MKTG2101 Consumer Behaviour

Introduction

The research methodology for this topic is framed in order to have an understanding of the sort of data that will be used for analysis. Choy(2014) expressed the fact that there are various kinds of data that are available for use and it is seen that the data that is ideally applicable for this topic has been taken into consideration. After collecting the data to understand the customer attitude towards hotel, the analysis of the data is possible. The approach, design and the process of data collection has been addressed in this section, which have been used to approach the topic of messages as promotional tools for the hotel industry that is under study.

The researcher has chosen positivism philosophy, which is very much supportive in ascertaining the research process that has been taken into consideration. McCusker and Gunaydin (2015) explained that deductive approach assists in ascertaining the precise outcome of the research. The researcher has made use of the deductive approach supported by statistical tools to arrive at objectively supported conclusions. The study is done using a quantitative analysis of data collected from customers of a budget hotel and customers from a luxury hotel. A sample of size 100 was selected from each hotel to make up the total data in order to ensure equal representation from both groups of customers. The goals of the study is then attain by means of explanatory research on the basis of the collected data.

Research philosophy assists any paper in recognizing the essence of the research by utilizing the most precise paradigm of the research. Dangand Pheng (2015) explained that there are four sorts of philosophies that are available for use and they have been categorized as pragmatism, interpretivism, realism and positivism. The philosophy has been looked upon to be a set of traits, which is inclusive of axiology, epistemology and ontology. Positivism is on the basis of the existence of any kind of reality, which done with the help of any kind of techniques that have been proven scientifically. Interpretivism on the other hand is on the basis of the knowledge of the individuals. Positivism philosophy is looked upon to be philosophy that assists the researchers to assess the collected data by making use of qualitative and quantitative processes (Hammersley 2017). The philosophy of realism is applicable to the objectives of the paper. Pragmatism is known to be the blend of the interpretivism and positivism and therefore greater preciseness of the research outcome is attainable.

In accordance to the current research topic, which has looked to understand the attitude of the customers in accordance to the hotelspositivism philosophy has been chosen as it would associate all the precise models and theories that have been expressed in the literature review in relation to the current situation. Positivism is a suitable philosophy in relation to the topic simply due to the fact that dissection of the feedback of the respondents would be done in order to obtain the desired data for the paper. No other philosophies are applicable for this paper as they are not on the basis of the theories and the frameworks that have been scientifically approved.  

The approach is known to be one of the key steps in undertaking the study of the research in order to reach the outcome that is wished for. Barnham (2015) in this respect has explained the fact that research approach assists the researchers to recognize each and every action for performing the outlined activities in relation to this topic. Leung (2015) cited that there are two sorts of approaches that can be considered for analysis and they are inductive and deductive approach. Inductive approach is referred to the approach where new theories and frameworks are prepared with the help of which the outcome of the paper can be attained. On the other hand, Totawarand Prasad (2016) explained that deductive approach is known to be the process that makes use of the models and the theories that are already available for use as they have been used in other researches previously.

The current research topic has the intention of understanding the attitude of the customers in relation to the hotels with respect to their experience. It is due to this fact that deductive approach has been selected in order to proceed with the research. It is mainly due to the fact that quantitative analysis will be taken into account by scrutinizing the feedbacks that has been received from the selected participants. Brinkmann (2014) on the other hand expressed the fact that quantitative data analysis is related directly with the positivism philosophy within which the gathered data is assessed directly with the help of the previous trends and the facts and frameworks that are already existent. Hence, deductive approach has been used in this study as this has been found to be the most precise approach for attaining the outcome in relation to this topic.    

Inductive approach has not been implied in this study as the approach does not account for qualitative and quantitative data analysis. It is even seen that no new models and theories have been constructed for this topic by the researcher and therefore inductive approach is not applicable. This paper has concentrated more on the responses from the respondents and therefore this approach is not suitable ideally.

Research Design

The research design gives an opportunity of providing a guidance to the paper so that the paper can attain its distinct target in accordance to the constructed objectives of the research. King and Mackey(2016) explained that design of the research assists in providing a reference by restricting a desired outcomes with the help of which the existent part of the research is undertaken on the basis of the goals that have been specified. Clement et al.(2015) explained that there are three kinds of researches that are available for use and the selection is done on the basis of the topic. The three designs are exploratory, explanatory and descriptive reserach designs. Descriptive research design refers to the exploration and the explanation of the problems and the issues that are existent in the study. This design provides an opportunity to enhance the understanding and the knowledge with respect to the topic that has been taken into consideration.  Explanatory research design explains the cause and effect association by predicting the future result of the study that is ongoing. However, exploratory research design is generally performed in order to recognize the factors that are behind the problems of the topic (Bakker et al. 2015).   

