Construction of the questions

The question guidelines for the interviews and questionnaires were built on two main pillars:

1) Literature Review (reported in Chapter II).

2) Text analysis of booking.com reviews: Japanese and Chinese.

A summary of the steps followed is represented in Figure 3.4., below:

Figure 3.4: Process to construct interviews guidelines and questionnaire based in literature review outcome and booking.com wording analysis reviews.

Source: Own Elaboration

The Literature Review and content analysis of booking.com reviews formed the basis of interviews guidelines/questionnaire.

3.5.1. Sample Interviews (Hospitality Managers and Experts)

The Top Managers of hotels in the Top 10 Hotel Chains (Deloitte, 2019) and managers of In-dependent Hotels with relevant experience in the Hospitality sector (from the hotel sample in the analysis), as well as a Hospitality University Programs Coordinator were approached through Linkedin. The purpose of the study was explained, and interview guidelines were sent.

Those approached were then asked whether they could be available to join a phone conference, or a WhatsApp face to face meeting to discuss the matter in further detail. The most relevant top management of the Top 10 (Deloitte, 2019) were selected from the following hotels: One of the Lisbon hotels with the most Chinese reviews but no reviews by Japanese; One Lisbon 4-star hotel with the most Japanese reviews; one chain hotel which has a special program totally dedicated to the Asiatic market (Chinese), to understand why there is not a similar program dedicated to Japanese tourists; one of the biggest Portuguese chain hotel, this chain was chosen because its top manager has decades of experience in hospitality management and a Hospitality University Programs Coordinator.

Participants were assured there would be complete confidentiality, with no individual’s name being shared, and that the full content of the interviews would not be transcribed since the subject was strategy. The interviewee profiles are presented in table 3.6.

Table 3.6: Interviewees´ Profile

Years

Hospitality Interview Hospitality

# Position Gender Chain Type Experience

1 Board of Administration M Top 10 Meeting 7+

2 Board of Administration M Top 10 Phone Conference 18+

3 CEO M Top 10 Phone Conference 31+

4 Director F Top 10 Phone Conference 23+

5 Hospitality Coordinator F University What´s app 2+

After that, the interview’s wording content was coded (open coding), then the codes had been classified as categories (Axial Coding) and then classified according with the four

An exploratory study of Portuguese luxury hotel management strategy

70 Balanced Scorecard dimensions: Customer and Market, Processes and Procedures, People De-velopment and Finance (Selective Coding). Grounded Theory will be built.

3.5.2. Grounded Theory (GT)

Grounded Theory (GT) method is a widely used tool for qualitative research, aiming at con-structing theories based on empirical data. As the researcher analyses data collected from vari-ous sources, elements (usually tagged with ‘codes’) are obtained. This procedure continues and those ‘codes’ are further processed into ‘concepts’ and ‘categories’, which eventually lead to construction of new theories. Unlike positivist analysis, GT begins with direct observation of original data and attempts to find concepts reflecting the truth behind observable phenomena.

This method was devised by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in 1965 (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Charmaz (2014) argues that GT is especially suited for relatively new research areas, where generally agreed theories or definitions are still absent.

3.5.2.1. Questionnaire

The main objectives of the questionnaire are:

1) To test the respondents´ knowledge about Asian Market (Japanese and Chinese), evalu-ating the differences by sector (Automotive and Other Industries; Bank, Insurance and other Services; Education and Consultancy and Hospitality and Tourism), comparing with literature review and booking.com output: Questions nº 7, 8, 9.

2) To confirm interviews outputs relating to Portuguese Luxury Hotels Recruitment Poli-cies and Portuguese Hospitality Schools: Questions nº 12.

3) To conclude about Strategy (before covid-19) concerning Asian markets (Japanese and Chinese) based in the four balanced scorecard dimensions (market, processes and procedures, people and finance), comparing if the thinking of hospitality strategy is the same for manage-ment with experience in hospitality or managemanage-ment with experience in other sector of activities:

Questions nº6 (Market); nº10 (Processes and Procedures), nº11 and nº 13 (People) and nº14 (Finance).

