Five Questions

When tourism officials in Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties want to know how much money visitors spend or what mode of transportation travelers use to get to Southwest Florida, they turn to Walter Klages, president and CEO of the Klages Group. Founded in 1979, the Tampa-based firm conducts market research for convention and visitor bureaus, airlines, hotels, museums, colleges, financial institutions and other organizations, providing them with everything from tourism forecasts to data on visitor volume.

Klages has been interested in travel from an early age, founding his own travel agency before he celebrated his 18th birthday. A former university professor and business and economic consultant, he's constantly visiting domestic and international locales for both business and pleasure, and he draws on his personal experiences when gathering information aimed at helping businesses attract clients and increase profits.

1. Why does tourism interest you?

Travel was always an issue of interest to me. I am curious about people and languages and cultures. So it was just a natural thing for me.

2. What kinds of questions do tourism officials want answered?

Today you just can't afford to waste a single dollar on targets that do not have opportunity.

When I say targets, I'm talking about markets. Opportunity means marketability. The single most important question that everybody is asking about is return on investment. If you cannot begin to isolate targets of opportunity, then this will reflect itself in the return on investment.

3. How do you gather your information?

Every which way you can think. Face-to-face interviews, telephone surveys, Internet surveys, secondary information from other sources like airline information or DOT [Department of Transportation] information, you name it.

4. What's the most difficult thing about conducting market research?

That you have deadlines. When you obtain survey information and you generate all that data, no matter what you do, this is yesterday's information. You have to stay close to the relevance contour, that time in which the information you have gathered is still actionable for tomorrow.

5. What tourism trends are you seeing for Southwest Florida?

The Southwest Florida tourism market has really been strengthening and growing. You have a superlative product when it comes to beaches and natural environment. By now you have cultural diversity, you have shopping, and beyond all other things you have this powerful tourism catalyst, RSW [Southwest Florida International Airport]. It's so important and so significant in catalyzing and seeding the growth of this market. GB