It is seen that the paper on which assessment has been done looks to understand the attitude of the customers over the hotels in accordance to their experiences in staying in the hotels. Hence, the present paper contains detailed explanation of the factors that have an impact on the attitude of the customers. The research therefore concentrates on discovering the issues that are related to the attitude of the customers with respect to the hotels. The paper would even look to construct various recommendations in order to mitigate the issues at the end of the research. It is due to this fact explanatory research design has been selected mainly due to the fact that this paper would look to determine the cause and effect relationship among the attitude of the customers and the services that is provided by the hotels. This design would be helpful in determining the outcome of the research.

Data is evaluated in order to ascertain the results with the help of which the completion of the paper is possible. There are two kinds of data that are available for use and they are known to be primary and secondary data. Primary data is collected with the help of the responses that have been provided by the selected respondents with the help of which analysis of the data is possible (Gummesson 2014).

In relation to this topic, primary data has been taken into consideration and the primary data is collected from the selected group of respondents and their responses are considered for the purpose of analysis. A close ended questionnaire has been constructed and this questionnaire is forwarded to the respondents in order to collect their feedback.

The paper has made use of quantitative data as this kind of data gives out knowledge on the aspect of the inclination of the perceptions of the respondents with respect to the paper that has been taken into consideration. Hence, the data that is collected from the respondents would be transformed into figures and thereafter the analysis is possible. This is the best way with the aid of which the precise data is collected and therefore analysis process can be undertaken.

Sample and Sample Size

The collection of the sample is based on the topic and the time that is available for the purpose of completion of the paper. The sample addresses the number of respondents that has been taken into consideration in order to collect their feedback and perceptions in accordance to this topic (Brannen 2017). In order to have a proper understanding of the attitude of the customers towards the hotels, it is seen that customers who are visiting the hotels are the pool of individuals from which the respondents will be selected. Hence, a total of 200 respondents has been selected for the purpose of analysis of the data with the help of which desired results can be attained.       

The gathered data gains its worth only after the analysis of the data is undertaken with it. The data is evoked from the participants using two broad kind of stimuli. Promotional messages, categorized as emotional or rational was presented to the guests of a luxury hotel and a budget hotel. The responses to these stimuli was then collected using a questionnaire instrument, designed to capture their attitude towards the hotel, towards the messages that they received and their inclination to recommend the hotel that they are staying in after being influenced by the stimuli. The assessment of the data is vital for creating an understanding of the issues and the problems with respect to which the research has been undertaken and thereby optimum outcome is possible. The analysis of the data is done with the help of various statistical tools and equipment with the help of which an understanding of the attitude of the customers towards their experience towards the hotels can be understood. In this manner, SPSS software has been used with the help of various analysis and tests will be done with the help of which the attitude of the customers towards the hotels will be known. One of the tests that would be done is Two Way Anova test. It is seen that two-way Anova undertakes the comparison among the mean differences among the groups that have been segregated based on the independent variables (O’brien et al. 2014). The main intention of the two way Anova is to gain knowledge whether there is an interaction among the two independent variables over the dependent variables. The interaction term within the two-way Anova addresses whether the impact of one of the independent variables on the dependent variables is similar for all the values of the other independent variables (Murshed and Zhang 2016). It is due to this fact that this two way Anova will assess all the variables and accordingly will undertake the analysis process with the help of which the outcome of the paper is possible.   

Ethical Consideration

At the time of collection of the data, ethics is something that needs to be maintained.  The paper tries to abide by all ethical points, having kept the identity of the establishment as confidential and the participants as anonymous. This has been done to avoid any breach in privacy and to not risk the interests of the establishment on whom the survey have been based. This would ensure that the results that would be attained with the help of this data will be not give rise to partiality and bias due to any tentative pre-conceived notions when conducting the study owing to the names involved. Furthermore the participants were thoroughly informed of the reason of the survey and its end goal to ensure their complacency and consent. The rules and regulations of ethics that have been maintained follow suit the one that have been put forth by various international and national bodies (Adhariani, Sciulli and Clift 2017). Ethics inculcated in the study have thus been helpful in eliminating any kind of false statements and errors in the research and in this manner reliability of the data is existent.

