Research Project on Hospitality and Tourism: A Comparative Study

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BUSINESS MANAGEMENT PROJECT ASSESSMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1: QUANTITATIVE APPROACH......................................................................................... 2
TASK 2: QUALITATIVE APPROACH............................................................................................5
TASK 3: LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................... 8
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................... 10
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INTRODUCTION
Research project plays a significant role in understanding the past, present and future
scenario of a particular field of business management (Saunders and Lewis, 2012). This
report is based on identifying the relevance, importance and role of business researches in a
particular business field. Different research journals selected, reviewed and analysed to
identify their relevance in a business area of hospitality and tourism. Three research journals
based on the quantitative approach and three research journals based on the qualitative
approach are explored, selected and reviewed to find out their purpose and contribution in
the hospitality and tourism industry. Moreover, the literature of the selected research
journals based on the quantitative approach is critically evaluated to determine their
reliability and quality. This assignment report has provided an opportunity to gain significant
academic knowledge in developing and performing an effective research study in the
business field.
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TASK 1: QUANTITATIVE APPROACH
INTRODUCTION
The purpose and objectives of the selected Journals based on the quantitative research
approaches are;
I. “A Comparative Analysis of Major Online Review Platforms: Implications for
Social Media Analytics in Hospitality and Tourism”
The three key online review platforms such as Expedia, Yelp and TripAdvisor are
examined comparatively in terms of quality of information in relation to the
online reviews with the aims of identifying development opportunity of social
media in hospitality industry. The rationale for selecting these platforms is that
these are widely recognised among the consumers (Xiang, et al., 2017). These
three platforms are reviewed in terms of sentiments, semantic features, linguistic
features, review helpfulness and ratings.
II. “Entrepreneurship in the tourism industry: Issues in developing countries”
The widespread demand for tourism has encouraged the appearance of several
medium and small hotels in the developing countries like Malaysia. The key
purpose of this study is to determine the features of medium and small hotel
managers and the problems and issues confronted by them in relation to their
survivability in the hospitality and tourism industry (Jaafar, et al., 2011).
III. “The relevance of the tangible and intangible social impacts of tourism on
selected South African communities”
In developing countries like South Africa, community support is very important
for sustainability in the tourism industry. This study explores the role of both
intangible and tangible social impact of tourism. The key purpose of the study is
to measure the significance of intangible and tangible impact for three
communities in South Africa with established tourism and to analyse how this
affects the development plans (Scholtz, and Slabbert, 2016).
METHODOLOGY USED
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I. The social media analytics procedure is applied in the study to answer the set
research questions. The relevant data is collected from searchable hotels based
in Manhattan in selected platforms. Several types of data are such as hotel name,
address, class customer reviews user responses and ratings are collected and
processed by using tokenisation and stop word removal. The reviews written in
English are considered for research. The key metrics are developed and
compared including semantic features, sentiments, linguistic features, and
supposed helpfulness of online reviews (Xiang, et al., 2017). A method of
regression analysis is used for examining the relationship between these
measures.
II. The second study is based on the multi-method approach. The responses are
collected through a questionnaire survey, interview and observation. Qualitative
data is collected through the less structured interview the medium and small
hotels located at urban, island and coastal settings were chosen. The data from
145 hotels are collected (Jaafar, et al., 2011). The collected data is analysed by
applying a frequency analysis technique.
III. An exploratory research design is applied in the third research. The study was
carried out in three communities in South Africa with established tourism;
Jeffreys Bay (Eastern Cape), Soweto (Gauteng) and Clarens (Free State). A
questionnaire is developed through analysing information obtained from a
literature review. 31 statements are categorised into four intangible and tangible
impacts. The sample of 400 questionnaires for each area is selected and 1043
questionnaire were used. SPSS is used for further analysis (Scholtz, and Slabbert,
2016).
MAIN FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
I. Huge discrepancies are found in the representation of hotels on different online
review platforms. In terms of semantic, rating, linguistic, sentiment, and
usefulness features, the online reviews considerably vary. In terms of the
quantity of review statistics, Expedia and TripAdvisor are similar, while Yelp has
smaller amount of data. On analysing review texts, each platform reflects
different themes and user bases. In terms of sentiments, TripAdvisor and Expedia
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can be compared in volume. TripAdvisor appears to have more reviews than
Expedia in terms of review helpfulness (Xiang, et al., 2017). It recommends that
the studies must consider the innate characteristics and potential biases in social
media while drawing data from online websites. It suggests that one platform
alone may not provide sufficient data because distinct platforms have different
unique characteristics.
