Expectations of Customers of the Hotel Sector - Case Study Example

Table of Contents Table of Contents Executive Summary Formulation of Research Proposition 2 Research Design 3 Types of Research 3 Research Type for This Phase 4 Literature Review 4 Issues 4 Focus Groups 5 Issues in Focus Groups 6 Observational Technique 6 Issues in conducting Observation Technique 7 Depth/Probe Interviews 8 Issues in Depth Interviews 8 Third Person Technique 9 Exploratory Analysis 9 Conclusion 10 References 10 Executive Summary In order to achieve the objective of identifying the objectives of the customers from a hotel, a market research is needed. Phase One of the Research process was focused on identifying various things such as the scope, the questions addressed by the research, the process of deciding research methodology and a review of the ethical and cost implications of the research. It is now needed to assess the various qualitative techniques that might be in use during the research process. This phase is meant to address the issue of qualitative research that might be undertaken to achieve the said objective. The next part of the document deals with the formulation of research proposition. It is followed by a discussion on the research design for this phase. This is followed by an analysis of various techniques, the methods, and the biases and ethical issues in those techniques. The techniques discussed are: Literature Review, Focus Group, Depth Interview, Observations and Pilot Study. Formulation of Research Proposition Framing a correct research question is an important part in the research process. A research question is the researcher’s translation of a business problem into a specific statement that clarifies the need for enquiry (Zikmund, 98). The research question shall be able to clarify any ambiguities that might arise in the research objectives. As stated previously, this research aims to assess the expectations of various customers from hoteliers. So, an appropriate research questions is: What is the relative importance of various service quality factors that tourists expect from a hotel? How does this importance differ between business travelers and vacationers? The various service quality factors mentioned in the questions will be along the five dimensions as designed by Parsuraman et al. (1988): tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The various service quality factors will be decided on the basis of a thorough literature review, and other techniques such as focus group, depth interviews, and observations. There is no firm conclusion on the difference between a hypothesis and a proposition (Cooper & Schindler, 43). A proposition is a statement about the concepts that may be judged in the research process as true or false. The nature of the research at present stage is exploratory. So, the researcher proposes the following propositions: Proposition 1: There is significant difference between the relative importance of various service quality factors as expected by the customers. Proposition 2: There is a significant difference between the order of importance of various factors between business travelers and vacationers. Research Design Types of Research There are various types of research study. The research design chosen shall be in accordance with the type and purpose of the research study. The various types of research study are: Exploratory Research: This research aims at discovering more about a specific problem that the firm needs to be answered (Kurtz, 252). Some of the techniques for such a research include: secondary data analysis (literature review), experience surveys, focus groups, etc. It is primarily qualitative in nature. Descriptive Research: It is a quantitative research type that aims to describe and explain a real life phenomenon. The aim of this research is to generate new knowledge about concepts or topics with limited research (Burns & Grove, 44). Descriptive research techniques include surveys, and are generally concerned with primary data. Conclusive Research: Conclusive research is the ultimate research and the recommendations from which can be acted upon by the marketers. It enables marketers to identify environmental opportunities, to implementing and controlling marketing mix (Sadhusen, 188). Research Type for This Phase This phase aims at understanding the overall industry characteristics of hotels. The objective of this phase is to identify the various factors that might be important form a customer’s point of view, identification of the various variables of importance. The nature of this phase is primarily qualitative in nature, and hence it is exploratory in nature. Literature Review In order to understand the various service quality factors that should be addressed, it is necessary that a thorough literature review is done to understand the concept of service quality and the importance of service quality in the hospitality industry. A literature review is a synthesis of published information in a particular subject area (UNC, 2007). It makes an assessment of information published by previous scholars and researchers. Literature review enables us to have a brief overview of the problem at hand, and previous attempts to answer the problems. While conducting the literature review, it shall be noted that the review is related to the research problem at hand. The process shall start with the searching of available papers on the same field. Based on the abstract, papers and books shall be selected that are most relevant to the problem at hand. This will be followed by