Data Analysis

A detailed analysis of the collected survey data is presented in the following chapter. The data is analyzed on the basis of budget and luxury hotels. The analysis would be done on the basis of the aspects that need to be highlighted with the help of which better understanding of the topic will be attained. Initially a demographic profile of the respondents will be analyzed. This is done in order to provide a better understanding of the scenario of the respondents. Two-way factorial ANOVA is used to study the main instruments of the variables. Finally, a discussion of the findings of the survey is presented. We also present the conformity of the results with the relevant literature. Accordingly all these explanations become vital in discovering the results with the help of which better and effective conclusion with regards to the topic can be ascertained.

For the purpose of the survey we collected a total of 200 responses. A total of 100 responses were collected for each of budget and luxury hotels. The respondents are selected mainly from the customers who have a history of visiting in these hotels before. He study aimed to include people who have extensive travel experience to the region and hence would have better knowledge about the services that are delivered by the budget and luxury hotels that those who do not have as much experience in residing in hotels at all. The aspects that have been taken into consideration within the demographic section of the analysis has been explained in an explicit manner in order to have a better understanding of the customers.   

For the budget hotel it was found that 51% of the respondents were males while 49% were females. This indicates that the respondents are equally balanced and therefore feedback from both the genders with respect to the luxury and budget hotels can be understood in a better manner. The survey showed that the maximum percentage of respondents (42.0%) were in the age group of 20-29 years. The analysis further found that only 4.0% of the respondents were in the age group of “More than 50 years.” It is seen that 13% of the respondents are within the age group of 18-9 19 years and 23% within 30-39 years. Furthermore, 18% are within the age group of 40 -49 years. It can therefore be said that respondents from all the age groups have been taken into consideration. Further, most of the respondents (35.0%) for budget hotel had a master's degree. On the other hand, respondents with at least a high school or Doctoral degree were 9.0% and 8.0% respectively. It is seen that 17% of the respondents are associates and the rest of 31% have their Bachelor’s degree. This analysis suggests that the extent of literacy among the respondents is significantly high. This would be helpful in answering the topic that has been taken into consideration. 72.0% of all the respondents have mostly stayed at Budget hotels, while 28.0% at Luxury hotels. This addresses the fact that most of the respondents have the experience of staying in a budget hotel rather than luxury hotels.

Table 1: Gender Distribution of the participants from Budget hotel

Table 2: Age Distribution of those from Budget Hotel

Table 3: Educational Qualification of those from Budget Hotel

Table 4: Summary to response on whether participants have stayed in Budget Hotel before

For the Luxury hotel it was found that 52% of the respondents were males while 48% were females. It is therefore seen that balance in the gender is even maintained among the respondents from the luxury hotels. The survey showed that the maximum percentage of respondents (43.0%) were in the age group of 20-29 years. The analysis further found that only 4.0% of the respondents were in the age group of “18-19 years. It is see that the rest of the respondents are from different age groups as well. 22% are from the age group of 30-39 years and 20% from 40-49 years. The rest of the respondents comprising of 11% are within the age group of 50 years and above. Further, most of the respondents (38.0%) for budget hotel had a master's degree. Further, it is found that 36.0% of the respondents had a bachelor’s degree.   On the other hand, respondents with “at least a high school” were 4.0%. 14% have degree of associates and the rest of 8% have doctoral degree. This signifies the fact that literacy level is pretty moderate. 77.0% of all the respondents have mostly stayed at Luxury hotels, while 23.0% at budget hotels. In this perspective, an idea can be attained that respondents from the luxury hotels have not much experience staying in the budget hotels.

Table 5: Please indicate your Gender

Table 6: Age Distribution of those from Luxury Hotel

Table 7: Indicate your Level of Education

Table 8: Summary of response to whether they ever stayed at Luxury Hotel before

Change in attitude for Budget Hotel

We analyzed the change in attitude of the respondents of budget hotels before and after the messages. This will be helpful in having an idea about the aspects that would be answered with the help of which effective outcome of the paper can be ascertained. From the analysis it was found that there did not exist statistically significant changes in the attitude towards the hotel t(99) = -0.760, p = 0.449. The mean (sd) attitude of the respondents before and after the message for “Good” is 3.34 (1.29) and 3.40 (1.25) respectively. The paired sample t-test for “pleasant” showed that before the message the mean (sd) was 3.48 (1.46) while after the message it was 3.49 (1.38). This explains that the respondents did not have an impact with respect to their attitude towards the hotels. There were statistically no significant differences for “pleasant” t(99) = -0.122, p =0.903 at 0.05 level of significance. Further, for “Favorable” showed that before the message the mean (sd) was 3.27 (1.3) while after the message it was 3.44 (1.29). The analysis of the paired sample t-test showed that there were statistically significant differences for “Favorable” t(99) = -2.389, p = 0.019at 0.05 level of significance. Therefore, it can be ascertained that there has been significant amount of changes in the perceptions of the respondents towards the hotels.

