LA ASOCIACIÓN ENTRE LA VARIABILIDAD Y UNA

An online self-completion questionnaire was the research tool for primary data collection (see Appendix II). The content of the questionnaire was developed after a careful review of conceptual frameworks proposed in the literature and frequent discussions with the researcher’s supervision team. This questionnaire was adopted, especially, from previous research on ICT usage within the hospitality industry from Reino’s (2009) framework for eTourism capability and relative marketing performance measuring from the work of Ambler and Kokkinaki (2000). The questionnaire reflects this study’s main question, which aims to test the relationship between ICT usage by Jordanian hotels and their marketing performance, through exploring the relationships between eight core dimensions of ICT and both financial and non-financial measures of marketing performance. The questionnaire, also

intended to identify the characteristics of the hotel and the respondent that may influence ICT usage by Jordanian hotels and their marketing performance.

Based on the above, the questionnaires were adopted for the current study and thus included four major sections. The first section included twelve statements related to the characteristics of the hotels adopted from Reino’s research (2009). These statements were developed and re-written to make it suitable for use in the Jordanian context. This survey began with a question about the respondents’ role in the business as a filter question to identify the correct respondents. Then, the respondents (the managers of Jordanian hotels) were requested to describe the features of their hotels (e.g. the star rating, management and ownership type, the geographical location, the number of bedrooms, and the number of full-time and part-time employees). In this part of the questionnaire, the number and the main features of the guests were also covered using four statements (i.e. the number of guests, the percentage of local/ foreign guests, the percentage of business/ leisure guests, and the percentage of guests who stay as individual/ couples/ families/ or groups). Finally, the respondents were requested to list the available facilities in their hotels (e.g. restaurants, gyms or conference facilities).

The second section of the questionnaire assessed the availability, the interconnectivity and the usage of forty-eight different systems of ICT that are used to support hotel operations in eight categories developed by Reino (2009). These items can be divided into three different groups depending on their physical nature. The first groups comprised the software systems that can be interconnected to additional software systems. A total of twenty-eight items of this type of software were included in the questionnaire (i.e. 4 items for Front-Office systems; 6 items for business administration systems; 3 items for business intelligence systems, 3 items for electronic distribution systems and 12 items for guest services systems). In this group, the participants were asked to state the availability and the interconnectivity of these given systems. The second group comprised of the hardware and networking infrastructures, which by default, can be interconnected to the other systems. A total of 15 items from this type were included in the questionnaire (i.e. 6 items for hardware, 9 items for the general networking infrastructure). In this group, the participants were asked to answer how they would rank their usage of a given system on a five point Likert-scale (i.e. not available, limited usage, average usage, high usage, or essential). The third group comprises the availability of the most common social media (e.g. Facebook and Twitter). Finally, an additional question was provided for respondents to list any further ICT systems that not listed in questionnaire.

The third section of the questionnaire includes twelve statements related to marketing performance measuring adopted from Ambler and Kokkinaki (2000) and developed by Ambler et al. (2004), Da Gama (2011a) and Zubair and Imran (2011). In this section, the respondents were asked to rate their satisfaction with the marketing performance of their hotels for each of these statements based on the five point Likert-scale (i.e. completely dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, neither satisfied or dissatisfied, somewhat satisfied and completely satisfied). In order to complete this part of the questionnaire accurately, the respondents were advised to confer with the marketing manager in their hotel for appropriate assistance.

The fourth section includes five statements which were taken from the instrument reported by Reino (2009) to explore respondents’ experience on ICT beside their demographics (e.g. age and gender). Respondents’ expertise in ICT was measured by questions built on four- point scale (i.e. none, some, competent, or expert). The participants were requested to answer how they would rank their experience on the general ICT, the general business ICT and the industry-specific ICT. Moreover, the participants were asked to state how long they have worked for or owned the business to evaluate their overall experience in the hotel industry. At the end of the questionnaire the respondents were asked (optionally) to provide their eMail if they wished to receive a summary of the research results.

According to Hair et al. (2007), Bryman (2012) and Zikmund et al. (2013) there are some advantages of using the online self-administered questionnaire. One of these advantages is the low cost involved when compared with administering interviews; since it can save the researcher’s time by covering a wider area and a large quantities at the same time. Moreover, online self-administered questionnaires are more convenient for respondents as it gives them the freedom to answer in their own time and at their own place. Another advantage is that it eliminates the interviewer (i.e. the researcher) influence.

In spite of this, it cannot be claimed that the questionnaire is perfect, as there are some disadvantages attached to this type of data collection. For example, it is not possible to know who actually filled in the questionnaire as well as the probability of receiving a low response rate (Bryman 2012). In order to reduce these weaknesses, many considerations were taken into account during the questionnaire design and data collection, such as; sending the questionnaire exclusively to people who are in a position to respond appropriately, ensuring that the questionnaire is interesting and topical, as well as providing assurances of confidentiality and anonymity for the respondents (see Section 5.9). Furthermore, the

researcher used personal communication during data collection to insure a high responses rate from the right people (see Section 5.10).

Another disadvantage for an online questionnaire is that there is no one who can help the respondents when they need clarification for answering some questions (Creswell 2009). In order to reduce the chances that the managers may not have had a clear understanding of the terms used in questionnaire, the author attached a glossary of terms in the questionnaire (see Appendix III). Respondents were able to access these definitions as well as any additional information by clicking links attached with most of the questionnaire statements.

Another disadvantage to this type of data collection was the probability of losing data when the respondent did not answer certain questions. To reduce the amount of missing data, almost all statements in the questionnaire were obligatory to answer; the respondents had to choose an option for the statements before being able to submit the questionnaire. However, some statements had additional options (e.g. other) to be chosen if the respondent did not know the answer or if the answer was not covered by the options provided by the author.

The research developed and deployed in this questionnaire was via the Web using the service offered by ‘Bristol Online Surveys’ due to its easy-to-use interface that allowed setting-up, conducting and analysing questionnaires without the need for a complicated technical knowledge. The questionnaire comprises three Webpages (see Appendix II). The opening page (i.e. welcome page) explains the aim and importance of the study, encouraged the participants to respond, and insures confidentiality and anonymity. The second page has all the questionnaire statements and by answering these questions the respondent will reach the final page (i.e. the thank you page).