On May 16, Associate Professor Yuansi HOU from the Department of Integrated Resort and Tourism Management was invited to deliver an academic seminar titled “Experimental Method in Tourism and Hospitality: Research on Causality” at the University of Surrey in the UK.
During the seminar, Prof. Yuansi HOU drew on her extensive academic expertise and practical experience to thoroughly explore the application of experimental design in tourism and hospitality research. She emphasized that experimental methods, as an effective approach for determining causal relationships, are increasingly favored by researchers. Prof. Yuansi HOU also stressed that through both laboratory and field experiments, researchers can systematically manipulate key variables while effectively controlling external interference factors, thereby precisely revealing their direct causal effects on tourist decision-making and experiences. This perspective also provides new insights and approaches for research in the tourism and hospitality industry. Additionally, to help attendees better grasp experimental research methods, Prof. Yuansi HOU provided a wealth of practical and operationally feasible experimental design methods, with a particular focus on how field studies strengthen real-world applicability.
In this seminar, Prof. Yuansi HOU skillfully combined theoretical foundations with empirical techniques, offering researchers in the fields of tourism and consumer behavior practical experimental research strategies. These strategies not only enhance the scientific rigor of research but also provide robust theoretical support for the practical development of the tourism and hospitality industries.