Table 9: Paired Samples Statistics

Table 10: Paired Samples Test

Further investigation was done to evaluate changes observed in terms of participant’s willingness to recommend it to others, for before and after the messages were sent by the hotel management. This is discovered by taking assistance of various kinds of statistical analysis. All the analysis would provide an overview of the results with respect to this question.

 From the analysis it was found that there did not exist statistically significant changes in responses towards “I tell positive things” t(99) = 0.180, p = 0.857. The mean (sd) attitude of the respondents before and after the message for “I tell positive things” is 3.44 (1.44) and 3.42 (1.26) respectively.  Thus there is no significant improvement in the response of the participants regarding positive attitude towards hotel.

The paired sample t-test for “I will recommend the Budget Hotel to others” showed that before the message the mean (sd) was 3.22 (1.27) while after the message it was 3.59 (1.39). There were statistically significant differences for “I will recommend the Budget Hotel to others,” t(99) = -3.771, p <0.000 at 0.05 level of significance. Further, for “I am likely to recommend the Budget Hotel to others” showed that before the message the mean (sd) was 3.23 (1.34) while after the message it was 3.38 (1.36). The analysis of the paired sample t-test showed that there were statistically no significant differences for “I am likely to recommend the Budget Hotel to others,” t(99) = -1.370, p = 0.174at 0.05 level of significance.

The pair wise test compares the response of the participants for before and after the promotional messages are received by them. The results of the tests for budget hotel guests, on the basis of their favorable attitudes toward the hotel showed significant improvement however their inclination to recommend to others showed no significant improvement or change.

Table 11: Paired Sample statistics

Table 12: Paired Sample t-test

Change in attitude for Luxury Hotel

 In this segment of the chapter, an assessment of the changes in the attitude towards the luxury hotels would be taken into consideration. The analysis has been undertaken by taking assistance of various kinds of tools. We analyzed the change in attitude of the respondents of Luxury hotels before and after the messages. From the analysis it was found that there did not exist statistically significant changes in the attitude towards the hotel t(99) = 0.341, p = 0.74. The mean (sd) attitude of the respondents before and after the message for “Good” is 3.61 (1.24) and 3.56 (1.00) respectively. The paired sample t-test for “pleasant” showed that before the message the mean (sd) was 3.54 (1.05) while after the message it was 3.80 (0.75). There were statistically significant differences for “pleasant” t(99) = -2.431, p =0.017 at 0.05 level of significance. Further, for “Favorable” showed that before the message the mean (sd) was 3.63 (1.00) while after the message it was 3.78 (0.80). The analysis of the paired sample t-test showed that there were statistically no significant differences for “Favorable” t(99) = -1.517, p = 0.132at 0.05 level of significance. It can therefore be ascertained that the changes in the perceptions of the respondents in accordance to the luxury hotels have been pretty much favorable after the message. This indicates that respondents are prone towards the luxury hotels rather than the budget hotels. This indicates the fact that perception of the clients is better for luxury hotels rather than budget hotels.   

Table 13: Paired Samples Statistics

Table 14: Paired Samples test

Test for Hypothesis

The hypothesis testing is conducted with the help of two-way ANOVA. It compares the mean differences between groups split on the basis of independent variables. The basic objective of two-way ANOVA is to understand whether there is an interaction between two independent variables on the dependent variable.

The hypotheses of the following tests are-

Null hypothesis (H₀): The dependent variable with respect to two independent variables has equality of means; that is, two independent variables have insignificant effect on the dependent variable.

Alternative hypothesis (H_A): The dependent variable with respect to two independent variables does not have equality of means; that is, two independent variables have significant effect on the dependent variable.

Note that, for all the tests, the level of significance is assumed to be 0.05. Hence, for retrieved p-value for each table of the main effects or interaction effect make the researcher to reject or accept the null hypothesis at 5% level of significance. The p-values of main and interaction effects less than 5% indicates the rejection of null hypothesis that establishes the statistical significant effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable. On the other hand, the p-value of the foresaid effects greater than 5% indicates the acceptance of null hypothesis that establishes the statistical insignificance of the independent variable on the dependent variable.

