ANOVA identified significant differences between the
two groups in terms of sales and marketing and business
management information, with growers more active in their
consumption of information aligned to these domains.
This supports the view that growers are more focused than
lifestylers on growing and building their businesses.
If growers are more interested in developing their businesses,
then it might be expected that they would be more satisfied
with the information that they receive than lifestylers,
particularly for the purposes of business development and
commercial management. Table 4 details the MANOVAs that
produced significant results applicable to the two groups
for ‘satisfaction with information’ across the five types of
information (F = 6.034, d.f. = 5, sig = 0.000). This finding
confirmed that in aggregate, growers are more satisfied. The
subsequent ANOVAs show that three of the five areas were
significantly different, namely sales and marketing, business
and financial management. The legal and regulatory and
environment/sustainability areas were deemed as insufficiently
relevant by either group to record high or even different levels
of satisfaction.
The results reported in Table 4 offer preliminary support
for the view that SMTE proprietor motives influence their
information-seeking behaviours and consumption of information.
The two groupings evidently have different approaches
to information. Intuitively, it seems probable that consumption
will be positively related to satisfaction, since those who are
happy with an information source will tend to prefer it and seek
it out. According to the findings, growers both read more
extensively and are significantly more satisfied than lifestylers.
Respondents express increasing satisfaction as they consume
more information. Although intuitively correct, one might
have anticipated a more critical assessment to prevail beyond
a certain point. As consumers progressively consume more
information and consequently enhance their expertise and
repertoire, one might expect their critical faculties to intensify.
According to the data presented in Table 5, a positive
correlation is evident between media consumption and
satisfaction among both groups, and for the sample as a whole.
However, the table also indicates that the correlations are
consistently weaker for growers than for lifestylers. It appears
that relative to the amount of information that is consumed,
growers are less satisfied than lifestylers. Two plausible
explanations are proposed. First, since growers are more
ambitious than lifestylers, this may place greater demands on
the information that they use. Second, because growers are
more avid readers than lifestylers, they may develop a more
critical eye and question the merits of the information that
is provided.
It is unsurprising that growers consume more media
than lifestylers, especially in the case of business-related
media. In aggregate, they are more positive about media,
especially in the case of trade-related information.
However, as noted previously, they become increasingly
critical as their consumption of information increases. The
results that are presented in Table 6 highlight the relationship
between media used and its perceived usefulness across the
two groups.
Media consumption is evidently different across the two
groups from the significant Kolmogorov–Smirnov test
(D = 0.500, sig = 0.039). The t-tests of the means indicate
significant differences between the perceived usefulness
across the four media types: trade magazines, Sustainable
Tourism Cooperative Research Centre studies, face-to-face
meetings and podcasts. Growers are more positive than
lifestylers in all cases except for podcasts. Finally, it is notable
that a MANOVA about alternative training across the two
groups was insignificant. An ANOVA conducted on the types