Research Proposal: Current Trends and Technologies in Hospitality

This research proposal outlines a study on the current trends and technologies within the hospitality industry. The introduction highlights the industry's rapid growth and the increasing importance of technology, with a focus on areas like infrastructure, payment systems, staffing, and management. The research questions aim to identify current technological trends, their benefits, and impact on personalization and customization, as well as future trends and strategies for long-term technology integration. The methodology includes an inductive research approach, a qualitative research design focusing on the quality of technology, and simple random sampling of 40 hotels. Data collection will involve both primary (interviews and questionnaires) and secondary sources. Ethical considerations, such as ensuring confidentiality and avoiding misuse of information, are also addressed. The expected outcome is to understand the actual trends, benefits of technology, and formulate recommendations for personalized services. Limitations of the project will also be examined. The proposal seeks to analyze the impact of technology on customer decision-making and the competitive landscape of the hospitality industry.

Research Methods
Lecturer:
Student ID:
Research Proposal
Topic: “The current trends and technologies in the hospitality industry”
Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................1
2.0 Findings.....................................................................................................................................1
2.1 Research question..................................................................................................................1
2.2 Purpose of the research..........................................................................................................2
2.3 Justification of the research...................................................................................................2
2.4 Main point of argument.........................................................................................................3
2.5 Methods and methodology....................................................................................................3
2.6 Primary research method.......................................................................................................6
2.7 Ethical consideration.............................................................................................................7
2.8 Outcome and limitation of the project...................................................................................8
2.9 Personal reflection of the research process............................................................................9
3.0 Conclusion and recommendations...........................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11
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1.0 Introduction
This is a proposal of the research that will be conducted in the future. The research
proposal will outline the elements of the research that will be conducted in future. The research
that will be conducted will analyse the current trend of technologies going on in the hospitality
industry and what is the further scope of growth in the technologies used in the hospitality
business. Hospitality industry is deemed one of the fastest growing industries of the world and
thus looking after the technology is their most important responsibility. The advancement in
technology helped to decrease the cost for the hospitality industry. Recently 54% of hotels are
planning to incorporate advanced technology in all their sectors such as infrastructure, payment,
staffing and management. This is because most of the activities in the hotel sector depend on the
technology directly or indirectly. Thus analysing the trend is very crucial for this industry in
order to offer exclusive experience to the guests. Some of the common used technology in the
hotel sectors is mobile device set up at the door; technology induced room service, guest apps.
Location oriented services and tech lounges for the guests. This helps the hospitality business to
attract customer traffic in their business and retain the existing customers (rarr;, 2017). .
2.0 Findings
2.1 Research question
 What is the current trend and technology in the hospitality industry?
2.2 Purpose of the research
The main objective of the paper is to analyse the trend of technology going on in the
hospitality industry. For doing the further research on this, some future objective needs to be
design in order to move in a systematic manner to reach the conclusion.
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 Newest trends of technology in hotels and restaurants
 The benefits and impact of current trends and technology
 Technology in personalisation and customisation
 The future trends of technology in the hospitality industry
 The process of retaining these technologies in the long run
2.3 Justification of the research
The research that is being designed will help to explore the trends of technology in one of
the fastest and developed industry of the world that is the hospitality industry. The topic chosen
for the research is appropriate in understanding the trend that is going on in the hospitality
industry worldwide. The topic is also feasible and important as hospitality industry I growing
rapidly in today’s world. Analysing this industry will help the business owners to know the trend
and competitive environment existing in this industry due to the availability of technology. The
hotel industry is estimated to increase their technology in all their service-oriented process in
order to retain back their escalating guests. It is evident that about 54% of the hotels in the world
will induce technology in their day-to-day process. The most crucial places where the hotel
includes technology are in their guest rooms, bandwidth, payment methods and mobile
engagement. The technology development is adopted by the industry as it is estimated that it
helps in influencing the decision making of the guests by 70%. These technology is mainly in the
form of digital tools which gives a new look and opportunity to business (Hospitality Magazine
2017).
Technology has a long time affect on the hospitality industry that is necessary to analyse.
The research will also analyse the benefits the technology improvement put on hospitality
industry. It will further research the ways these technology will lead to personalisation and
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customisation in the customer service process, which is the most important driving point of
business. Lastly, an analysis of the future growth in these technologies will be viewed to see the
scope it has on the business and the ways they can structure out these technologies in their daily
business process. These will be done to help the hospitality business to fight the tough
competition faced offered in this growing industry (Neuhofer, Buhalis, & Ladkin, 2014).
