Sales and Marketing
It is important for organisations to find out the needs and wants of its customers. Select two different research methods of which 1 must be quantitative and 1 qualitative and compare and contrast them. In addition, critically appraise their strengths and their weaknesses and their application within your industry.
In order to promote and sell ideas, products or services every organisation must investigate the market place of their own industry. As Holloway (2004, p.59) defines, marketing research is “the planned, systematic collection and an analysis of data designed to help the management of an organisation to reach decisions, and to monitor the results of those decisions once taken”. There are two main approaches of research that calculate and understand customers’ needs and desires. One is the qualitative method, which studies motivation, attitudes and behaviour of consumers. The other analyses the quantitative aspect of consumer’s behaviour and opinions in form of numerical data and statistics.
Within qualitative and quantitative methods used in the tourism industry, in this essay I will describe, evaluate and contrast one of each type in order to understand the differences and similarities in their objectives and how their may complement each other. Out of the qualitative approaches, attention will be devoted to the focus group, which explores consumers’ feelings and attitudes through interviewing small groups of people of the same or different culture, gender, class, age (etc.) to draw conclusions about a whole segment of population’s behaviour. The larger picture is then supported by the data collected and analysed through quantitative methods like the survey, which measures consumers’ behaviour in numbers obtained through questionnaires made for larger groups.
The focus group is a discussion guided by a moderator whose aim is to expose individual feelings on a selected issue or product that needs to be inserted or enhanced in the market place.
In order to promote and sell ideas, products or services every organisation must investigate the market place of their own industry. As Holloway (2004, p.59) defines, marketing research is “the planned, systematic collection and an analysis of data designed to help the management of an organisation to reach decisions, and to monitor the results of those decisions once taken”. There are two main approaches of research that calculate and understand customers’ needs and desires. One is the qualitative method, which studies motivation, attitudes and behaviour of consumers. The other analyses the quantitative aspect of consumer’s behaviour and opinions in form of numerical data and statistics.
Within qualitative and quantitative methods used in the tourism industry, in this essay I will describe, evaluate and contrast one of each type in order to understand the differences and similarities in their objectives and how their may complement each other. Out of the qualitative approaches, attention will be devoted to the focus group, which explores consumers’ feelings and attitudes through interviewing small groups of people of the same or different culture, gender, class, age (etc.) to draw conclusions about a whole segment of population’s behaviour. The larger picture is then supported by the data collected and analysed through quantitative methods like the survey, which measures consumers’ behaviour in numbers obtained through questionnaires made for larger groups.
The focus group is a discussion guided by a moderator whose aim is to expose individual feelings on a selected issue or product that needs to be inserted or enhanced in the market place.
Bibliography: - Egan, J. (2007) Marketing Communications, London: Thompson Learning. - Holloway, J Christopher (2004) Marketing for tourism, 4th Edition, Pearson Education. - Lumson, L (1997) Tourism Marketing, Oxford: International Business Press. - Morgan, M (1996) Marketing for Leisure and Tourism, Wiltshire: Prentice Hall. - Palmer, A (2004) Introduction to Marketing: theory and practice, Oxford University Press. - Seaton, A.V. and Bennett, M.M. (1996) Marketing Tourism Products: Concepts, Issues, Cases, Oxford: International Business Press. - Swarbrooke, J. and Horner, S. (2001) Researching Tourist Satisfaction, Tourism Insights, May. - Taylor, H. (2000) The Talk To Us Campaign - Market Research Techniques for the Hotel Industry, Tourism Insights, November. - Wade, R. Kenneth (1998) Focus groups can help develop survey issues, Marketing News, March 2, 1998, Vol. 32 Issue 5, p18-18, 1/3p