Hiking with Einstein: Key Driver Analysis of Personal Growth Experiences in Outdoor Recreation

History accords a love of Nature to Albert Einstein that throughout his life would be manifest in body, mind, and spirit. As a young man, he often hiked for days in the lakes region of the Swiss Alps and along the coastal Italian Apennine Mountains, and he once braved a 50-mile trek from Pavia to Genoa, Italy to visit an uncle.

Einstein also developed a life-long passion for sailing and enjoyed the pastime for its simplicity, solitude and, it is waggishly reported, the occasional, seclusive tryst. Whether hiking, sailing, or, well…trysting, it is clear that this gentle genius had in mind the noblest and uplifting aspect of the human condition when he said: “Joy in looking and comprehending is Nature’s most beautiful gift. Look into Nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

We don’t have to be physicists to know what Einstein meant: to engage in personal growth—“looking and comprehending”—is to achieve fulfillment, which is to say that to know more in the next moment than we know in this one…is to experience “joy.”

We offer in this article a snapshot of a survey research project sponsored by an east coast resort seeking to identify those experiences most meaningful to overall member satisfaction. The project was, in its own way, a search for joy…and as it all turned out, in Nature as in science, Einstein was right.

The project began with an extensive review of the recreation research literature from which emerged an 80-variable inventory of non-dedicated experiences which, in addition to their individual listings, were further subsumed into some 20 variable sets visualized here as “experience paths.”

Definitions are in order.

We mean by “non-dedicated” that the sponsoring membership resort provides a broad spectrum of outdoor recreation activities—it is not a ski resort, for example, targeting ski enthusiasts, which might have made necessary an inquiry into more specialized activities and experiences.

We define “activity” and “experience” as complimentary terms in which the former is a specific, purposeful activity such as hiking, and the latter is the desired beneficial change in some aspect of one’s emotional or psychological state consequent to having participated in the action. An “experience path” may be thought of as a complex of related but distinct experiences which together incorporate such value-rich concepts as family, community, personal growth…and so on. As activity informs the experience path, the experience path informs fulfillment which, when sufficiently achieved, produces satisfaction or, simply, joy. Sort of a woodsy paradigm of “…the shin bone’s connected to the knee bone; the knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone; the thigh bone’s connected to the…” Well—you get the idea.

The strategic perception underlying the project was that if relationships among activities, experiences, and satisfaction could be quantified and subsequently translated into specific refinements in activity programming so as to emphasize select experiential opportunities, then increased member participation would lead to greater member satisfaction…which ultimately would lead to a healthier bottom line. After all, arguably the most important equation in resort management is HC=R (Happy Campers=Revenue); and while such cognition might not quite rise to the level of E = MC², it is, as we all know, just dandy for paying the bills.

The prospect of undertaking membership research by way of a survey with 80 experiential variables, not to mention several demographic items, was more than daunting—it was potentially unworkable, because response rates tend to vary inversely with survey length, and this one was threatening to stretch to several pages. So, after close consultation with stakeholders, the original inventory was reduced to a more manageable set of 50 variables. Then, formatting each of the 50 variables into a 6-point, Likert-type “scale,” a satisfaction questionnaire was developed, pre-tested, and mailed to some 1500 systematically selected resort members; and with the subsequent return of more than 500 useable surveys, there now existed an analytically suitable body of member satisfaction data. With an eye toward linking experiences with satisfaction, Key Driver Analysis was chosen as the initial analytical method.

Related: Premium Perception Disconnect Part 2: Wrestling with Squirrels

Key Driver Analysis essentially is an examination of the correlation matrix—the entire set of interrelated variables—for the purpose of identifying those variables or “key drivers” demonstrating the strongest association with the target or “dependent” variable which, as mentioned, was overall member satisfaction. Association may be thought of as the extent to which change in one variable corresponds with a change in another, where the extent of change and concomitant strength of association is reflected in a statistic called the correlation coefficient, “r.” If both variables increase, they are said to be positively correlated; if one increases while the other decreases, they are said to be negatively correlated. The “r” coefficient has a maximum range of -1.0, or perfect negative correlation, to 1.0, or perfect positive correlation. Generally, a coefficient of zero indicates no relationship; however, the reader should be aware that inherent in that interpretation are certain assumptions regarding the nature and distribution of the data, an explanation of which lies beyond the scope of this article.

Also, Statistics 101 frantically reminds us that “correlation does not imply causation,” meaning that just because one variable appears to change with another, it does not necessarily follow that either variable actually caused the other to change…it is possible that a third variable, for example, whether seen or unseen, might be at work influencing both of them. It is the wise decision-maker, therefore, who infuses the analytical process with squinty-eyed common sense—numbers have no soul, and the path to understanding is littered with the dashed dreams of researchers rushing to judgment over data that in the final analysis only superficially corresponded with sponsor predispositions and goals. (The Key Driver data reported here, however, were reinforced with information from additional statistical techniques including Factor Analysis and Multiple Regression, so confidence in the findings was well-justified.)

As the analysis proceeded, it became evident that the correlation output from the 50 variables could be divided into 3 tiers of increasingly associative coincidence with member satisfaction. Tier 1 included variables with correlation coefficients in a range of approximately .40 to .50; Tier 2 was made up of variables whose coefficients ranged between .50 and .60; and Tier 3, demonstrated correlation coefficients closely approaching and even exceeding the .70 mark, a level of association that in the social sciences generally is regarded as fairly strong. It is this final tier that commands attention and ultimately reveals just how right Einstein had been.

As is evident in the first column of the accompanying correlation matrix (reduced here to the dependent variable and salient indicators), there is indeed an experience path related to personal growth comprised of learning, creativity, participation, and skill development. The associative strength of each variable pairing with the overall sentiment (coded V99), is displayed as the bold-printed number in the column beneath the V99 heading. The correlation coefficient for V24 (Creativity) is.684; for V26 (Learning) it is .691; for V32 (Participation) it is .711; and for V48 (New Skills) it is .712. The reader will recall that the highest possible score in absolute terms is 1.0.

You may reach the author, Ken Will, Director of Consumer Research for D & A Solutions, Ltd. Retired from timeshare. Originally printed in the November/December 2009 Resort Trades Management & Operations Magazine