According to Marriott's vice president of marketing and public relations, quality, price, service, amenities, comfort, and convenience are all independent variables that affect the preference for a hotel chain. Assume that in a survey of hotel chain, each of the independent variables is measured on a 7-point scale, with 1 = poor and 7 = excellent. Preference for hotel chain is also measured on a 7-point scale, with 1 = not at all preferred and 7 = greatly preferred. Each respondent rates Marriott and three competing hotel chains on all the indepen¬dent variables as well as preference to stay there on a vacation. What statistical technique(s) would you use to answer the following questions:
a. Is preference related to each of the independent variables considered individually? What is the nature of the relationship you expect?
b. Is preference related to all the independent variables considered simultaneously?
c. Do the respondents evaluate the hotel chains more favorable on quality than they do on price?
d. The sample is divided into two groups: regular patrons of Marriott and patrons of other hotels. Do these two groups differ in terms of their ratings of Marriott on quality?
e. Are the two groups of question d different in terms of income measured as high, medium, and low?
f. Are the two groups of question d different in terms of quality, price, service, amenities, comfort, and convenience when all the independent variables are considered simultaneously?
g. The sample is divided into three groups: heavy, medium, and light users of hotels. Do the three groups differ in terms of preference for Marriott?
h. Are the three groups of question g different in terms of quality, price, service, amenities, comfort, and convenience when all the independent variables are considered simultaneously?
i. Can the evaluation on quality, price, service, amenities, comfort, and convenience be represented by a reduced set of factors?
j. Can the respondents be segmented based on their evaluations of hotels on quality, price, service, amenities, comfort, and convenience? How many segments should there be?
k. What is the competitive positioning of the various hotel brands? What insights can be obtained?
I. About 13 percent of the respondents have missing values on one or more variables. How would you treat the missing values?
m. A question asked the respondents to check as many of the seven hotels that they had stayed in the past three years. How should the data for this question be coded?