II. The research findings have suggested that the majority of hotel entrepreneurs
are middle-aged and older male with the secondary or upper level of education.
Majority of them does not have any prior knowledge and specialisation in
tourism but have independent personality characteristics and strong self-
confidence. The majority of the hotel business in Malaysia is constructed after
the 1998 financial crisis with limited funds and bank loans. Information
technology has played a great role in promoting their hotels (Jaafar, et al., 2011).
However, traditional techniques like word of mouth and signboards are also
played a important role in the industry. The key problem to the hotel owners is
lack of knowledge and skills.
III. The research findings have revealed that communities do not directly experience
tangible factors as the economic improvement factor obtained low ratings. The
highest ratings are obtained for the intangible factor of Upliftment and
community pride that suggests that communities support the tourism industry
and indicates a major role of intangible social impact in obtaining community
support (Scholtz, and Slabbert, 2016). It recommends that the intangible social
impacts should incorporate in tourism planning in developing countries to gain
higher community support and growth.
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TASK 2: QUALITATIVE APPROACH
INTRODUCTION
The selected Journals based on the qualitative research approaches are;
I. “Progress on information and communication technologies(ICT) in hospitality and
tourism”
The primary aim of this study is to establish the progress of ICT based on the
evaluation of the published papers in relation to hospitality and tourism journals.
This paper has also highlighted the possible future use and developments of ICT in
hospitality sector (Law, et al., 2014).
II. “Hospitality and Tourism online reviews: recent trends and future directions”
This research study is performed for analysing the growing popularity of online
reviews and their influence on the buying behaviour of individuals as well as on the
products supply in the hospitality industry (Schuckert, et al., 2015).
III. “Brand strategies in social media in hospitality and tourism”
The main aim of this study is to reveal the drivers for integrating social media in the
brand strategies of the organisations in the tourism industry. The key objective of
this study is to analyse the top ten raked journals in relation to drivers for
incorporating social media in the brand strategies of hospitality. It is also aimed at
recognizing the main trends of research for contributing to the future enrichment of
social media in building a brand in the hospitality industry (Moro and Rita, 2018).
METHODOLOGY USED:
I. The data for the first study is collected by searching all ICT related publications in
hospitality and tourism industry collected from four online databases; EBSCO
host, science direct, emerald management journals and sage Journals. Around
107 full-length journal papers were searched, reviewed and categorised in two
major categories of key players within the hospitality and tourism industry;
consumer and suppliers (Law, et al., 2014). The data collection is conducted
thrice and the final sample of 107 papers that are directly related to the ICT
application is selected. The selected research papers were divided into two
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categories; 41 papers with consumer orientation and 66 papers with supplier
orientation. The technique of content analysis is applied to analyse the collected
data.
II. In the second Journal, the qualitative data is retrieved from online sources such
as Science Direct, Google scholar and EBSCOhost. The keywords such as Hotel,
destination, restaurant, travel and tourism are used to search online articles.
Around 50 articles published between 2004 and 2013 are selected in the study
and classified into five topics. The consent of several authors who are
experienced in the e-commerce researches has taken to avoid the possibility of
personal bias. The technique of content analysis is used to examine individual
articles (Schuckert, et al., 2015).
III. For the second article, the data is collected through querying Google scholar with
terms like Brad, branding and social media in relation to the tourism and
hospitality journals. The articles published during the period of 2005 to 2015
were scrutinised. Around 479 articles were collected and the method of text
mining and topic modelling technique is used for analysing the research data
(Moro and Rita, 2018). Dictionaries were used for parsing the documents and the
discovered topics were characterised by the terms related to the compiled
dictionary that has supported in segmentation of articles incoherent literature
sets.
MAIN FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:
I. The first journal has recommended that information and communication
technology is used in different functional units for different purposes in the
hospitality and tourism that indicates its wide adoption in the industry. The study
suggests that the ICT has enabled the capabilities of hospitality and tourism
organisations but the utilisation of its capabilities is limited by ambitions, attitude
and financial status of management rather than technological constraints (Law,
et al., 2014). Thus, it recommends that the managers should integrate developed
technologies into business and incorporating ICT in their business mission by
applying a more proactive approach.
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II. The second Journal has reviewed and analysed several journals from which
majority of the articles emphasises on hotels and used experiential study based
on the secondary data. The articles were mainly focused on analysing the
relationship between online reviews and buying as well as online management
and satisfaction. It suggests that online reviews act as a strategic instrument that
plays an major role in tourism sales, management, branding and promotion
(Schuckert, et al., 2015).