Table 15: Attitude (Hotel) towards Rational Message at Budget Hotel

Two way ANOVA test is applied here to assuming ‘AttitudeHotel’ as dependent variable. The calculated p-value greater than 5% indicates the failure of rejection of null hypothesis about insignificance of the test. In order to evaluate the effect of Rational Messages on the attitude of clients towards budget Hotel a two-way ANOVA was used. From the study it was found that there was statistically no significant impact in the attitude towards budget hotel F = 1.519, p = 0.224. In addition, a rational message also did not have any statistically significant impact on the attitude of the client towards the budget hotel, F = 0.395, p = 0.533.  Moreover, it was found that the attitude towards a budget hotel and the rational message did not have a statistically significant impact, F = 0.202, p = 0.655. With 95% evidence, we can reach to the conclusion in this way.

Table 16: Attitude (Message) towards Rational Message at Budget Hotel

Two way ANOVA test is applied here to assuming ‘MessageHotel’ as dependent variable. Like previous one, here also, the calculated p-value greater than 5% indicates the failure of rejection of null hypothesis about insignificance of the test. Further the effect of Rational Messages on the attitude of clients towards budget Hotel was statistically not significant F = 1.199, p = 0.279. In addition, a rational message also did not have any statistically significant impact on the attitude of the client towards the budget hotel, F = 0.931, p = 0.340.  Moreover, it was found that the attitude towards a budget hotel and the rational message did not have a statistically significant impact, F = 0.032, p = 0.858.

Table 17: Intention to Recommend for Rational Message at Budget Hotel

Two way ANOVA test is applied here to assuming ‘Intention’ as dependent variable. The null hypotheses are failed to be rejected with 95% probability in the context of all the p-values of the table. The investigation into intention to recommend a budget hotel following rational Message at the hotel did not exhibited a statistically significant impact in the attitude towards the budget hotel F = 2.828, p = 0.099. Moreover, the rational message did have a statistically significant impact in the intention to recommend the budget hotel, F = 1.340, p = 0.253.  In addition, it was found that the intention to recommend the budget hotel following a rational message was not statistically significant, F = 0.252, p = 0.618.

Tests of between subject effects are applied in the following. It measures the significance of interaction effects between two variables.

Here ‘AttitudeHotel’ is the dependent variable. The null hypotheses are failed to be rejected with 95% probability in the context of all the p-values of the table. The investigation into the attitude towards budget Hotel for emotional message elucidated that there was statistically no significant impact into the attitude towards budget hotel F = 0.977, p = 0.328. Moreover, an emotional message does not have any statistically significant impact on the attitude of the client towards the budget hotel, F = 0.977, p = 0.328.  In addition, it was found that the attitude towards the budget hotel and emotional message was not statistically significant, F = 0.180, p = 0.674.

Table 19: Attitude (Message) towards Emotional Message at Budget Hotel

Here ‘MessageHotel’ is the dependent variable. The null hypotheses are failed to be rejected with 95% probability in the context of all the p-values of the table. The investigation into the message attitude towards budget Hotel for emotional message elucidated that there was statistically no significant impact into the attitude towards budget hotel F = 2.818, p = 1.000. Moreover, an emotional message does not have any statistically significant impact on the attitude of the client towards the budget hotel, F = 0.456, p = 0.503.  In addition, it was found that the attitude towards the budget hotel and emotional message was not statistically significant, F = 0.481, p = 0.492.

Table 20: Intention to Recommend for Emotional Message at Budget Hotel

Here ‘Intention’ is the dependent variable. The null hypotheses are failed to be rejected with 95% probability in the context of all the p-values of the table. The investigation into intention to recommend a budget hotel following emotional Message at the hotel did not exhibited a statistically significant impact in the attitude towards the budget hotel F = 0.571, p = 0.454. Moreover, the emotional message did have a statistically significant impact in the intention to recommend the budget hotel, F = 0.157, p = 0.694.  In addition, it was found that the intention to recommend the budget hotel following an emotional message was not statistically significant, F = 0.404, p = 0.528.

