(Originally posted in Air Canada forum to gauge initial reponse, which was favourable!)

Hi everyone

I have a question, and please do tell me if this is completely inappropriate for flyertalk.com.

First, let me come clean. I am a lecturer at a University in New Zealand (although originally from Canada). My research interests generally revolve around tourism, but I have lately developed an interest in business travel. I should say that I frequent flyertalk because I am also quite addicted to achieving status on AP. My wife laughs at me. For lots of things, not just hanging around here.

Here's what I am proposing, and I will only go ahead with it if enough people are interested. I'd like to do some research on FF programmes in term of a) the most important benefits as you see them, b) how responsive certain FF programmes are, and c) some general 'demographic' type information (i.e,. how long you've belonged to the programme, avg annual mileage accumulations, etc.). Of course, you will remain completely anonymous as the reseach does NOT depend on your actual identity. (In fact, no research project needs to know who people are by name - it's just not relevant as the data are aggregated in the long run!)

Anyway, now I know everyone hates surveys (I generally dislike conducting them - I was trained as an anthropologist, so qualitative interviews are my preference), but if you are interested in filling out a two-page questionnaire, please do respond in this thread. At this stage, I haven't even come close to actually designing the questionnaire, so my intent here is to simply gauge whether or not my "universe" (i.e., you folks) would be interested in participating.

I realise that the purpose of flyertalk.com is not to solicit information such as this, but any publications arising out of this research I would gladly make available to anyone. At this stage, I would likely submit the final paper to a journal such as "World Transport Policy and Practice," "Transportation Research," or the "Journal of Air Transport Management".

Thanks in advance.

David
Dunedin, NZ

[This message has been edited by DavidNZ (edited 01-31-2002).]