2.4 Main point of argument
The main points of argument that will be focused in this research are:
 The growth rate of technology in hospitality sector
 Whether the technology affect the hotel industry positively
 The rate of effect of technology on the hotel industry
 The benefits incurred by the hotel sector from the technology growth
 Personalisation and customisation of the industry
2.5 Methods and methodology
Research methods Description Reason for selecting a method
Research
Philosophy
Positivism and interpretivism are the two
division of research philosophy, which is used
in the research method.
The research problem suggested in this
report needs to analyse both the
qualitative and quantitative data to
solve the research problems stated
above. Thus an Interpretivism type
research philosophy is suitable or
the analysis (Wilson, 2014).
Research approach Research approach is also divided into two
groups, one is deductive and the other is
Inductive research approach is ideal for
this research, as it will allow the
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inductive. researcher to come up with new ideas
and models, which will guide in
explaining the research problem
(Sessler and Imrey, 2015).
Research design The research design is mainly to two types that
is qualitative research and quantitative
research. Qualitative research mainly analyse
the quality of the topic that is being researched
such a the types, age, gender and attitudes.
Quantitative research analyses the quantity of
the attributes, which can be measured such as
the height, weight and many more (Brinkmann,
S. (2014).
The research will use some part of both
the quantitative and qualitative data for
the analysis as the trends as well as the
quality of the technology needs to be
explained. However, a qualitative
analysis is more suitable as the
research is mainly on the growth in the
quality of the technology used in the
hotel sector (Silverman, 2016).
Sampling Sampling is a process of taking out few
number of samples from a large population to
analyse on the given research problem. The
sampling is of various types such as simple
random sampling, multistage sampling and
quota sampling (Creswell, 2013).
Here we will use simple random
sampling of 40 hotels as the research
needs to analyse the technology trend
in all types of hospitality sector from
one star hotel to five and seven star
hotels.
Data collection
methods
Data collection methods are very important in
the research as it decides the result of eh
research that is done. The data can be collected
through primary research as well as from
secondary sources such as the internet, books,
The research will require the use of
both primary and secondary data as
some objectives can be reached by
directly contacting these hospitality
units while others can be found from
the secondary sources like the
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magazines and many more (Bryman, 2015). company data base and press releases.
Primary data will includes collecting
data from the management of the hotel
regarding their service quality, number
of customers visiting in a day and
method of payment collection and any
more. On the other hand, secondary
data will be collected on the
company’s new technology
innovations, room service and others
(Taylor et al, 2015).
2.6 Primary research method
Primary Research Methods Description of the method
Interview method Interview is one of the most useful methods of
collecting the data as it allows the researcher to
interact with the respondent directly. The
respondent can express their full vies and
knowledge on the question asked by the researcher.
This helps the researcher to collect correct
information from the respondent without any
manipulation or changes. Moreover, the
interviewer also gets a chance to mould the
questions according to the need of the research and
depending on the mood of the respondent (Tarone
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et al, 2013).
Survey questionnaire Questionnaire is yet another form of collecting
information for the research through a structured
questionnaire. Setting a questionnaire requires to
include all types of questions. There are both open
ended and closed ended questions in the survey.
The ended questions require the respondent to
answer in yes or a no. However, an open-ended
question gives them the chance to share their views
on the issue. There are various ways to sending
these questionnaires to the respondent such as by
physically visiting the respondent, through mails
and internet. There will also be few rating scales,
which will rate the quality of technology in the
hotel sectors Anfara and Mertz, 2014).
2.7 Ethical consideration
Having a consideration for the ethics of the research is one of the most necessary things
that the researcher has to see while conducting the research (Ritchie et al, 2013). This will help
the research it be successfully completed and give them the most accurate result. There are a set
of conducts, rules and principles to carry out the research and these are known as the research
ethics. These ethics are very crucial for the research as it may hamper the effectiveness of the
result and the reason for which the research has been conducted. Some of the common ethics of a
research are plagiarism, confidentiality, misuse of the given information and illegal ways of
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collecting or questioning the respondents (Flick, 2015). The respondents must be selected
appropriately an dby thorough consideration as unsuitable respondent may raise ethical issue in
the research. Moreover, there are various sources o collect data and choosing a wrong source
may put the research task under ethical issues. This makes it necessary for the researcher to
consider all misconducts that may raise potential ethical problems.