Table 21: Attitude (Hotel) towards Rational Message at Luxury Hotel

In this model, ‘AttitudeHotel’ is the dependent variable. We investigated the attitude towards Luxury Hotel for Rational Message. From the study it was found that there was statistically significant impact in the attitude towards luxury hotel F = 4.531, p = 0.039. The null hypothesis of insignificant impact is rejected in this case. However, rational message did not have any statistically significant impact on the attitude of the client towards the luxury hotel, F = 2.092, p = 0.155.  On the other hand, it was found that the attitude towards a luxury hotel and the rational message had a statistically significant impact, F = 4.680, p = 0.036. The null hypothesis of insignificant impact is rejected in this case also.

Table 22: Attitude (Message) towards Rational Message at Luxury Hotel

In this model, ‘AttitudeMessage’ is the dependent variable. Further investigation into the attitude towards Rational Message of a luxury hotel exhibited a statistically significant impact in the attitude towards luxury hotel F = 8.263, p = 0.006. The null hypothesis of insignificant impact is rejected in this case. However, the rational message did not have any statistically significant impact on the attitude of the client towards the message in terms of the luxury hotel, F = 0.064, p = 0.802.  Moreover, it was found that the attitude towards a luxury hotel and the rational message did not have a statistically significant impact, F = 2.189, p = 0.146.

Table 23: Intention to Recommend for Rational Message at Luxury Hotel

In this model, ‘Intention’ is the dependent variable. The investigation into intention to recommend the luxury hotel following a Rational Message at the hotel exhibited a statistically significant impact in the attitude towards luxury hotel F = 16.793, p <0.000. The null hypothesis of insignificant impact is rejected in this case. However, the rational message did not have any statistically significant impact in the intention to recommend the luxury hotel, F = 0.024, p = 0.877.  Moreover, it was found that the intention to recommend the Luxury hotel following the rational message was not statistically significant, F = 0.845, p = 0.363.

Table 24: Attitude (Hotel) towards Emotional Message at Luxury Hotel

In this model, ‘Attitude Hotel’ is the dependent variable. All the p-values cannot be rejected with 5% level of significance that provides the proof against significant impact. Investigation into the attitude towards the luxury hotel exhibited a statistically not significant impact in the attitude towards luxury hotel F = 1.029, p = 0.316. Moreover, the emotional message did not have any statistically significant impact on the attitude of the client towards the message in terms of the luxury hotel, F = 0.931, p = 0.340. Moreover, it was found that the attitude towards a luxury hotel and the emotional message did not have a statistically significant impact, F = 1.779, p = 0.189.

Table 25: Attitude (Message) towards Emotional Message at Luxury Hotel

In this model, ‘AttitudeMessage’ is the dependent variable. All the p-values cannot be rejected with 5% level of significance that provides the proof against significant impact. Further investigation into the attitude towards emotional message of a luxury hotel did not exhibited a statistically significant impact in the attitude towards luxury hotel F = 1.942, p = 0.170. Further, the emotional message did not have any statistically significant impact on the attitude of the client towards the message in terms of the luxury hotel, F = 2.054, p = 0.159.  Moreover, it was found that the attitude towards a luxury hotel and the emotional message did not have a statistically significant impact, F = 3.604, p = 0.064.

Table 26: Intention to Recommend for Emotional Message at Luxury Hotel

In this model, ‘Intention’ is the dependent variable. The investigation into intention to recommend the luxury hotel following an Emotional Message at the hotel did not exhibited a statistically significant impact in the attitude towards luxury hotel F = 1.444, p =0.236. However, the emotional message did have a statistically significant impact in the intention to recommend the luxury hotel, F = 4.444, p = 0.041.  The null hypothesis of insignificant impact is rejected in this case. Moreover, it was found that the intention to recommend the Luxury hotel following the emotional message was not statistically significant, F = 2.772, p = 0.103.

The choice of a hotel is an essential decision to make for any tourist. The choice of a hotel, whether a budget or luxury is however dependent on the expectations, budget and fancy of the customers and would depend on a number of factors such as social, financial background, person preference and convenience among others. A principal commonality despite inherent or basic tendency of a customer to choose a particular type of hotel is that of their experience. A customer would obviously prefer a place which offers basics of comfortable accommodation. The definition and degree of acceptable experience as per a customer is however to be studied.

The analysis of the data pertains to the effect of rational and or emotional message on the attitude of clients towards a budget and luxury hotel. The gender variability of the clients in both Budget and Luxury hotels were very similar. Further, it is found that the maximum number of respondents for both the hotel types is in the age group of 20 to 29 years of age. In addition, it is found from the survey that the education level of most of the respondents is “Master’s degree.”

