Research Project- Thamel Eco Resort

SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

Introduction of the Company: Thamel Eco Resort is ranked in the top three positions among the Kathmandu Bed and Breakfast resorts. It has 42 rooms with a garden courtyard. While the pillars of the hotel at its entrance and the carvings over its windows replicate the artful heritage of Nepalese architecture, you feel like being in a traditional Nepali home in some of its rooms that display typical Nepalese pottery. A miniature Buddhist stupa in the middle of its front courtyard brings an ambience of peace, conveying the chief concern of the hotel to offer you a full repose of body and mind. Thamel Eco resort (TER) offers affordable prices, as well as a convenient location to match the customers shopping needs. Situated in the heart of the tourist district of Thamel, the restaurants or shops are just a walk way. At the hotel, guests enjoy complimentary wireless internet access, fruits and tea / coffee and a hearty breakfast. Thamel Eco Resort makes for an excellent choice to stay in the tourist district of Kathmandu. Interaction with the manager, Mr. Madhav Lamsal In talk with the manager, Mr. Madhav Lamsal of Thamel Eco Resort, it was found that recently the resort was facing the problem of decline in the frequency of customer. It was found out that the resort was considered of being in good location, clean and of excellent service among the three star hotels. Despite the big competition faced by every resort in the Kathmandu valley, this particular resort had a fair numbers of customers visiting the resort. However, the number has been declining and many time the customers showed traces of dissatisfaction with the resort. Thus, the management wanted to find out what was driving their customers away. Thus, in conversation with the managers following Management Decision Problem (MDP) and Management Research Problem (MRP) was derived. MDP: HOW TO RETAIN AND REGAIN THE CUSTOMERS? MRP: WHAT ARE CUSTOMERS DISSATISFIED ABOUT? Research Question 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Does cleanliness bring satisfaction to customers? Does location results to satisfaction of customers? Does timely maintenance results to satisfaction of customers? Do service results to satisfaction of customers? Does actual perfomance if greater than the expected one create satisfaction?

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Research Project- Thamel Eco Resort

SECTION 2: PRELIMINARY DETAILS
Short In-depth Interview with Mr. Jacob (customer) According to him, the place was centrally located and the rooms were clean and spacious, very attentive staff, very good breakfast, great free internet (wifi). However, the grievances about the bathroom maintenance were received now and then. It was found that there was seldom hot water. Also, the rooms had leaky bathrooms which needed repairs. This counted as a major drawback for the resort as the customers regarded the maintenance as one of the major things which determined the customer service. It was found that the managers didn't take this as a major problem and made excuses for these problems which according to Mr. Jacob resulted to a bad image of the resort in the eyes of the customer. Literature Review Hotels attributes such as cleanliness, location, personal service, physical attractiveness, opportunities for relaxation and reputation are recognized as decisive by travelers to assess the quality of the hotel - (Atkinsons, 1988; Ananth et al., 1991; Wilensky & Buttle, 1988) The academic literature postulates that customer satisfaction is a function of the discrepancy between a consumers prior expectations and his or her perception regarding the purchase -(Churchill & Surprenant, 1982; Oliver, 1977; Tse & Wilton, 1988; Yi, 1990) When an experience is better than the customer expected, there is thought to be positive disconfirmation of the expectation, and a favorable customer evaluation is predicted. Service quality is defined similarly, as a comparative function between consumer expectations and actual service performance - (Parasuraman el al., 1985) Atkinsons(1998), Ananth(1991) and Wilensky & Buttle(1988) helped define elements such as cleanliness, location, physical attractiveness, opportunities for relaxation and reputation as some of the variables that determine the perception level of satisfaction of the customers. Thus, the satisfaction of the customers can be measured in terms of these variables. And Churchill & Surprenant (1982), Oliver (1977), Tse & Wilton (1988) and Yi (1990) determined that the satisfaction that customer derives is the difference between what the customer expects and what he /she experiences in the purchase of the actual product or service. Parasuraman (1985) further supported by explaining that if the experience outreached the expectation then there is a positive outburst in the customer evaluation.

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Research Project- Thamel Eco Resort

Theoretical Framework In our research, Customer satisfaction is the main factor of concentration. We are trying to determine what significant factors will result to improvement in the satisfaction level of the customers in a resort. We have categorized four main independent variables that affect the dependent variable on the above review. Dependent variable: Customer Satisfaction Independent variables: y y y y Cleanliness Location Customer service Timely Maintenance

