Groundbreaking Braille survey a world first

A Braille questionnaire developed by Monash PhD student Danielle Ramirez from the Tourism Research Unit and distributed at a conference for people with a visual impairment is a world first.

The groundbreaking survey saw the Braille questionnaire distributed among more than five hundred attendees, some of whom had visual impairment, at the ‘Vision Rehabilitation – Towards Better Vision’ Conference held in Kuala Lumpur in February.

Ms Ramirez, who is the Research Manager for the Melbourne Convention + Visitors Bureau (MCVB), managed the research program and worked closely with Vision Australia to help boost numbers for the 2014 event to be held in Melbourne.

“By distributing the Braille questionnaire, we were able to glean valuable information on how to target these delegates and boost numbers for the event in Melbourne,” said Ms Sandra Chipchase, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the MCVB.

“This type of information, which would otherwise have been unavailable to us, is indispensible to Professional Conference Organisers (PCOs), meeting planners and the MCVB itself.

“We hope that our new initiative will assist our destination to provide even better service to delegates with mobility and/or vision difficulties," Ms Chipchase said.

Danielle's PhD research examines the influence of gender on convention attendees’ decision-making behaviour. She is supervised by Dr Judith Mair and Dr Jennifer Laing from the Department of Management.

“Convention attendees and how they make decisions have received little attention to date, which highlights the need to explore their behaviour and understand how they decide which convention to attend,” Danielle said.