The study includes an equal representation of well-travelled customers from luxury and budget hotels.  72 percent of the participants from the budget hotels said that they have been to budget hotels before the current experience and 28 percent said that this was their first time residing in a budget hotel. 77 percent of guests at the luxury hotel said that they have stayed at luxury hotels before while the remaining responded negatively. This is in line with discontinuity theory. According to Li et al. (2013), a customer of a luxury hotel is likely to have higher expectations than one from a budget hotel. Hence a person from a luxury hotel is likely to choose a luxury hotel again over a budget hotel. The high percentage of people in luxury hotels with prior stays there also reveals the same.

It was seen that the attitude of the guests residing at budget hotels before they were sent any promotion messages, emotional or rational is significant among those identifying with “favorable” sentiment towards the hotel.  This can again be attributed to the lower expectations of those who always prefer budget hotels (Li et al. 2013). The same was however not observed for their willingness to say anything positive for before and after any promotional message is received by them as the difference was insignificant in their response for before and after receiving the message. Hence it can be said that promotional messages do not have significant impact in swaying customer opinion for those who form the segment for budget hotels. Although it was seen that there is a significant increase in willingness to recommend the hotel after the messages are received by them. The study therefore indicates that such promotional messages do have a more or less good impact on the business image.

 The ANOVA test for significance in difference in attitude towards budget hotels between hotel types was found to be insignificant both for those who were sent emotional as well as rational messages. The same result, that is, no significant difference was observed for attitude of the participants towards promotional messages for both groups who were sent rational and emotional messages. The interaction effect was also found to be insignificant which indicates that there is no moderating effect of hotel type on message type, in its effect on the attitude towards budget hotels. Hence the findings implicate that the attitude towards budget hotels for customers who are residing in budget hotels and those who chose to stay in luxury hotel is not significantly different irrespective of whether emotional or rational messages have been sent. The same insignificance was observed when testing for the impact of the same on the intention to recommend to others. Thus there is not enough evidence to accept that hotel type and message type have a significant influence on attitude towards hotel for the budget hotel customers.

On the other hand, change in attitude of the guests residing at luxury hotels before and after they were sent any promotion messages, emotional or rational is significant.  Again, the impact of hotel type, and the interaction effect of the effect between hotel and message type were found to be significant in their effect towards the attitude of the guest in towards the luxury hotel that they are residing in. The impact on response towards the promotional message for these people who are staying in luxury hotels and were sent rational messages is significant for only hotel type. The same was not observed for those who received emotional messages. According to Caru and Cova (2003), messages with rational intonation are designed to highlight the firm’s products and utilities which in the long run influences consumers into developing a positive attitude towards the hotel or brand. So it can be said that such messages to the guests at luxury hotels would be successful in rousing appreciation and experience towards the hotel facilities by clearly letting the customer know what to expect, hence garnering patronage and loyalty (Soze and Givelek 2018). However, when comparing by the intention to recommend, it is seen that for the luxury hotel group who were sent emotional messages, the message type is significant implying that emotional messages might have some impact on furthering promotional goals. This being considered in light of what Brakus et al. (2009) had said, that use of positive emotional messages psychological influences consumers could influence consumers to develop positive attitude towards the brand being marketed when the question is of hedonistic impulses. So, from our results that is reflected, since it can be concuded that at least for luxury hotels, where consumer’s main expectation is comfort rather than budget, emotional messages could be effective (Awan and Rehman 2014). It could be used as a tool to assuage any negative experience that the guest may have faced as well, following Roy (2018) who identified positive correlation between customer experience and attitude towards luxury. Therefore, satisfying perception hedonistic experience, it could work to assuage negative customer experience.

Thus it can be concluded that for Budget Hotels there is no significant change in attitude of clients before and after rational and emotional messages. In addition, the client does not have any significant intention to recommend Budget Hotels following either a rational or emotional message. For Luxury hotels it is found rational messages have a significant effect on customer perception and emotional messages have a significant impact from a promotional point of view. Therefore, this result has been successful in answering the topic of the paper in an effective manner.

Conclusion

The conclusion of the paper has been constructed on the basis of the analysis that has been done in this paper. The data analysis section of the paper has been initiated by taking assistance of frequency analysis. It is seen that initially demographic profile of the respondents have been taken into consideration. In this manner, frequency analysis has been undertaken. Each of the questions that have been asked to the respondents have been individually assessed in order to have an idea about the overall outcome. A summary of the individuals who have stayed in the budget hotels and the ones who have stayed in the luxury hotels have been assessed as well so that a differentiation can be created.

