32: Characteristics of Web Based Surveys and Applications in Travel Research

Over the past decade, when conducting surveys by telephone, an increasing number of calls had to be made to achieve contact (Zmud, 2003; Dillman, 1998). However, a high number of calls remained unresolved. This is a result of households adopting new technology such as answering machines, caller id, increased cell phone use (some households only have cell phones and not a land line and it is costly to obtain these numbers if wanting to contact these households by telephone), and multiple phone line households. In addition, thirty percent of households in the US have unlisted telephone numbers (Dillman, 1998). These factors make it much harder for the researcher to contact the household successfully, resulting in greater survey costs (Zmud, 2003; Groves and Couper, 1998; Dillman, 1998; Cook et al., 2000).