3.0 Methodology
3.1 Introduction
This report collects and generates information about customer reviews of hotels on the OTA to determine whether and how different types of customers have different demand and requirements for each element of the hotel marketing strategy. Determine and recommend to hotel management how to effectively use the OTA customer review data to formulate and maintain effective marketing strategies. Through two research objectives of the report to research whether different types of customers have different needs for hotels, and what marketing strategies hotel managers can devise for different customers, and how to help hotels improve business performance by understanding customer demand. This chapter focus on the methods used to research problems. The specific process is the discussion, planning, design, and execution of research methods. Figure 1 shows Sanders' ‘research onion’ detailing each stage of the research process, which provides an effective method for designing research methods.
Figure 1:The Saunders Onion (ResearchMethodology 2019)
3.2 Research Philosophy
Research philosophy is a special way of developing knowledge that defines the paradigm of philosophy (Saunders et al. 2009). It is important hypothesises determine the research strategy and the method of the strategy in the philosophy of research and explains the researchers' view of the world (GuhaThakurta 2015). Within the scope of business research, there are four main research philosophies: pragmatism, positivism, realism and interpretivism (ResearchMethodology 2019). Positivism position requires joint efforts with observable social realities to produce a legal-like summary. Realism relies on the idea of separating reality from human thinking, which based on assumptions about the scientific method of knowledge development (Saunders 2012). Interpretivism emphasises human and physical phenomena because they create meaning (Saunders 2009). This report uses pragmatism philosophy. It solves cognitive problems by dedicating diagnostic strategies, which focus on research interests and value issues and adopt different ways to produce positive consequences (Bromley 2008). It is an attempt to engage in philosophical debates in daily life behaviours and experiences that focuses on practical consequences (Wood and Smith 2008). Through pragmatism integrated into real life. Customers share their stay experience and publish online reviews about hotels. The report research understands the different demand for different customers from online customer reviews. It helps the hotel solve the problem and formulate relevant strategies. As mentioned above, pragmatism research philosophy gives priority to the nature of the subject and its practical consequences. Pragmatists do not emphasize any particular methodology but adopt a flexible research design as long as the research goals are achieved. To determine the research philosophy, the report will further research design/methods and be able to choose the most appropriate method to collect and analyse data to achieve the research objective.
3.3 Research Approach
The research method is based on the nature of the research problem to be solved. It serves as a plan and procedure, including steps from extensive assumptions to detailed data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Research approaches are divided into three types: Deductive research approach, Inductive research approach and Abductive research approach (Saunders 2009). Deduction involves the development of theory and then passes a series of propositions, and the concept must be operated in a way that can quantitatively assess facts and test pre-stated hypotheses. Induction uses known premises to produce untested conclusions. Abduction is a combination of deduction and induction, it is not from theory to data (such as deduction) or from data to theory (such as induction), but a combination of the two (David 2016). From the theory of abduction, the report researches how customer reviews reflect the customer's requirements and needs based on the fact that the number of customer reviews is known and the opinion that customer reviews will affect hotel performance.
3.4 Methodological choice
Sanders' research perspective shows that there are three main options for method selection: quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods. Qualitative methods refer to data collection techniques or data analysis techniques that use or create non-numeric data. In contrast, quantitative methods involve the collection and analysis of numerical data through numerical and statistical data (Saunders et al. 2012). According to the pragmatism research theory and research approach theory and connect with the collected data of the report. The most suitable method for the current research the mixing method. Mix methods refer to an emerging research method that facilitates the system integration or ‘mixture’ of quantitative and qualitative data in a single research or continuous research process. Compared to separate quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, this integration allows more complete and collaborative use of data (Melnikovas 2018). Quantitative analysis is used for measurement, performance evaluation, financial instrument evaluation, and forecasting of real events. For example, using quantitative analysis, analysts use numerical values to present the trend of a country’s gross domestic product (Kenton 2020). So, the report analyses the RevPAR report of the hotel industry from 2012 to 2019 through quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis deals with intangible and inaccurate non-numeric information that is difficult to collect and measure. Qualitative analysis uses subjective judgment based on non-quantifiable data (Smith 2020). Customers write text reviews about hotels on OTAs based on their subjective sentiments. So, the report collects customer reviews as qualitative data. Connect with two types of data, using mix approach can make the research process more flexible.