The change in the attitude for the budget hotels for the respondents has been done and the results have indicated no comprehensive differences. In the same manner, assessment in the changes in the attitudes with respect to the luxury hotels have been taken into consideration with the help of which an idea with respect to the comparison of budget hotels and luxury hotels can be understood.

With respect to the data that has been attained, paired sample test has been done that has been helpful in determining the results with the help of which the completion of the paper can be done. The willingness of the participants to recommend the budget hotels before and after have been analyzed and it is seen that there is no existence of statistically significant changes towards the responses. When the pair wise test has been undertaken in order to compare the feedback of the respondents before and after receiving the promotional messages, it is seen that favorable attitudes are observed and have shown significant development even though it is seen that the inclination to suggest the hotels to others have not shown no amount of change.

In the same manner the changes in the attitude of the responses for the luxury hotels has been considered. It is seen that there has not been statistically significant changes in the attitude of the respondents. The analysis of the paired sample t-test showed that there were statistically no significant differences. It is therefore seen that the changes in the point of view of the participants with respect to the luxury hotels have significant amount of preferences after the message. This shows that the respondents are disposed towards the luxury hotels rather more than the budget hotels.

The completion of the process leads to the assessment of the hypothesis and the examination has been done with the help of two way ANOVA. The analysis is done with the help of null hypothesis and alternate hypothesis. The hypothesis is done on the basis of the research objectives that has been constructed with respect to this topic. It is seen that the level of significance that has been assumed has been 0.05. The ascertained p-value has been 5% level of significance and the p-values of main and interaction effects has been lower than 5% and this shows that the null hypothesis will be rejected. On the other hand the percentage of 5% indicates that the acceptance of the null hypothesis. The paper has therefore highlighted the fact that there has not been significant amount of impact in the perception of the respondents towards the budget hotels. It is even seen that a rational message even had no statistically key impact.

The attitude towards the budget hotels have been essentially different and it is seen that the analysis that has been done for the same shows there is no significant amount of impact on the changes. It is seen that the rational messages for the budget and the luxury hotels have not shown any significant changes and thereby indicating that there is no effect on the participants before and after the message.

When looking into the intention to recommend, it is seen that the luxury hotels have gained the significance simply due to the fact that the participants have been found to be more inclined towards luxury hotels and their inclination to recommend luxury hotels have been higher with respect to the budget hotels. This answer has been discovered with the help of the analysis that has been done in this paper.

While looking into the aspect of the emotional messages, it is seen that effect of the emotional messages on the budget hotels have been very low. Even though emotional messages have been sent with respect to the budget the inclination to respond and visit the budget hotels have been insignificant. It has been discovered that participants have not been prone to the budget hotels. However, the emotional message on the respect of the luxury hotels have discovered the fact that there has been a significant amount of impact and therefore recommendations have increased. This shows that the respondents have been more concerned about the luxury hotels rather than the budget hotels.

The overall findings of the paper therefore disclaimers the fact that luxury hotels gain more importance over the budget hotels and the respondents have the feeling that luxury hotels are more preferable with respect to the budget hotels.

It is seen that attitude of the respondents towards the budget hotels before and after the messages have not changed even though there are room for improvement in the coming future. In this respect it is seen that all the other factors associated to the hotels does not have any amount of significance  and therefore it can stated that budget hotels need to enhance their activities in order to gain the confidence of the customers.

The budget hotels should therefore construct better plans and policies with the help of which they can construct a framework with the help of which they can change their operational activities. They need to bring out lucrative packages and offers that would attract customers with the help of which their businesses can get enhanced. With the attainment of customer satisfaction from the budget hotels, the management would be able to increase their customer base and this would be vital for the budget hotels to compete with the luxury hotels. Once, the customers are satisfied, this would change the perceptions of the customers and they would be more inclined to recommend budget hotels as well.

It is even seen that there are several differences among the budget hotels and the luxury hotels, but development of the services in the budget hotels can play an essential factor in the change in the perception of the customers.

In this paper a limited sample size has been considered within which the analysis has been undertaken. However, the results may vary with a bigger sample size. Therefore, future research on this topic can be undertaken with the help of which a comparison can be done in order to have an understanding of the alterations that have taken within the same geographical location where the current research has been undertaken. The outcome of the paper has highlighted the fact that luxury hotels are more favorable with respect to the budget hotels and therefore the budget hotels have to take steps and measures with the help of which their performance can be enhanced.

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