Task: 

This assessment is divided into Part A and Part B.

Part A – 15 marks due between 

Design and develop the methodology. 

Your final research report must include the design of two data collection methods. One will be a self-administered questionnaire. This assessment task (2A) is to develop the survey design and survey instrument for the questionnaire. This assessment must be completed and students must have had written approval and feedback before data collection for Assessment 2B may begin.

The questionnaire should be designed to answer your research question(s).

There are two parts to this. First, the survey design is to be explained in an essay and must address:

• The research scope (hypothesis/goals/aims/objectives)
• Type of questionnaire
• Who will be answering the questionnaire (The subject variables that define the 'type of person' may be demographic variables, such as age, gender, ethnic origin, occupational or educational background, but may also be attitudinal variables, such as political affiliation. Also see chapter 9 in the prescribed text)
• How will these subjects be recruited (A minimum of 30 subjects (or sets of data) is required for this project, although a greater number may make the analysis and interpretation of some of the results easier. Consideration to ethical practice must be considered and addressed here)
• How the research question/s has/have been operationalized.

Appropriate justifications and academic references should be included. 

Note: It is expected that material from assessment 1 will be used in this first part of assessment 2A as both assessments are on the same topic.

Second, the survey instrument must be provided (Google forms, Survey Monkey or Qualtrics should be used. The questionnaire will need to be exported and included in your submission. Instructions for this will be provided in class). 

The questionnaire will have a maximum of 20 questions, and should be designed so that it can be completed in only a few minutes. You should carefully consider the types of questions asked and whether list, category, ranking, scale or continuum scale questions (or a combination of questions) are best (see chapter 14 in the prescribed text). 

The questionnaire should contain at least one 'open-ended' question. In assessment 2B, the responses to this question should be analysed using 'content analysis' and graphically displayed as will be described (as covered in lectures). Note: Care should be taken that an open-ended question is chosen which will give rise to responses that will allow a substantial content analysis to be carried out. More than one such question can be included to ensure that at least one question results in a suitable set of responses. 

Part B – 45 marks 

Your task is to report your analysis and results from the research set out in your research proposal in Assessment 1 and data collected using your survey instrument in Assessment 2A.

The questionnaire responses are to be coded into a spreadsheet (or data matrix) format, and analysed using Excel, as will be described in class. Considerable graphical analysis will also be required.

The success of online travel agents depends on their brand image, customer loyalty and search engine optimisation. Webjet is encountering severe competition from localised international online travel agencies such as Expedia and Priceline (Freed & Fitzsimmons 2014). Also, this industry has lesser entry barriers which make the existence of Webjet vulnerable (McDuling 2017).

The proposed research is to analyse the impact of consumer decision making variables for the purchase of travel products through the websites of online travel agencies like Webjet. The primary objective is to determine the variables that influence a customer's online travel purchase decision. The secondary objectives include identifying the key factors that travellers use to select an online travel agency, determining the features of travel product offerings preferred by customers and their satisfaction level with the current offerings and examining the customer perception about the online travel agencies.

There are six hypotheses that are set to prove that the constructs are true. The first six hypotheses would test whether the factors such as travel product price, convenience, travel website content, the trustworthiness of the website and family member's suggestions hold a positive influence on the online travel purchase decisions of customers (Kanagal et al. 2010), (Li-Ming & Wai 2013), (Law, Buhalis & Cobanoglu 2014) , (Amaro & Duarte 2015), (Cohen, Prayag & Moital 2014) and (Gao & Bai 2014). Also, the sixth hypothesis would test whether the level of internet usage has a positive influence on the customer attitude to choose online travel offerings (Amaro & Duarte 2015). The outcomes of this research are expected to determine the level of a customer’s perceived internet expertise and the intention to buy online, informativeness of the website and effectiveness of its content, financial advantage from the use of online travel shopping, customer perceptions about the reliability of purchase and associated risks, the level of customer attitude towards convenience and control of the websites and the list of influencers of online travel purchase decisions.

The proposed research would focus on online travel and does not address the concerns of traditional buyers. It is restricted to the users of the Webjet travel website for travel package buying. Exploratory research is proposed as this would enable the researcher to understand the various constructs related to online travel purchases in the Australian market (Manerikar & Manerikar 2014). Quantitative research is planned to be conducted through surveys of Webjet users. The research method is expected to determine whether a correlation exists between customer attitude and their online travel purchase intentions using the Webjet travel website. Exploratory research would be carried out to understand the constructs in the Australian market.

(Some parts of the solution has been blurred due to privacy protection policy)