Tourism research methodology: confessions of an inductive researcher

Purpose This paper proposes that much innovation in tourism research can come from freeing ourselves from traditional deductive methodological dogma and instead adopting the less popular inductive research approach that focusses on asking and answering questions without forcing the data to fit into an arbitrary and artificial framework. The paper aims to argue that letting the information gathered tell a story and then seeking a framework in an a posteriori model is the key to gaining new insights into what tourism is and how it works, all the while maintaining a high degree of rigor. While such an approach may be an anathema to purist deductive methodologists, it provides a great deal of flexibility to play with ideas. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual paper explaining the benefits of an inductive research approach adopted by a senior tourism academic. Findings Inductive researchers adopt a pragmatic approach to tourism scholarship by playing with ideas, rather than being constrained artificially by constructs, frameworks and models. This approach provides great scope to challenge tourism orthodoxy and gain innovative insights into our field. Research limitations/implications This approach requires a great deal of rigor and does not infer a haphazard research approach. Practical implications Adopting an inductive approach can free scholars to explore ideas and, in doing so, gain new insights that will drive our field forward. Social implications This is a freeing approach to tourism. Originality/value This issue has yet to be discussed formally in our literature, yet most academics participate in this type of research from time to time.