Transcript Primary data

Chapter 2
Marketing research
After going through this chapter, you should be able to:
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Explain the role marketing research plays in decision-making in
the hospitality industry
Identify sources of marketing information available to hospitality
organizations
Define secondary and primary data collection
Explain the differences between qualitative and quantitative
research methods
Recognize how bias and sampling errors can distort marketing
research findings
Describe how hospitality organizations conduct online research.
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Managers are paid to make decisions.
The purpose of marketing research is to inform and improve
decision-making by reducing uncertainty.
Marketing research can be defined as the systematic
gathering and analysis of data to provide relevant
information to aid decision-making.
Marketing research is a planned process.
Market research describes the investigation of consumer and
organizational markets
Marketing research includes research into all the marketing
mix variables and the macro (PESTE) and microenvironments.
Presents unique problems because of the cultural and
technological differences between countries:
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Translation difficulties
Variations in customer behaviour because of different
cultural backgrounds
Variations in customers’ product knowledge
Difficulties in obtaining comparable samples
Different cultural responses to market research surveys
Differences in the infrastructure
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Hospitality managers need relevant, accurate, current
and reliable information to be able to make effective
decisions that will influence the future of the business.
Small, single-unit, owner-operated companies rely on
informal approaches to data collection and
interpretation.
Larger organizations need to develop more
sophisticated marketing information systems to ensure
that corporate executives understand complex
environment
The marketing information system helps marketers to
identify trends and plan for the future
The hospitality marketing information system
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Internal information is held by the organization
Accommodation businesses hold a wealth of
information about customers because of legal
requirements
Information sources include:
 Customer records
 Guest history
 Departmental reports
 Marketing and sales reports
External information can be collected via the Internet
and publications including:
 International and national government
organizations
 Marketing research organizations
 Publicly quoted companies “Annual Accounts”
 Trade associations
 Hospitality industry trade press
 Financial press
 Universities and academic publishers
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Secondary (desk) data are data that have already been collected
It is relatively easy to obtain secondary data since the information
has already been published
Limitations to secondary data include:
 data have been collected and analysed by another
organization
 some organizations may deliberately manipulate data
 other organizations may have inadvertently introduced bias
 information is generally available to competitors
 secondary data and analysis can often be ‘dated’ because of
the long time between carrying out the research and
publishing
 the findings
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Primary data consist of original information collected by an
organization for a specific purpose.
The data have not been published before.
The organization conducting or commissioning the research
determines the research objectives and research questions.
Data are collected directly to provide answers to those questions.
Primary research is usually more costly than the secondary
research.
Advantages of primary research include the following:
 The ability to frame the research questions to the needs of
the organization
 Research is current and not dated
 Research is confidential
Primary data can enable a hospitality company to gain
competitive advantage if competitors are not carrying out similar
research.
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Qualitative research aims to provide a deep
understanding of people’s contextualized behaviour
It aims to explain how and why people behave in certain
ways
Qualitative research in hospitality uses:
 Observation
 in-depth interviews,
 focus groups (also known as group discussions)
 qualitative questions in surveys
 Quantitative research uses a wide range of
methods to obtain and analyse numerical data
 Quantitative research counts numbers, in terms of
either volume or value. For example:
 the number of customers, passengers, residents,
diners, room nights, room occupancy;
 restaurant unit’s sales; or a hotel chain’s room
sales.
 If data are numeric then the research is
quantitative
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Quantitative research techniques are founded upon
statistical theory
Correct statistical methods are required to reduce
possible error and bias
Possible errors include:
 Sampling errors
 Respondent errors
 Investigator errors
 Administrative errors
In large surveys, statistical software packages are used
to process the quantitative research data.
 exit surveys
 mystery customer audits
 telephone (including mobile phone)
surveys
 online surveys
 omnibus surveys.
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Closed questions provide a number of alternative answers from which the
respondent chooses one answer, for example questions about:
 respondent’s age, sex, employment, income
Closed questions use a structured format which creates a data set that
can be efficiently analysed using statistical methods.
Closed questions are essential if a quantitative research method is used
Open-ended questions allow respondents to provide their own answers,
Examples include ‘Where would you stay tonight if this hotel was fully booked?’
and ‘How did you feel about the quality of service?’
Open question allows respondents to use their own words to describe their
experience, feelings and opinions.
Qualitative research findings using open questions provide ‘rich’ data
Researchers usually ask a combination of both closed and open questions
and combine qualitative and quantitative analysis.
Compare Le Meridien and Malmaison in-room customer questionnaires
Le Meridien customer questionnaire
Le Meridien customer questionnaire (2)
Malmaison comment card
There are six steps in the marketing research
process:
 Formulation of research objectives
 Development of a research plan
 Data collection
 Data analysis
 Assess the reliability and validity of data
 Presentation of findings
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Advantages of online research include:
 significant cost savings in the design and
administration of questionnaires and discussion
groups
 the ability to accurately target surveys to current,
former or potential customers.
Often, customers are incentivized to participate in
online surveys
Post- consumption e-surveys provide customers with a
convenient tool to give feedback on service quality and
customer satisfaction.
Tools such as blogs and social networking sites are
useful to obtain unsolicited such for customergenerated comment
The Internet is available to all sizes of hospitality
companies.
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Academics and practitioners have criticized modern
marketing research for a number of reasons
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The focus on collecting data and performing statistical
analysis, which does not provide new insights for the
business or inform decision-making
Flawed marketing research methodologies that introduce
unacceptable levels of bias or error
The emphasis on research stifles creativity in marketing
Despite these criticisms, major hospitality companies
recognize the importance of marketing research and carry
out extensive customer and competitor research on a
continuous basis
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