiday Inn Exp.||Sun Suites||Studio 6|
|W Hotels||Homewood Suites||Quality Suites||Homegate Studios||The Hearthside||Suburban Ext. Stay|
|SC/I||Hyatt||Ramada||Howard Johnson||Travelodge||Super 8|
|Marriott Hotels||Red Lion||La Quinta||SC/I||Thriftlodge|
|Oakwood Apt.||Shilo||Mainstay Suites||Villager Lodge|
|Omni||Welleslay Inn||Quality Inn||SC/I|
|Radisson||Wyndham Garden||Staybridge Suites|