3. Research Design 3.1 Location of Research Study The location of the research was London City Airport (England, United Kingdom), in the East London area, specifically the Royal Docks. London City Airport is predominately an arrival and departure point for business travellers due to its proximity to Canary Wharf. In 2017, 56% of passengers that used London City Airport were business travellers and 44% for leisure, according to quarterly passenger surveys commissioned by the airport (London City Airport, 2017). Overall 61% of overall travellers are male and 39% are female. The researchers (Birte Schmitz and Naz Ali) distributed surveys in the departure lounge and also at the boarding gates in London City Airport, specially selecting flights departing for popular business travel destinations such as Amsterdam, Antwerp, Belfast, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, and Zurich. During the data collection process either the Senior PR Manager or Internal Communications Officer accompanied the researchers. This was particularly useful in navigating the researchers to appropriate gates and areas in the airport to collect data.
3.2 Data Collection The research study mainly applied the principles and practices of quantitative data collection – with some ‘further elaboration questions’ - through the use of an online survey stored on SurveyMonkey. The survey comprised of 10 questions focussing on business and leisure travel behaviour, bleisure and the employer, productivity and well-being, and with profile questions such as age, gender and occupation. The researchers were on-site to collect data between 9.30am and 12.30pm on May 16th, 29th, 30th and June 13th and 19th 2018. The online survey was distributed using an iPad/tablet and the survey was completed by the respondent. In addition to selecting popular business travel destination departure gates, the researchers also identified business travellers (female and male) from their ‘smart’ workwear attire and work behaviour (e.g. working on laptops or mobile devices, seated as a delegation, ‘talking’ business / work). In total 250 business travellers were surveyed over the five days of on-site data collection mentioned above and the online survey, on average, took 3 minutes complete.
3.3 Data Analysis SurveyMonkey was used to filter data for purposes of quantitative analysis and to identify variations in data sets. Closed questions were analysed and to further illustrate the findings open question textual data was embedded into the evaluation. The overarching research questions directing the data analysis was: can ‘bleisure’ travel contribute to productivity and well-being at work? In view of this question, data was presented for analysis under the following thematic areas:
Business travel behaviour 9