III. The thirds journal has shown that there is a strong relationship between social
media and branding. However, most of the existing research is focused on
broader themes in relation to the use of social media in tourism industry and
many of them are from a consumer point of view. Only a few pieces of research
have attempted to study how social media integrated into brand strategies. The
study has revealed that accommodation is considered as the highly grown-up
industry in social media. The trip advisor acts as a mean of e-word of mouth
(Moro and Rita, 2018). The general social media network like facebook is
becoming more pertinent in the tourism industry. It recommends that hospitality
and tourism industries should create their branding strategies in social media
according to their industry needs as different platforms play different roles.
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TASK 3: LITERATURE REVIEW
A critical review of the literature of the three journals used based on the quantitative
approach presented to analyse the effectiveness and relevance of the selected studies in the
tourism industry.
The first journal based on quantitative research is focused on comparing the key online
review platforms and their implications in the tourism industry. The growing use of social
media and online review platforms in the hospitality industry has motivated the researcher
to identify and compare the major online review platforms used by the customers in the
hospitality industry. This academic journal has effectively presented the research literature
and different aspects of the research. The relevant literature has been sourced in the study
from the popular social media platforms (Yelp, and TripAdvisor), speciality Sites (Toprural
and Flyertalk), and OTA sites (Ctrip and Expedia). The collected literature sample has clearly
reflected the growing diversity of social media related research in tourism and hospitality
(Xiang, et al., 2017). This study has provided a clear knowledge of how a comparative study
can be effectively performed. It has provided a proper understanding of outlining a research
study. To study the relevant existing literature could be a tough task for a researcher, by
reviewing this study, one can gain a thorough understanding of how to design and structure
comparative research.
The second Journal is focused on analysing the development of small and medium
organizations in the hospitality and tourism in Malaysia. While analysing the literature of
this journal, it can be stated that the pattern and presentation of the journal could be
improved and more themes and subheadings could be formulated to make it more
understandable. However, the Journal has supported in gaining a significant knowledge
about the development and role of medium and small businesses in the tourism growth and
development in the developing countries like Malaysia. Through reviewing this study, a
significant academic knowledge is gained regarding the application and formulation of the
questionnaire as the study has effectively used the existing literature sources and
information for developing a systematic and appropriate questionnaire survey to gain
relevant primary data for the research work. This study has successfully implemented the
multi-method research approach, that is general is very complex to implement. One
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important lesson from the study is learned to perform a pilot test of the questionnaire to
ensure the dependability of the obtained data to the research (Saunders and Lewis, 2012).
The third journal is focused on identifying the tangible and intangible social impact and its
influence on the tourism planning in South Africa. The study is emphasised on evaluating the
social impact on the communities of tourism. The research areas are properly selected in
the study that has supported in formulating true and relevant data for the study. The
existing literature was used effectively used to identify and develop key intangible and
tangible social impacts on tourism. it has provided a clear knowledge of the positive and
negative impacts of the different tangible and intangible factors that may affect the
communities. The key positive point of this study is the application of exploratory research
design as a standardised questionnaire that could meet the research purpose could be
formed to analyse the intangible and tangible impact of tourism. This study has provided
great knowledge in formulating an effective questionnaire that should meet with the
research purpose.
The research journals based on the quantitative analysis has provided great knowledge of
designing and implementing successful quantitative research by using the different tools
and techniques of collecting quantitative data. It has provided great knowledge of how the
existing literature could be effectively used to design and develop an effective tool for
primary research.
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REFERENCES
 Jaafar, M., Abdul-Aziz, A.R., Maideen, S.A. and Mohd, S.Z., 2011. Entrepreneurship in
the tourism industry: Issues in developing countries. International Journal of
Hospitality Management, 30(4), pp.827-835.
 Law, R., Buhalis, D. and Cobanoglu, C., 2014. Progress on information and
communication technologies in hospitality and tourism. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, 26(5), pp.727-750.
 Moro, S. and Rita, P., 2018. Brand strategies in social media in hospitality and
tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(1),
pp.343-364.
 Saunders, M.N. and Lewis, P., 2012. Doing research in business & management: An
essential guide to planning your project. Pearson.
 Scholtz, M. and Slabbert, E., 2016. The relevance of the tangible and intangible social
impacts of tourism on selected South African communities. Journal of Tourism and
Cultural Change, 14(2), pp.107-128.
 Schuckert, M., Liu, X. and Law, R., 2015. Hospitality and tourism online reviews:
Recent trends and future directions. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 32(5),
pp.608-621.
 Xiang, Z., Du, Q., Ma, Y. and Fan, W., 2017. A comparative analysis of major online
review platforms: Implications for social media analytics in hospitality and tourism.
Tourism Management, 58, pp.51-65.
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