College obtains access to ‘Big Data’ in tourism and finance
Destination Canada, the University of Guelph, and the Travel and Tourism Research Association have announced a new two-year research agreement to support tourism researchers. The partnership includes both a funding component and an open tourism research database where University of Guelph researchers can access thousands of raw datasets, including over 52,000,000 data points about travellers’ perceptions of Canada, representing survey results from approximately 118,226 people surveyed from 2007-2013.
“We're excited by the research possibilities that the accessibility of this data provides to students and faculty,” said Statia Elliot, Director, School of Hospitality, Food & Tourism Management of the College of Business and Economics, University of Guelph. “We hope this will contribute to the advancement of Canada's market intelligence.”
In addition, in partnership with the Travel and Tourism Research Association and University of Guelph, Destination Canada is offering grants to support the advancement of Canadian tourism research. Researchers can apply for funding of up to $10,000 for tourism-related projects.
Grant recipients will be asked to present their findings at the next Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA) International conference in June 2017 in Quebec City or at the TTRA Canada Conference in Halifax.
The College has also acquired funding to obtain subscriptions to 5 large financial and market intelligence databases, including;
- Centre for Research in Securities Markets
- Compustat,
- Institutional Brokers' Estimates System
- Wharton Research Data Services
- Bloomberg
The influx of data availability provides University of Guelph faculty and students access to a vast amount of financial and consumer data which will facilitate faculty research, doctoral and masters' theses, major research papers and classroom instruction, at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.
With the access to Bloomberg datasets, the College has purchased Bloomberg computers to assist in student learning and faculty research. Bloomberg computers bring the pace and excitement of real business and macroeconometrics into the classroom and provide students with hands-on experience using the same data relied on by finance professionals all over the world.