Before taking the answer from the respondents, it is necessary that the researcher assure
the respondents that the information provided by them will be kept confidential and will not be
misused in future. However, this also means that the respondent is not allowed to use inevitable
sources for data collection just to abide by the rule of ethics. The researcher does not have the
right to force the respondent for giving any information that they are not willing to provide.
Lastly, there should be some supporting relationship between the primary and the secondary
data. The findings of the primary data should be somewhat connected to the result of the
secondary data. Thus, these ethical considerations should be kept in mind by the researcher in
order to deal correctly with the findings and research of the problem (Cohen, Manion, &
Morrison, 2013).
2.8 Outcome and limitation of the project
Outcome of the research
The research methods and the ethical considerations stated above will help the researcher
to fid valuable and informative results from the findings. The findings will thus help them to
know the real trend of technologies going on in the hospitality sector. The primary research
carried out by the researcher will help them to know the internal information of the hotel such as
their room service, the number of mobile facility available in their rooms, the technology used in
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their reception service such as maintaining customer data and payment options (Smith, 2015).
Further it will also allow them to ask the hotel management about the customers that drive in to
their hotels in a day after viewing the type of technology they use. This will help the researcher
to the benefit and importance technology play in the in the hotel sector. It will also help them
know the rate of growth the hotel sector needs to bring in their technology to survive in this
competitive industry. Thus, the current condition as well as future growth both can be analysed
with the help of the methods mentioned above. The researcher can also formulate further
recommendations to the hotels to incorporate personalisation and customisation in their service
plan.
Limitation of the research
Conducting a research is not an easy task, as it seems. It also has various restrictions and
limitations that the research needs to consider. One of the most important limitations is that the
researcher cannot include everything about the findings in the research report. The second
important limitation while conducting the research is the time. Time is a crucial factor in such a
wide report analysis (Merriam and Tisdell, 2015). The requirement of the report needs a lot of
time; however, the researcher needs to outline the time for each activity and try to stick to that to
come out with an accurate result within that frame of time. The researcher needs a lot o time to
survey the data through the interview process. Thus, they must reduce the time in the
questionnaire method by sending the questionnaire through mails and emails. However, the
objective of the report is to analyse the trend and affect of technology in the hospitality sector
(Grissemann, Pikkemaat, & Weger, 2013). It does not analyse the other factors that is important
for the success of the hospitality sector such as their capital, infrastructure and more. Thus, these
types of restrain and limitations of all types face the research that will be conducted.
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2.9 Personal reflection of the research process
Firstly, I have selected a topic, which is very relevant to the ongoing trend in the
hospitality sector. Moreover, hospitality industry is also growing at a faster rate, which makes
this research even more appropriate. After selecting the topic of the research, I laid down the
objective behind doing this research to make it appear more relevant and meaningful (Lederman
and Abell, 2014). Then I discussed the method that I can use to analyse and carry out the
research. Thus, for my benefit I cleared out my main intention of this research to make it free
from any kind of doubt. While selecting the method of the research I kept in mind the needs of
the finds then selected both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Further, I also selected
primary as well as secondary data to be collected through interview and survey method so that
information is collected from all sides (Bryman and Bell, 2015). While selecting the sampling
type I also selected the sample size that is 40 hotels to make my analysis easy and clear. Further,
the ethical issues of the research are also considered to make the research free from any kinds of
plagiarism or unethical issues. Lastly, I discussed about the outcomes that might come because
of this analysis and the limitations of the research, which is not being covered.
3.0 Conclusion and recommendations
From the above analysis, it can be deduced that the research is being conducted on the
trends of technology improvement in the hospitality industry. The reliability of the topic is also
justified on the ground that it is one o the major running sectors in the world and technology play
a crucial role for this industry. The methodology of the research is designed by choosing
interpretivism as the research philosophy, primary and secondary data as data collection method
and qualitative and quantitative method for analysing the collected data. Sampling of 40 hotels is
chose to be analysed and involved in the interview and survey methods. The research will also
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use some tools such as SPSS, statistical tools, tables and graphs for analysing the data and
making the result look clearer. However, the survey will also meet through certain constraints
such as time and cost which is to be planned by the researcher before starting with the research
work. The researcher also has the responsibility to maintain both the quality and integrity of the
research.
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