Staycation Research Project: Destination Barbados

I started a dedicated staycations group earlier in 2009 for Barbadians and decided to conduct some research - an online poll conducted between August 6 and 10, 2009 - on the group to examine the behaviour patterns of Barbadians toward the ongoing staycation campaign.

Target audience: 100% online including members of dedicated staycation group, Baje Vacations (285), and Barbados Jazz Festival Lovers (364) followers on facebook; and an estimated 10% of my facebook friends (931) who would have visited my page or paid attention to my network activity. This total was discounted by 8% to 742 since there were some overlaps across all three groups and the potential for viral spreading of the information was extremely low since the invitations largely went to members via email , around 2% as the invitations to use the poll were very specific to these audiences.

The questions were:

Have you taken a staycation for the year 2009? Yes or No

Are you planning to take a staycation? Yes or No or I don’t know

Which of the following options do you normally take that you are giving up to have your staycation?

Travel to another Caribbean island
Travel to the US/ UK or Canada
I have never traveled out of Barbados before
I was not planning to travel this year

How important is taking a staycation to you? (Open-ended)

*All four questions were compulsory

RESULTS

There were 40 out of a potential *742 responses in total or 5% were received over the five-day period. It is also admitted that the process for calculating the potential number of respondents could have been more scientific but that would have been too time consuming. Perhaps that question could have appeared in the questionnaire.

82.5% were yet to take a staycation but 52.5% were planning to do so and 30% were undecided.

All persons polled have travelled outside of Barbados before however 30% were not planning to travel this year while 45.5% were willing to defer travel to the US, UK or Canada to take a staycation. A significant 35.5% were willing to forego travel to the Caribbean.

25% saw staycationing as very important, 22.5% saw it as moderately important. 20% thought it was important to enjoy what people travel from so far to enjoy that is right at your fingertips and approximately 10% thought it was good for the economy to keep resources at home. 7.5% saw it as a great way to save money and an equal amount were keen if the prices were right.

One person complained that the specials did not coincide with the summer vacation period, one said it was only important depending on the rate of airfares and two were unsure whether it was important to take a staycation.

CONCLUSION

Barbadians on Facebook seem to think that staycations are a worthwhile effort. Many see it as a great way to stem foreign exchange outflows and thereby protect the economy, while giving locals a chance to “get to sample your home product without spending a great deal of money especially with the current economic crisis”.

Many are undecided about taking a staycation though over 52% of those polled gave their status as actively planning a staycation. This brings into the light the marketing strategy of the BHTA regarding the staycation packages which have been largely newspaper oriented with very little online, TV or radio marketing, if any at all.

Perhaps they may need to reconsider their marketing mix. With further scientific research among those who’ve already taken staycations in the past could help greatly in finding out what can be improved.