Also, Chetty (2016) pointed out that qualitative data requires an inductive analysis method, and quantitative data uses a deductive method. That makes this report more confirms to uses abduction methods to do the research is necessary and effective.
3.5 Research Strategy
The research strategy describes how the researchers intend to carry out this work (Saunders et al. 2007). This report uses case studies as a research strategy, which is mainly used to gain a deeper understanding of the proposed theory or generate basic information for the new theory. Compared with other academic research methods, case studies have certain advantages. First, it allows researchers to discuss specific problems or phenomena in detail. Second, case studies enable researchers to study the impact of social or historical background on specific phenomena. Third, researchers can study the specific empirical methods of the case in detail, to obtain a multi-dimensional perspective on the relevant issues (Orum 2001). Case studies can be used to explore various empirical phenomena, from individuals to business companies to communities or cities. In general, in case studies, information is obtained from different sources through different types of data (which can be qualitative, quantitative, or both. Such as document analysis). This allows the case study to conduct a comprehensive and multifaceted investigation of the problem (Prenger 2018). And emphasize that the detailed data of research make the analysis process more obvious and help to summarize the final theory. Combined with Methodological choice, mix method is used for analysis and research and confirmed the strategy of the case study is effective to use in the report.
3.6 Time Horizon
Saunders et al. (2009) pointed out that research can have both longitudinal and cross-sectional views. In general, choosing a cross-sectional line of sight means that the research will focus on the objective lens at a single point in the longitudinal direction-comparing over time. In cross-sectional studies, researchers examine specific issues at specific times. In longitudinal research, researchers will study the change and development of problems over time (Saunders et al. 2012). This report uses longitudinal research because it selects the business performance of the hotel industry from 2012 to 2019 and online customer reviews data from 2018 to 2019. Therefore, the report observes the hotel industry of business performance trend with time goes by.
3.7 Data collection
3.7.1 Data collection methods
This is the sixth and last layer of onion research. The process used at this stage of the study made an important contribution to the overall reliability and validity of the study (Saunders et al. 2007). Data collection is defined as the process of collecting and measuring information about variables in a defined and systematic manner (Jovancic 2019). It also describes the data source, study design, sample, sample size, sample ethics, sample limitations, Reliability and validity (Emmanuel 2019). Data collection methods can be divided into two categories: secondary methods of data collection and primary methods of data collection. This report uses secondary data collection methods to improve the effectiveness and reliability of the study. Secondary data is a type of business research that data has been published in books, newspapers, magazines, journals, portals, and other databases. These resources are available to understand the rich data available in the field of business research.
3.7.2 Research case study hotel companies
3.7.2.1 Marriott International (MI)
MI is an American multinational diversified hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and related lodging facilities. Andreu et al. (2010) offer the most powerful portfolio in the industry, their 30 brands and 7,000+ properties across 131 countries and territories give people more ways to connect, experience and expand their world. As of 2020, MI operates 30 brands internationally. Luxury hotels included JW Marriott Hotels, The Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, Edition Hotels, Bulgari Hotels & Resorts, The Luxury Collection and W Hotels. Premium hotels included Delta Hotels, Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Renaissance Hotels, Westin Hotels and Gaylord Hotels. Marriott is known for its strong brand, consumer preference, and award-winning guest loyalty program, Marriott Rewards (Marriott 2020). Marriott has been recognized by FORTUNE on its list of 100 Best Companies to Work for and as one of Americas Most Admired Companies (Marriott Annual Report 2009). MI also develops by leveraging big data analytics technology capabilities and expanding into emerging markets such as China and India in hotel marketing (Andreu et al. 2010). For example, MI uses SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis based on traditional hotel marketing to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the hotel and develops a list to evaluate competitors based on their products and quality scores (Landman, 2009). Track competitors’ strengths of the hotel understand new sources of income outside the hotel room, such as new facilities and personalised services, and ensure that they meet and meet customer needs. MI also develops strategies based on information such as customer feedback, transaction activity, use of loyalty programs, and third-party demographic data. Other data relates to the customer's family profile, including the number of children, the type of work performed by family members, salary, and even where and how they spend money. Finally, you can even use data from weather forecasts and local event schedules to improve demand forecasting, optimize pricing, or discover new business opportunities (Dallemand 2020). This successful case study proves that big data analysis is linked to traditional marketing strategies, making MI an international brand that can more powerfully compare competitors and industries to measure business and performance (MBA team 2020) and also benefit Hotels attract new customers, retain old customers and develop new markets.