identifying the areas where there is a gap in the previous literature. The gaps, controversies and arguments then shall be analyzed. The process of literature review is continuous and shall be performed until the actual primary research is started. The process ends with the identification of the mechanisms to complete the gaps in the available literature. Issues The process of literature review throws various issues. The purpose of the research previously done is often not known to the present researcher. Moreover, the data used by previous research might have biases and errors which can not be corrected by the present researcher. The previous researchers might be for different areas than the one that is of concern now. It is also possible that the behavior and attitude of customers might have changed since previous research. In order to remove all these limitations, the researcher will make it sure not to use the literature findings as a firm statement. The findings from the literature will just be used as a basis. The findings from this step will be modified according to the other techniques such as the focus groups, interviews, and a pilot study. The researcher will also make it sure to cite any source that he might use for the purpose. This will eliminate ethical issues that may arise of copyright violations. Focus Groups A focus group is different from normal groups in terms of its purpose, size, composition and procedures. The aim of focus group is to listen and gather information. The focus groups shall be designed in such a way that they do not force the participants to vote or reach a consensus. The focus groups are repeated with different participants, having similar characteristics. The trends and analysis of the discussions are an indication of the insights of the product (Krueger & Casey, 4). For the purpose of the focus group of this research, the researcher proposes to use a group size of 7-9 people. The focus groups will be homogeneous in nature. There will be 3 categories of focus groups. One will be the managers from reputed hotels. Second will be the customer who are business travelers, and third will be the customers who are on a vacation with the family. The use of three different categories for the focus groups will enable the researcher to have a complete insight on the various service quality factors from three different perspectives. The researcher will be preparing a discussion guide that will be used to identify the various issue that need to be addressed in the focus group. The focus group interview shall start with an ice-breaking question, and the flow of the group shall move from more general to more focused approach. Issues in Focus Groups The Focus group interviews are an extremely efficient technique that can be used for the qualitative analysis of the problem. However, it may also face certain issues. The group interview might turn futile if one of the members turn dominant. The researcher will make it sure that this does not happen. The focus group shall be conducted under complete supervision of the researcher and shall follow a disciplined approach. One of the potential ethical issues that might arise from this technique is the over or under disclosure of information by the participants. This is more serious in the case of the hotel managers. With managers from different hotels discussing together, it is possible that they might hide information. At the same time, it is possible that a comment made by one manager may be found to be too much and of benefit to some other hotel manager. The researcher will try to make sure that any over-disclosure by any of the participant is not used by other for any negative purpose. The focus group technique may also result in compromise of the ethical principles of confidentiality, informed consent, and to do no harm. In order to eliminate these ethical issues, the researcher proposes to use a legal consent that shall be signed by each focus group member before the focus group. Observational Technique Observational research is another very popular method for qualitative research. Observation is done to collect current and past information about a customer (Smith & Albaum, 273). Observation method can be effectively used to understand and analyze a wide variety of behaviors, and attitudes. This method of observation of present behavior is more accurate than recording past behavior. The researcher intends to use event sampling and observe the following phenomena of a customer: Physical Action, Verbal Behavior, Tone of voice Non-Verbal language such as facial expressions The observations will be made at places where a customer interacts with the employees of the hotels. Such points include the reception and the telephone enquiry by a visitor. The researcher will try to observe the behavior of both business travelers as well as vacationers. There are two techniques of observation: visible observation & hidden observation. The participants will be told that they are being observed. Only once the customer gives consent to observe, he will be observed. The technique of direct observation will be used, and the no attempts will be made to control or manipulate the situation. Issues in conducting Observation Technique One of the major limitations in conducting observation technique is the high cost it entails. In order to minimize the costs, the observation method will not be done for long periods. In order to get a quality result from the activity, an observation form will be used by the researcher to record everything. The observations will be made during