Capsule Hotel Case Study

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this research is to study the factors that affect the tourists in Thailand on their intention to choose a capsule hotel. This chapter presents the methods used in the study including the sampling frame, research instrument, data collection, and data analysis methods.

3.1 Sampling Frame

3.1.1 Population The target population in this study included only foreign tourists in Bangkok, Thailand. Based on data by Department of Tourism, Thailand (2014), the number of foreign guests in accommodation establishments in Bangkok in 2013 was 16,823,969; therefore, the researcher used this number as the population for this study and calculated the sample size later on

(http://www.tourism.go.th/home/details/11/221/621,

The criterion for selecting the participants in this study were 1) the tourists must be foreigners who traveled in Bangkok and 2) aged 21-60 years old.

3.1.3 Sampling method

The foreign participants were selected from the tourist attractions, budget accommodations, department stores, BTS Skytrain stations and international airport by randomly sampling. The age of the participants was screened before starting the survey.

3.2 Research Instrument

Questionnaires were used as an instrument to collect data for this quantitative study. The questionnaire was divided into five parts. The first part asked the respondents to provide personal information such as age, gender, level of income. The second part included the characteristics and consumption of tourists. The third part was the survey for previous knowledge or experience of tourists towards a capsule hotel. The fourth part was the assessment of tourists’ perception related to the factors including price, location, room size, servicescape, cleanliness, security and amenities, and rating for intention to stay. The last part was the measurement of individual risk

In addition, detailed description of the proposed capsule hotel was provided at the beginning of the questionnaire (Edwards, 2008). This description included price, location, room size, security and available amenities i.e. high-speed Internet, in-room TV, laundry machine and sleep ambient control system. From the pictures and the description, respondents was asked to rate their preference on each attribute of the proposed capsule hotel by using a Likert-type scale (Saleh and Ryan, 1992; Edwards, 2008). The attributes was rated from 1 (dislike very much) to 7 (like very much) (Edwards, 2008). At the end, there was a question asking respondents’ intention to stay in the capsule hotel (Edwards, 2008). The intention ranged from 1 = very low to 7 = very high (Edwards,