3.7.2.2 InterContinental Hotels Group Plc (IHG)
IHG is a provider of hospitality services. The company owns, manages, leases, and franchises hotels and resorts. It operates mainstream, upscale and luxury hotels under various brand names such as Regent, InterContinental, Kimpton, Hotel Indigo, EVEN Hotels, HUALUXE, Holiday Inn Resort, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, VOCO, avid, Holiday Inn Club Vacations, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites. Its hotels offer accommodation, dining, business services, wellness services, lounges, pool bars, and meeting and event spaces. It also manages the hotel loyalty program, IHG Rewards Club. The company has operations in the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. IHG is headquartered in London, the UK (IHG 2020). IHG began to use advanced analytics to collect large amounts of data for its brands. The structured data set, which contains about 50 variables, was migrated to a big data solution to analyse unstructured and structured data in real-time (SmartData Collective 2013). Literature review above shows the example of IHG tries to use the big data analysis. In response, IHG has developed powerful analysis functions for its channels to attract guests to the hotel. Channels include Priority Club Rewards, the industry’s first, largest and fastest-growing guest loyalty program (currently with 71 million members); customer marketing; call centre optimisation and hotel revenue management (Businesswire 2013). Compared with other competitors, the advantage of as a member of IHG® Rewards Club that customer uses free Internet worldwide with IHG. Select personal stay preferences to customise hotel stays just the way customers like them. The goal of IHG is to find a comprehensive view that can better provide information to IHG customers, which has made it easy for customers to quickly find the hotel that suits them (Marketline 2018).This also requires IHG to quickly integrate large amounts of data from different sources and analyse many variables (preference, requirements) about customer types to obtain insights and present the results of customer demand.
The reason why this report chose MI and IHG as case study hotels. On the one hand, as the previous introduction and literature review show, these two hotels are the first to use big data analysis in the industry and have achieved certain results in transformation. It proves that these two hotels are inclusive of emerging fields and trends. On the other hand, it can be seen from the above summary that these two hotel chain groups appeal to a large number of customers. They attach great importance to customers and have their plans and strategies in terms of customer loyalty. They attach great importance to customers and have their plans and strategies in terms of customer loyalty. Due to the similarities between the two hotels, this report decided to collect a total of 17,125 online customer reviews on the two hotels on the OTA and analyse how the different types of hotel customers' needs differ and how they perform. The analysis results can provide insights and suggestions for these two hotels and for all other hotels in the hotel industry.
3.7.3 Data source and data definition
3.7.3.1 The OTA - TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor has a large community of customers from all over the world. They allow users rating hotels and restaurants or write comments in the text. TripAdvisor provides detailed and multi-dimensional information about online reviews that include hotel and holiday rentals, tours and tickets, flight and restaurant reservations. Figure 2 shows about customer types (families, couples, solo, businesspeople and friends).
Figure 2: Customer types in TripAdvisor (TripAdvisor 2020)
And Figure 3 shows hotel attributes (location, cleanliness, service and value). Macdonald (2019) research shows that TripAdvisor as the best review agency in the list of ‘The 8 Best Online Travel Agencies of 2020’. People enjoy writing the review in this agency. The highly acclaimed OTA also proves the authenticity and validity of the data provided by it. That is the main reason why the report chooses this agency to collect online customer reviews information. Moreover, this platform design allows users to search for each service under their own specific tabs, and then filter the results based on a very specific set of personal conditions. For example, if a user wants to find a place to live in London, they can set budget limits, choose their favourite star and hotel type, choose necessary facilities, and even narrow their search to a specific community. Users can browse the traveller's ranking options according to the theme (including cheap meals, local cuisine and gourmet food) in the restaurant tab. It also provides a comparison of hotel prices on many other hotel booking sites (Macdonald 2019).
Figure 3: Hotel attributes in TripAdvisor (TripAdvisor 2020)
3.7.3.2 Five types of customer (traveller)
The report conducts research and analysis on these five types of customer reviews based on the five types of traveller provided by TripAdvisor (Figure 2) and observes and analyse the different demands, opinions and attitudes of these five types of customers on hotels. In addition to the easier understanding of couples and friends. Families, Businesspeople and solo are necessary to further explain, so that in the discovery and analysis stage, it can better explain and prove the validity and rationality of the research results presented.