4) To conclude about the Strategy (after covid-19), concerning market developments and balanced scorecard dimensions development priorities,), comparing if the thinking of

hospitality strategy is the same for management with experience in hospitality or management with experience in other sector of activities. Questions nº 15,16,17 and 18.

The questionnaire (Appendix C) had been divided according with the four Balanced Score-card Dimensions: Customer and Market; Processes and Procedures; People Development and Finance. The questions nº 1 to 5 are related to population sample characteristics: Sector of ac-tivity, Hotel Chain (if hospitality), Position, Sex and Age. From Part I to Part IV – Strategy before COVID-19 (questions nº 6 to 14), questions nº 6 to 9 (Part I) are related to Customer and Market (Asiatic Markets Approach, Japanese Tourist), the questions nº 7, 8 and 9 have only the purpose of understand how the cultural Japanese characteristics and differences related to Chi-nese are understood. Questions nº 10 (Part II) are related to Processes and Procedures. Ques-tions nº11 to 13 (Part III) are related to people development (Front Office, Recruitment Policies, Training Policies). Questions nº 14 (Part IV) are related to Finance and Sustainability.

Question nº 15 to 18 (Part V) are related to strategy/expectations after COVID-19 (Q15-Profitability; Q16-Strategy priority; Q17-Improvement priority; Q18-Markets Development Priority).

The questionnaire was built taking in consideration the following outcomes: literature re-view, booking .com Japanese and Chinese reviews analysis and interviews.

A quantitative and deductive research approach was used and, as the subject is very spe-cific, the respondents were selected according to the following criteria: those with experience in hospitality management or front office for the hospitality sector; and for other sectors, those with experience in management or professional experience working with Japanese and/or for Japanese companies. The questionnaires were sent out in Portuguese and used a Likert scale of 1 to 5 (1-Totally Disagree and 5-Totally Agree) ~ 6-Do not know 7-Do not want to answer

~were deliberately left out. “With a Five - point scale, it is quite simple for the interviewer to read out the complete list of scale descriptors (‘1 equals strongly disagree, two equals disagree

…’)”. Dawes, J. G. (2008). In total, 501 questionnaires were distributed. 141 questionnaires to hospitality managers and front-office staff, 51 to Japanese management in the Automotive and Other Industries, 45 to Hospitality Teachers involved in Education and Consultancy, and 264 questionnaires were sent to Top managers in other sectors of activity.

An exploratory study of Portuguese luxury hotel management strategy

72 3.5.2.2. Pre-test and Optimisation of Item

To ensure validation, the questionnaire used during the interviews was previously tested and as a result of the feedback received, it was updated. The introduction was reduced (it had been too detailed, which made heavy going for the interviewers) to a brief explanation about the objec-tive of the project and the terms of confidentiality, and to make it easier for participants, re-sponses to some of the questions were changed from an evaluation on a scale of 1 to 5, to a simple: yes, no and do not know. However, given that the subject is not an easy or commonplace one, it was acknowledged that it would be difficult for respondents to generalise. The research-ers also acknowledge that despite interviewees’ experience welcoming Asian tourists or work-ing with Japanese brands, it is nevertheless hard to understand Asian culture in general.

The questionnaires were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics 26. Reliability (internal con-sistency) had been examined according to the Corrected ItemTotal Correlations (CITCs) of every item as well as Cronbach’s alpha of every dimension and sub-dimension. The CITC re-veals the item’s internal consistency with other items, and Cronbach’s alpha reflects the relia-bility of the scale. Items whose CITCs are below the 0.50 benchmark would be removed, and the recommended cut-off value for Cronbach’s alpha is 0.70 (Hair, Black, Anderson & Tatham, 2006). However, although it is generally agreed upon that the Cronbach’s alpha should exceed 0.70 (Nunnally, 1978; Turker, 2008; Smith, Karwan & Markland, 2009), Cortina (1993) argues that factors like number of items, number of dimensions, and average CITC should also be taken into account when determining the lower limit of Cronbach’s alpha and suggests that values above 0.64 are all acceptable. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) had been used to extract principal components.