The travel and tourism industry is a global powerhouse, generating over $11 trillion of revenue in 2024. Over 300 million people are employed within the wider tourism sector, which is about 1 in 10 jobs worldwide. The top destinations, and therefore the leaders in global tourism, are France, Spain, USA, Italy and Turkey. Air travel has bounced back from the pandemic with IATA estimating just under 5 billion origin to destination passenger journeys (i.e. ignoring any intermediate stops or plane changes) in 2025, about 10% higher than in 2019.
The recreation industry is more difficult to define, but sports are estimated to be worth around $417 billion a year, having grown at an average rate of around 5% annually since 2020, according to a report by Kearney, and other forms of recreation may collectively generate an additional $1 trillion or more each year. Competion between streaming platforms and traditional broadcasters for the rights to show sporting events is largely behind the growth in revenue, although the availability of more events to watch at home is also helping to create demand for tickets to attend sports in person.
In the UK, domestic and inbound tourism is estimated to contribute roughly £150 billion annually to economic output and supports around 2.4 million jobs, while outbound tourism is worth around £60 billion annually. The sport sector is said to contribute a further £53.6 billion in direct Gross Value Added and close to £100 billion in terms of total economic impact. While Britain is probably best known abroad for two men’s sports, the English Premier League (the most watched sports league in the World) and Formula 1 (seven out of ten F1 teams are headquartered in the UK), women’s sport in the UK is growing rapidly, with major tournaments such as the UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 finals and the Rugby World Cup seeing record-breaking audiences and brand investment.
FieldworkHub has supported a wide range of different projects in the travel, tourism and recreation industry, including within research conducted in airports and travel hubs, market research with tourists based in a number of different global markets and sports research involving football (soccer), tennis, basketball and ice hockey fans.
Focus groups bring together a small number of participants for a moderated discussion, either in person or online. They are particularly useful for exploring consumer attitudes, evaluating new concepts and understanding how people react to and build on one another’s ideas.
In-depth interviews (IDIs) involve a one-to-one conversation between a researcher and a participant. They are well suited to exploring complex decisions, personal experiences and sensitive subjects, particularly in B2B research or when specialist knowledge is required.
Ethnographic research involves observing people in their everyday environments, such as their homes, workplaces or shops. It is useful when researchers want to understand how products and services are used in practice, rather than relying solely on what participants say.
Online bulletin boards (OBBs) allow participants to complete research tasks and respond to questions over several days, at times that suit them. They are useful for diary-style research, gathering detailed reflections and exploring topics that benefit from considered rather than immediate responses.
Market research online communities (MROCs) bring participants together on a digital platform for ongoing research. Unlike shorter OBB studies, MROCs can cover multiple topics over weeks or months, making them useful for user engagement, innovation and tracking changing attitudes.
UX testing involves observing people as they use a website, app or digital product, often while completing specific tasks. It helps identify usability problems, understand why users encounter difficulties and evaluate prototypes or existing digital experiences.
Customer experience research examines how people interact with a brand, product or service across touchpoints. It can combine interviews, surveys, focus groups and other methods to understand satisfaction, identify frustrations and explore opportunities to improve the customer journey.
Video surveys ask participants to record short responses to research questions, usually using their smartphones. They can involve selfie videos, product demonstrations or narrated activities, making them useful when researchers want to capture reactions and experiences in participants’ own words.
Vox pops involve short video interviews that capture people’s immediate opinions and reactions, usually in public locations or remotely. They are particularly useful for gathering spontaneous feedback on familiar topics, products or brands and illustrating research findings with real voices.
Online surveys allow respondents to complete structured questionnaires on their computers or mobile devices. They are often the most efficient option for reaching larger samples, testing preferences and measuring attitudes when respondents can be recruited and surveyed remotely.
Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) uses interviewers who follow a digital questionnaire and record responses during a telephone call. It is useful for reaching business professionals or other audiences who may be difficult to engage online, and for surveys with lots of open-ended questions.
Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) involves an interviewer recording responses on a tablet or similar device during an in-person survey. It is useful for street intercepts, location-specific research and research where participants need to see or try a product before answering questions.
Our client was developing a new digital service to simplify the process of applying for international travel visas and wanted to conduct in- depth interviews with people who had recently applied for a UK visa and travel agency employees who assisted their customers with applications.
An Italian football club was planning to relocate its stadium. We were asked to set up two focus groups, one with regular fans and one with ‘elite’ fans in more influential jobs to find out what they thought about the move and their views on three outline designs for the new stadium from different architects.
An airport operator wanted to run focus groups with international and luxury travellers in London, Paris and Shanghai to help it improve its retail offering. We recruited 65 respondents for two focus groups in each city, managed the viewing facility bookings and arranged moderators and simultaneous translators.
Our team completed a project for a global hotel chain, interested in exploring the experience and needs of individuals who stay in hotels for business or leisure trips and what influences their choice of hotel. We completed 16 interviews and 15 triads to collect insights about the factors that they take into account.
We designed, programmed and managed a survey to assist a UK-based online provider of travel insurance products find out how widely recognised their brand name was, what attributes they associated with the brand and what factors were important to respondents when selecting travel insurance.
A digital innovation agency developed a new platform to simplify the process of applying for business travel visas and wanted to test out user experience. FieldworkHub recruited UK passport holders applying for a business visa in the next two weeks and arranged for them to submit their application through the platform.