Families as a customer group which hard to please possibly. Because their needs represent the demands of multiple generations. Children are a big factor in the location and manner of family travel. BriefYourMarket (2019) survey about 77% of children said they had a ‘great impact’ on the activity plan, while 54% said they helped choose a hotel. This means that hotels need to weigh various priorities from prices and activities to child-friendly facilities and services.
Solo can include business people and leisure people, but as in the five types of customers provided by TripAdvisor, businesspeople have been listed separately, so in this report, solo belongs to the type of leisure customer, which refers to a completely independent traveller, who will need space, value for money and convenience. Solo included who joins an organised company or inbound tour group alone and a backpacker who usually means young travellers on a budget holiday (Hickman et al. 2019).
Businesspeople who travel only for business purposes, they require accommodation and check-in services within a short period. They may only stay at the hotel to attend a conference in the city where the hotel is located, but usually, travellers are the hotel’s largest source of businesspeople (Hickman et al. 2019). Businesspeople usually stay in a hotel to attend seminars, discuss business, meet customers and offices. So, they are also the types of customers who stay in the hotels the longest.
3.8 Research process
This report mines customer reviews information about MI and IHG from TripAdvisor as the text data of the report. Firstly, the report mines 17,125 online customer reviews about these two hotels from 2018 to 2019 and the reviews are collected into 5 Excel files according to customer types segment.
Secondly, using the Machine leaning tool - IBM® SPSS® Modeler Text Analytics provides powerful text analysis capabilities that use advanced language technology and natural language processing (NLP) to quickly process and extract various unstructured text data and organisation key concepts (IBM 2020). Compared with other text software Python and R language, SPSS Modeler can quickly build machine learning pipelines without any programming to flow data from ingestion to transformation and model construction (Filla 2018). Text mining to delve into unstructured data to extract meaningful patterns and insights required for exploring textual data sources (Rai 2019). Text mining included text clustering, keyword extraction, sentiment analysis and summary (Talabis 2015). This report based on the five general steps of text mining: data collection, text pre-processing, data mining and visualisation, model building and model evaluation. Figure 4 shows the model build an entire text mining process. The triangle mark on the left represents the classification package by negative, and the triangle mark on the right is the classification package by positive. The text analysis of five customers types is based on this process for mining analysis and research.
Figure 4: The text mining model process in SPSS Modeler
The report uses three methods of text mining to study: text correlation research, sentiment analysis and keyword extraction. Text correlation research helps to explore the relationship between the emotions expressed by customers' words (such as words expressing positive emotions and words expressing negative emotions) and the hotel itself (such as hotel services and hotel infrastructure), such as ‘good services’ The distribution between customers the proportion of positive and negative review by sentiment analysis. The report uses sentiment analysis to identify and extract subjective information in raw materials. This analysis helps companies to monitor online reviews while helping companies better understand the social sentiment and value of their brands, products or services. (Gupta 2018). Based on sentiment analysis, to analyse customer reviews of sentiments type by using the type classification package and the mining process. The keyword extraction draws the word cloud of total online customer reviews for hotels.
Finally, to extract the development trend of the hotel industry from 2012 to 2019 from the Statista.com database. The database specifically shows the trend of revenue per available room (RevPAR). Because RevPAR is an indicator used by the hotel industry to measure hotel performance (Chen 2020), it is feasible and effective to use as an indicator to understand the performance of the hotel industry. Using Tableau visualisation software to do the describe analyse of data, which summarise or describe the characteristics of the data set (Kenton 2019). And learn about the performance of the hotel industry in the past seven years. According to the analysis results of this business performance trend, social phenomenon and customer reviews, the report provides hotel managers with suitable marketing strategies.
3.9 Methodology Limitations
Methodology based on the research onion, the report chooses the appropriate methods, which provide a solid foundation and framework for further research. But the report understands and accepts that each method has its limitations. It takes a lot of time and effort to complete an accurate research report. It is necessary to continuously search for relevant data and try various related analytical methods and filter out the research results that are more in line with expectations. However, due to the limited research time of this report, there may be some deviations in the research methods and arguments. For example, because a lot of data must be filtered, the process of collecting information using case study methods requires more time than other research methods. Data may be missing or lost during the screening process. It is also limited because it only analyses two hotels companies among the many other hotel companies in global and only one OTA. Therefore, the report should verify the information provided to ensure its accuracy, but this requires a lot of time to complete (Appendix 1).