The Importance of Looks on Customer Engagement in UK Hospitality Industry: A Study on Marriott

PHigher National in Hospitality Management
Unit 18 Research Project
RESEARCH PROPOSAL FORM
STUDENT DETAILS
Section One : Research Title, Aim and Objectives
Research Title: The importance of looks on customer engagement position in UK hospitality
industry
Research Aim (What do you wish to find out or achieve?) :
The aim of this project is to identify the importance of looks on customer engagement position in the
UK hospitality industry during the hiring process. A Study on Marriott
Research Objectives (How do you want to achieve this aim. At least three/four objectives).
To achieve this aim, the following objectives have been proposed.
 To understand the concept of customer engagement and hiring procedure and their link
within hospitality industry
 To discern the challenges faced by Marriot during the hiring procedure in global pandemic
Covid-19
 To evaluate the different crisis management practices adopted by Marriot in relation to
customer engagement and hiring procedure
Research Questions (convert eachobjective above into a research question)
 Explain the conceptual framework of customer engagement and hiring procedure and their
link within hospitality industry?
 What are the challenges faced by Marriot during the hiring procedure in global pandemic
Covid-19?
 What are the different crisis management practices adopted by Marriot in relation to
customer engagement and hiring procedure?

Section Two: Research Rationale and Scope
Rationale/Justification for the Topic: this should briefly cover the following three areas.
i- Personal reasons for choosing the project topic (e.g. links to other subjects you are
studying, personal interest, future plans, knowledge/skills you want to improve)
The main purpose of choosing this research topic is to provide relevant information related to the
importance of looks on customer engagement position in the UK hospitality industry during the
hiring process. Through carrying out this research I can avail the knowledge regarding how much
looks matter in hospitality sector and how it influence the hiring process. It also helps in determining
how customer engagement and hiring process are linked with each other in UK hospitality sector.
This research also identifies the challenges which are faced by organisation during the hiring
procedure in global pandemic Covid-19. Company have also implemented various strategies in order
to deal with the impact of pandemic and hire the right candidate for making business successful and
providing better experiences to guest. Through conducting this research I will fulfil my two main
objectives which are personal and professional. The personal objective can be attain by gaining the
knowledge of looks which can influence the customer engagement and hiring process of hospitality
sector. The professional objective can be fulfil as I can know more about the challenges and
strategies which is implemented by hospitality sector in order to hire right candidate according to
expected looks.
ii- The gap identified in the literature
The main gap which is identified in this literature is that it focuses on the looks which hospitality
industry opt for attracting and retaining customers and also improves their experiences within
hospitability industry.
iii- Practical benefits of the study (i.e. state the beneficiaries of the study).
There are various benefits of doing this current study such as it provides great source of
secondary information about the topic called role of looks in engaging customers in pandemic.
The other benefit which can be availed is gathering of raw and numerical information.
Research Scope:this should briefly cover the following.
i. State the geographical areaand name of organisation the research will focus on. Give
reason.
The selected area for doing the existing study is the United Kingdom. The name of the
selected company is Marriott. The reason behind conducting this research is that business in
operated in hospitality industry.
ii. State the units of study (i.e. the target groupsthat the study will focus on)
Managers of the Marriott are selected so that they can provide great piece of information.
iii. List the theories and/or themes that will be involvedin the study.