Cleanliness

Location Timely Maintenance Customer Satisfaction

Customer service

Environment Fig 1: Schematic diagram of various factors affecting the customer satisfaction in a resort Customer satisfaction is an attitude which tends to the creation of value for customers, anticipating and managing their expectations, and demonstrating ability and responsibility to satisfy their needs. In order to achieve customer satisfaction, it is important to recognize and to anticipate customers' needs and to be able to satisfy them. Enterprises which are able to rapidly understand and satisfy customers' needs, make greater profits than those which fail to understand and satisfy them. To obtain loyalty and to outweigh other competitors, hotel providers must be able to obtain high levels of customer satisfaction through its factors such as prompt and reliable customer service, cleanliness, price, peaceful stay, location, and physical attractiveness.The customer satisfaction is achieved only if the actual performance equals or exceeds the expected performance.
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Hypothesis y y y y y Hypothesis 1= 1 2 ,Where: 1= mean of actual cleanliness , 2= mean of expected cleanliness Hypothesis 2= 3 4, Where: 3= mean of actual location , 2= mean of expected location Hypothesis 3= 5 6, Where: 5= mean of actual washroom condition , 6= mean of expected washroom condition, then there is satisfaction Hypothesis 4= 7 8, Where: 7= mean of actual service, 8= mean of expected service Hypothesis 5= Actual cleanliness, actual location, actual washroom condition and actual service influence customer satisfaction

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SECTION 3: RESEARCH DESIGN
The Research Design Purpose of the study: We have basically explored the situational factors so as to get a grip on the characteristics of why customers are dissatisfied with the resort. We have been interviewing the customers as well as the manager of Thamel Eco Resort. Hypothesis testing in our research has provided us a proper understanding of the relationship that exists among variables. But since exploratory wasnt enough, we have used descriptive study to determine the better understanding of the profile of customer satisfaction. Types of Investigation: To find the answer to our issue, we have to conduct a co-relational study. We are interested in defining the important variables associated with the problem. Extent of researcher interference with the study: We want to study the factors affecting the declining customers in the resort; we have developed a theoretical framework, collected the relevant data, and are analyzing them to come up with findings. Though there are some disruptions caused to the normal flow of work in the system of the resort as we go for interviews and questionnaire, but our interference in the routine functioning of the system is minimal as it does not severely hamper the resorts daily routine and timely activities to be conducted. Study Setting: Our research is done in natural environment where work proceeds normally, i.e. in non-contrived settings. Unit of analysis: Our unit of analysis refers to organizations, because we wish to study the customer satisfaction level of an organization as a whole in comparison to competitors. Time Horizon: In our study, data are gathered just once, over a period of a week, in order to answer our research question. Thus, our study is cross-sectional study. Measurement and measures: For our measurement we firstly define operationalization. Where we observe and measure the abstract concepts of our hypothesis. In our hypothesis, the abstract concept of customer satisfaction are operationalized by using observable and measurable elements such as, number of
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times the customer visits the resort after their first visit and the extent to which the customers prefer this resort to others. The scale we use should include an adequate and representative set of items, to validate our measure. We have used three types of scale in our questionnaire for these purposes which are as follows: Numerical scale, Likert scale and Interval scale. Sampling design: The populations for this research are the customers visiting the Thamel eco resort. Generally the resort experiences 85-100 customers weekly in the high seasons whereas in normal seasons there is flow of 35-50 customers weekly. The intention of this study is to determine the satisfaction level and the reasons for the decline in the customer frequency. Thus, for the purpose of this research, we are using Convenience Sampling method. We have taken the situation to be general and have tried to obtain the customer satisfaction of almost 100 % percent of the customers visiting the resort in a week. In our sample design, we have chosen a sample size of 35 customers. If we use less than 35 samples, our measurement scale would probably not represent the entire domain of customer satisfaction. Data Collection method: At the initial phase, we conducted interview with some of the customers of the resort and the manager of the resort. Interviewing with few customers did not provide us enough data, but because of the time limitation and resource limitation we are only going to use two types of data collection procedures. They are briefly discussed below: i. In-depth interview: For the exploratory analysis we conducted an in-depth interview with the Resort Manager, Mr. Madhav Lamsal and one of the customers, Mr Jacob. We are to further interview some other customers in the resort as well. Questionnaire( Refer to Annex): We have asked the manager to distribute the questionnaire to the 35 customers who will be visiting the resort for a week.

ii.

Data Analysis methods After the data has been gathered, the next step is to analyze them. The data analysis is done to examine the hypothesis. For quantitative research, the data has to be edited as that it is accurate, complete and suitable for further analysis. The data are transformed with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). To test the hypothesis H1, H2, H3 and H4, we will be using Paired T-test and regression.

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Research Project- Thamel Eco Resort

Purpose of the Study

Types of Investigation

Extent of researcher interference

Study Setting

Measurement and measures Operational definition Number of times the customer visits the resort after their first visit The extent to which customers prefer this resort to other resorts Scales Numerical scale Interval scale Likert scale Goodness of data
DATA ANALYSIS

Exploration Descriptive Correlations Minimal Non contrived

Feel for the data

What are customers dissatisfied about?

