manager (GM). The questionnaires were distributed to individual employees in an
(unsealed) FREEPOST return envelope containing the questionnaire (with an
introduction and instructions on page one) and a separate prize draw entry form.
Completion of the prize draw entry form was optional (see below). Respondents
were asked to mail the completed questionnaire directly back to Bournemouth
University or to return the sealed FREEPOST envelope to a nominated staff
member who would then return all of the completed forms to Bournemouth
University. For the second hotel group, an identical distribution method was
implemented by the human resources/personnel employee.
Regarding the prize draw incentive, respondents were offered the opportunity to
enter a prize draw for shopping vouchers (prizes ranging from £50 to £10). A
number of studies (Church 1993; Etter and Perneger 1997; Laurie et al. 1999;
Singer et al. 1999; Groves et al. 2000) have evaluated the impact of monetary
and lottery-type incentives on survey responses and the findings from these
studies indicate that such methods can generate increases in response rates of
between 7.9 and 19.1 per cent (Church 1993). In terms of the influence on the
demographic nature of the respondent profile, Etter and Perneger (1997) and
Laurie et al. (1999) note that survey incentives can increase responses from low-
income and elderly groups. Groves et al. (2000) investigated the effect of
offering incentives to potential respondents in groups with high and low theorised
disposition towards participation in their survey. They found that incentives
increased the proportion of respondents in both groups, although the proportion
of low-disposition/low-likelihood respondents was raised to a greater degree than
for the high-disposition/high-likelihood respondents.
Given the lack of evidence suggesting any negative consequences likely to arise
from the use of survey incentives, the prize draw method of incentivisation was
pursued.
Results from the survey pilot
As noted above, cooperation was first established with two from the six hotel
groups that were initially contacted. Accordingly, for the pilot survey, two
hundred questionnaires were distributed to (a) three of the ten south east
England hotels (with 50, 40 and 20 recipients respectively; total = 110) and (b)
three hotels within the 27 facility UK-wide hotel group (each with 30 recipients;