different times of the day in order to remove the affects of time zones on the behavior. The researcher proposes to divide the task of observing with another individual. Each individual will be responsible for observing a particular aspect of a customer. This will make it easier for the observers to analyze and record the observations quickly. In order to get appropriate results from the observational method, the findings from observational methods will be analyzed in light of the findings of literature review and focus groups. The analysis will give a fairly complete picture of the expectations of the customers from the hotels. Ethical issues have been eliminated by using visible observation. Depth/Probe Interviews The depth interview is a technique that encourages the interviewer to extensively interview the respondent about a particular thing. Depth interviews largely depend on the skills of the interviewer. It is more expensive than other forms of qualitative analysis. The objective of ‘depth interview’ is not to collect data but information (Oppenheim, 67). The researcher will be using judgment sampling to decide the respondents. This will enable the researcher to have a wide range of respondents and cover all the possible kinds of respondents that he intends to use for the main survey. Due to the high costs of conducting a depth interview, we would limit to interviewing 10-15 people. Before the interview, the respondents will be told about the purpose of the interview and the research. It will be made sure to tell them that confidentiality of their responses will be maintained, and this would be given in writing. The interviewer will start with a vague idea by asking the question: What do you expect from the hotel?” The next questions will be based on the answers to this question. In order to maintain high standards, the interviewer will refrain from using a loading questions such as “What do you think of the safety of your belongings at the hotel?” The focus will be on asking probing questions such as “Can you give an example?” Issues in Depth Interviews The major issue in conducting depth interview is the high costs associated with the interviewer. However, in this case the cost will be minimized by limiting the number of depth interviews. The use of judgment sampling will enable us to get the perspectives of business traveler as well as vacationers. However, it might be difficult to convince people of the two categories to give so much time, as these interviews are generally long in nature. The interviewer would try to minimize the cost of the respondents. In order to get good results from the activities, effort will be made to understand both surface reactions as well as the subconscious motivations of the respondents. Third Person Technique This technique will be used in order to understand the attitudes of the customers towards hotels. They will be asked this question: “We have talked to many visitors who have visited this hotel. Some of them have found the service quality good and some believe it needs improvement. What in your opinion is the probable reason behind this?” Recording and analyzing the response will enable the researcher to understand the expectations of the customer, and a qualitative assessment of his overall satisfaction level with the hotel services. Exploratory Analysis The exploratory analysis is an important step to understanding the overall structure of the hotel industry in the region. The nature of the study done at this stage is primarily qualitative in nature. The various techniques that were used were the literature analysis, focus groups, in-depth interviews, and Third person technique. The findings from each technique will then be collated together to get a complete picture of the possible expectations of the customers. The researcher has tried to find the possible service quality factors from various categories: business travelers, vacationers, and hotel managers. Conclusion The exploratory data analysis was a very important step in understanding the overall industry structure for hotel industry. The findings from this step will be the basis for the next phase i.e., quantitative analysis. The design of various techniques such as literature review, and focus groups, along with an analysis of the ethical, time and cost issues associated with each technique will be helpful during the actual exploratory analysis process. References Burns, N, & Grove, S.K. 2005. The practice of nursing research: conduct, critique, and utilization Practice of Nursing Research: Conduct, Critique, & Utilization, 5th ed. Elsevier Health Sciences. Krueger, R.A., & Casey, M.A., 2000. Focus groups: a practical guide for applied research, 3rd ed. Sage Publications. Kurtz, D.L., 2008. Contemporary Marketing, 13th ed. Cengage Learning. Oppenheim, A.N., 2001. Questionnaire design, interviewing and attitude measurement, 2nd ed. Continuum International Publishing Group. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A., & Berry, L. L. (1988). Servqual: a Multiple Item Scale for Measuring Customer Perceptions of Service Quality. Journal of Retailing, 64(1), 12-43. Sadhusen, R., 2000. Marketing, 3rd ed. Barrons Educational Series. Smith, S.M., & Albaum, G.S., 2004. Fundamentals of marketing research. SAGE Publications. The Writing Center, University of North Carolina, 2007. Literature Reviews, [Online]. Available at: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/literature_review.html. [Last Accessed at: 2nd Sept. 2009]. Zikmund, W.G., 2003. Business Research Methods, 7th ed. Thomson Learning. Read More