Human relation theory
Section three : Preliminary Literature Review
The Literature Review, at this stage of the research process, does not have to be critical literature
review but each reviewed source should cover the following
Explain the conceptual framework of customer engagement and hiring procedure and their link
within hospitality industry?
As per the opinion of Chiang and Saw (2018), customer engagement plays an important role in
improving the profitability and performance of business. In order to engage the guest, looks of
employees matter as it helps in influencing the behaviour and attitude of people. It is important for
Marriott to hire attractive and good looking employees within organisation that helps in providing
better customer services and make them feel satisfied with the hotel. While hiring the candidate, it is
necessary to identify their etiquettes and behaviour as it helps in describing their personality
(Salazar, 2018). There is a link between customer engagement and hiring procedure as if company
hires right talent it helps in attracting more and more guest towards Marriott and also they focuses
on providing better customer services (Tran, Ly and Le, 2019).
What are the challenges faced by Marriot during the hiring procedure in global pandemic Covid-19?
As per the viewpoint of Pinto, Vieira and Fernandes (2020), there are several challenges which are
faced by hospitality company during hiring procedure in pandemic such as attracting right candidate,
identifying the potential employees, remote hiring, building strong employer brand and expanding
candidate reach. These are few problems which create an impact on the hiring process of Marriott in
pandemic. It becomes challenging for human resource department of Marriott to attract talented
employees who have good looks and personality (Abubakar, Anasori and Lasisi, 2019).
Organistaion also face challenging to expand their reach in search of highly experienced employees
who can improve the experiences of customers and create strong base in order to improve the
profitability and growth of business.
What are the different crisis management practices adopted by Marriot in relation to customer
engagement and hiring procedure?
As per the opinion of Baker and Kim (2018), there are different crisis management practices which
are adopted by Marriott in relation to customer engagement and hiring procedure such as attracting
highly skilled employees, rewarding, communicating deliberately, welcoming feedback and creating
realistic job requirement. These are the strategies which are adopted by Marriott in order to
overcome the impact of crisis on customer engagement and hiring process (Prentice, Dominique
Lopes and Wang, 2020).
Section Four: Overview of Research Methodology:
Discuss in short your research methods, philosophical approaches, research design e.g
qualitative/quantitative/mixed, research sample and sampling techniques.
Research Philosophy: The research philosophy gives certain beliefs and principles for collecting the

information in significant manner. There are two types of research philosophy they are positivism
and interpretivism philosophy. Under this research, the chosen philosophy is positivism philosophy
as it helps in analysing and evaluating the data in short period of time (Rosenberg and et. al., 2016).
One of the benefits for using this philosophy is that it lays emphasis on statistical facts and figures
and provides detailed information related to the looks of employees that attracts customers in
hospitality industry.
Research Approach: Research approach is also a tool of research methodology which facilitates the
information on the basis of the requirement of whole investigation. It is divided into two forms such
as inductive and deductive. In this research, the researcher is choosing deductive approach as it helps
in collecting the statistical data in systematic manner. The purpose of choosing deductive approach
is that it takes statistical data in order to achieve the goals and objective of research.
Research Strategy: Research strategy is an action which is taken for fulfilling the aims and objective
of research. There are various types of research strategy such grounded theory, action research,
interview, observation, survey, archival research etc. Researcher will choose survey strategy as it
helps in collecting the numerical and raw data in appropriate manner. The purpose behind choosing
survey technique is that it provide different opinion and percepctive of people related to the study. In
survey, questionnaire will also be used as it includes close-ended questions which help in attaining
the aims and objective.
Research Choice: The research choice provides detailed information about the topic due to which
goals and objective can be easily meet. There are two types of research choice such as qualitative
and quantitative research choice. In this researcher will choose quantitative method as it helps in
recording and collecting the numerical data in less time. The reason behind choosing quantitative
research choice is that it helps in collecting and assembling the numerical and statistical figures in
simple manner.
Data Collection: Data collection is another type of research method which is categorized into two
forms such as primary and secondary method. In this research, investigator will choose both the
method in appropriate manner (Pettey, Bracken and Pask, 2017). The primary method helps in
collecting raw information directly from the source whereas secondary data is used to accumulate
second-hand information. Questionnaire will be considered by investigator for collecting first-hand
information. The sources for secondary data include articles, newspapers, books, journals etc.
Sampling: Sampling is a tool that helps in collecting the right information from wide variety of
people. Basically, sampling is of two types such as probability and non-probability sampling. In this
research, investigator will choose probability sampling as it provides equal chance for people to give
their opinion and viewpoint regarding the looks matter for attracting customers. The chosen numbers
of samples for the questions are 30 respondents from Marriott hotel that helps in providing
information related to the topic.
Ethical Aspect of Study