The Facilities at the Griffith University Hotel - Research Proposal Example

Introduction This report is an evaluation of the facilities at The Griffith University Hotel which sought to find out the existing facilities at the City Hotel. The Hotel has the following facilities: in-room broadband connection, wireless broadband connection throughout hotel, room service, a-la-carte restaurant, family restaurant, mini-bar, swimming pool, gymnasium, tennis courts. It has the following services that it offers to the clients: in-room pay movies, in-room cable television (foxtel), express check-in, express check-out, valet parking, free daily newspaper, games room and tour booking service. The Griffith University Hotel has also categorized its customers as either business customers or pleasure customers. Business customers are those who come to the hotel with a purpose of accomplishing the business either within the hotel or around the hotel (in the city), they may have conferences, meetings among other business activities. On the other hand, pleasure are those customers who are on a personal trip, vacation, honeymoon among other personal activities. The data was gathered from the business and pleasure travelers, where their views on the facilities in the hotel were asked using questionnaires. The hotel has facilities that all its clients use, therefore their perception was important in determining the state of the facilities. Purpose of the research The research sought to establish the performance of each facility in the City Hotel and establish if clients are satisfied while using these facilities. Objective of the study The study was guided by the following specific objectives: 1. To establish the factors in terms of the hotel facilities that affect client choice of a hotel. 2. To be able to establish if the clients of Graffin Unversity Hotel are satisfied with the facilities in the hotel. Research questions To be able to address the above objectives the research was guided by the following specific research questions; 1. Which type of clients does Graffin University Hotel serve? 2. Which facilities are found in Graffin University Hotel? 3. Which facilities determine the choice of hotel by the clients? 4. Are the customers satisfied with the facilities at the Graffin University Hotel? Research methods: The Rational of the Methodology and Research Design The study sought to find out the performance of the facilities and their importance as perceived by the clients who are the end users of these facilities therefore Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) was adopted for the study as the methodology. This model was presented by Slack (1991) an IPA model that considered a relationship between importance and performance theoretically the levels of the performance for particular facilities should be proportional to the importance of those facilities. Barsky (1995), affirms that lower importance ratings are likely to have a lesser role in affecting overall perceptions, while higher importance rating are likely to play a more critical role in determining customer satisfaction. This model has been used occasionally without being modified for instance, Chon, Weaver, and Kim (1988) applied IPA for the Visitors Bureau of Norfolk. This model is used in this research because it gives the researcher an opportunity to identify which facilities are important and how are they performing. Questionnaires were used to gather information which was later analyzed with Ms Excel as a tool of data analysis. The questionnaires sought to establish the category of the respondent as either a personal traveler or business traveler, their views on what influences their choice of a particular hotel were sought, and the final part of the questionnaire sought to establish if the clients are satisfied with the facilities in the Graffin University Hotel more specifically clients were to specify which facilities satisfy them and which ones do not. Results: Table 1; research results Mean, Variance and t-values of the respondents for performance and importance in-room broadband connection wireless broadband connection throughout hotel room service a-la-carte restaurant family restaurant mini-bar swimming pool gymnasium tennis courts in-room pay movies in-room cable television (foxtel) express check-in express check-out valet parking free daily newspaper games room and tour booking service tour booking service Mean 1 2.82 2.45 2.86 3.17 2.53 2.22 2.8 2.64 1.84 2.60 3.86 2.5 3.17 2.68 3.23 2.64 2.6 2 2.78 2.26 2.28 3 2.99 2.25 3 3.05 1.99 3.07 3.88 2.8 2.91 2.57 2.78 3.06 2.95 Variance 1 1.35 0.99 1.09 1.49 1.21 1.76 1.66 1.12 1.34 0.96 1.43 1.50 1.04 1.03 1.47 1.65 2 2.17 1.18 1.33 1.48 1.10 1.59 1.64 1.31 1.49 0.96 1.60 1.72 1.19 `1.23 1.43 1.54 t-values Total 0.86 0.17 0.14 0.20 0.002 0.84 0.44 0.01 0.29 0.001 0.91 0.01 0.10 0.38 0.00 0.00 0.03 Note: 1- is for business respondents 2- pleasure respondents Results interpretation From the table above it is clear that there was a statistical differences in the means of the respondents on the issues of the tour booking service(t=0.03, p< 0.05), games rooms (t=0.004 p< 0.05), free daily newspaper (t=0.006 p< 0.05), express check-in (t= 0.01 p< 0.05), in-room pay movies (t=0.001 p Read More