Hypothesis Testing

Unit of Analysis Organizations

Sampling Design Sample size (35)

Time Horizon

Data Collection Method Interview Questionnaire

Hypothesis Testing

Cross-sectional studies

Figure: The Research Design

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Research Project- Thamel Eco Resort

SECTION 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
We have set the following criteria to differentiate our variables as per the set independent variables. Since we have used multi-questions to measure the independent variables, we have computed the mean score for each independent variable. The questionnaire has 27 questions which have been divided into the following criterias. y y y y y y Clean =1, 5 Price= 2 Location=7, 8 Washroom condition=4 Service=3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12 Satisfaction= 25, 26,27

For the analysis, we have used Paired T-Test and Regression methods.

Data Analysis Using Paired T-Test

We have compared the expectation of the customers with the actual performance of the resort in terms of 4 independent variables which are cleanliness, location, washroom condition and service. Expected cleanliness to actual: y Hypothesis 1= 1 2 ,Where: 1= mean of actual cleanliness , 2= mean of expected cleanliness

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean Pair 1 avgclean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

4.2857

35

.60979

.10307

a_avgclean

4.4857

35

.71214

.12037

Paired Samples Correlations

N Pair 1 avgclean & a_avgclean

Correlation

Sig.

35

-.295

.085

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Research Project- Thamel Eco Resort

The significance level of the cleanliness is .275 which shows that there is no significance. This means that the Hypothesis 1 has not been fulfilled. The perception of the customers about the cleanliness matched the actual cleanliness of the resort resulting to satisfaction. Expected Location to actual: y Hypothesis 2= 3 4, Where: 3= mean of actual location , 2= mean of expected location

The significance level of the location is .254 which shows that there is low significance. This means that the Hypothesis 2 has not been fulfilled. The perception of the customers about the location matched the actual concern for location of the resort resulting to satisfaction. Expected Washroom condition to actual: y Hypothesis 3= 5 6, Where: 5= mean of actual washroom condition , 6= mean of expected washroom condition, then there is satisfaction

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The significance level of the washroom condition is 0 which shows that there is high significance. This means that the Hypothesis 3 has been fulfilled which means expected perception of the customers about maintenance did not match the actual maintenance of the resort . However, here we can see that the mean of the actual washroom condition is less to that the expected one. This factor has lead to the dissatisfaction of the customers towards the washroom condition. Expected Service to actual: y Hypothesis 4= 7 8, Where: 7= mean of actual service, 8= mean of expected service

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The significance level of the service is .394 which shows that there is low significance. This means that the Hypothesis 4 has not been fulfilled. The perception of the customers about the service matched the actual service of the resort resulting to satisfaction.

Data Analysis Using Regression:

We have evaluated whether the performance of the resort in terms of the independent variables affect the satisfaction level of the customers or not. This helps to test the H5, H6, H7 and H8 hypothesis. y Hypothesis 5= Actual cleanliness, actual location, actual washroom condition and actual service influence customer satisfaction

The significance is high as it is 0. This shows that the independent variables such as cleanliness, location, service and maintenance affect the dependent variable, i.e. customer satisfaction level of the customers. This shows that there is relation of these independent variables with the dependent one. And the R square shows that there is 90% of the relation between the variables.
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Research Project- Thamel Eco Resort

However, we have to see that in among the independent variables which variables affect the satisfaction level more in an independent way: y Cleanliness=High significance as lower than 0.05. Satisfaction of customers is highly affected by cleanliness of the resort. This proves the hypothesis 5 to be true as 5>more than 4 i.e. there is appreciation for cleanliness Location= Not significant as higher than 0.05. Satisfaction of customers is not affected by location of the resort. This proves the hypothesis 6 to be false as 6 is not more than 4 i.e. there is no concern for location Maintenance (Washroom condition) = Not significant as higher than 0.05. Satisfaction of customers is not affected by maintenance of the resort. This proves the hypothesis 7 to be false as 7 is not more than 4 i.e. there is no concern for timely maintenance Service = High significance as lower than 0.05. Satisfaction of customers is highly affected by service of the resort. This proves the hypothesis 8 to be true as 8>more than 4 i.e. there is concern for quick and friendly service

Finding Interpretation: The result of Paired T-test between the expected washroom condition and actual washroom condition was highly significant i.e. 0. This suggests that the expected washroom condition and actual are not equal. The mean of expected washroom is 4.1714 and the mean of actual condition of the washroom is 3.3714, which clearly shows that the expectations of the customers are higher than the actual condition of the washroom. There were further customers complaints, about the leaking problem in washroom. Some said, the washrooms were uncomfortable, as the toilet seats were small in size and had no shower with which they could bath easily whereas, some stated that the hot water facilities were not available most of the times. But, when a test of regression was conducted, to analyze the significance level of cleanliness, service quality, location and washroom maintenance, the results showed that location and washroom condition did not affect the satisfaction level of the customers. The most important factors to satisfy the customers were: cleanliness and service quality. From our survey we found out that, 54% of the customers found Thamel Eco Resort as excellent, 26% of customers found

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Research Project- Thamel Eco Resort

the resort as very good, 14% of the customers thought this resort as average, 3% of the customers remarked the resort as poor and another 3% of customers remarked the resort as terrible. This shows that despite the fact that maintenance has low significance in determining the customer satisfaction level, in this resort, the satisfaction of the customers have degraded due to high differences in the expected to actual maintenance of the resort. This is so as the expectation for the other 3 independent variables have been met by the resort, resulting to expectation of fulfillment of the performance of the less significant independent variable i.e. maintenance. There were suggestions of fixing the leaking problems of the washroom. Also, the shower was insufficient. And there was problem of timely hot water availability. There were many complaints of uncomfortable washrooms.

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Research Project- Thamel Eco Resort

SECTION 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Our results show that majority of the customers are satisfied by the overall performance of the resort, but are dissatisfied by the washroom. We have also come to know that washroom condition does not significantly affect the decision of customers for choosing Thamel Eco Resort. Therefore, Thamel Eco Resort should maintain and constantly try to improvise on cleanliness and quality service. However, this resort is not liked by certain portions of customers as there are certain customers who are concerned about the washroom condition. This might affect the resort in the long run. It cannot afford to stay with unmaintained and uncomfortable washroom forever as the customers who have not liked this resort will never recommend their friends or families to stay in this resort. An unsatisfied customer may symbolize a danger for the company. According to the research, conducted by Cherubini (1997), it shows that only 4% of unsatisfied customers complains to the business explaining the reason of their dissatisfaction, generates a negative word of mouth, which can further involve 1000 people. Hence, to retain and regain its customers, the resort can develop a timely maintenance schedule for the overall resort. This will help the resort to improve its physical attractiveness and will be able to further attract its customers and satisfy them. Also, there seems to be no customer feedback system through which the resort can address to the customer grievance and ask for areas of improvements. Thus, a proper customer feedback system should be implemented so as to recognize the reasons for the customer dissatisfactions, if any. This resort is rated good in terms of its cleanliness, service quality and location. The only factor customers are not happy with is the washroom condition. If Thamel Eco Resort can restructure the washrooms to make it more comfortable by maintaining it promptly, which is not a very difficult task for the resort to pursue, it can establish itself as one of the best resorts of the country.

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Research Project- Thamel Eco Resort

ANNEX
We hope you enjoyed your stay with us! To help us better serve you in the future, please take a few minutes to complete our guest satisfaction survey.

A.

Please rate the following attributes for a resort as per your perceived expectation, 1 = very poor and 5 = excellent. Excellent Good Fair Poor V. Poor 1. Cleanliness of the room 5 4 3 2 1 2. Price 5 4 3 2 1 3. The housekeeping service 5 4 3 2 1 4. Washroom in proper condition 5 4 3 2 1 5. Quality of the food and beverages 5 4 3 2 1 6. Prompt and reliable service 5 4 3 2 1 7. Peaceful surroundings 5 4 3 2 1 8. Location of the resort 5 4 3 2 1 9. Spacious , furnished and comfortable rooms 5 4 3 2 1 10. Properly equipped with Hotel amenities (pool, hot water, exercise room) 5 4 3 2 1 11. Prompt, reliable, and friendly staffs. 5 4 3 2 1 12. Helpful Management 5 4 3 2 1

B. Based on your stay in Thamel Eco Resort, please rate the following, 1 = very poor and 5 = excellent:
13. Cleanliness of the room 14. Price 15. The housekeeping service 16. Washroom in proper condition 17. Quality of the food and beverages 18. Prompt and reliable service 19. Peaceful surroundings 20. Location of the resort 21. Spacious , furnished and comfortable rooms 22. Properly equipped with Hotel amenities (pool, hot water, exercise room) 23. Prompt, reliable, and friendly staffs. 24. Helpful Management Excellent 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 Good 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 Fair 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 Poor 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 V. Poor 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

C. Overall how would you rate your experience at our hotel? a) Excellent b) Good c) Average d) Poor e) Very Poor

D. How likely are you to stay with us again? a) Definitely Yes b) May be c) Never

. Will you refer our hotel to any of your friends or relatives? b) May be c) Never

a) Definitely Yes

F. If any suggestions please specify below: _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve you. Mamita Shrestha(10118) Sweta Adhikary(10135)

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REFE RENCES:
Bouge, U. S. (2011). Research methods for business. Wiley. Thamel Eco resort. (n.d.). Retrieved from thamelecoresort.com.

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