The aim of employing methodological triangulation in this study was to compare results of both quantitative and qualitative studies on location- based determinants of accommodation prices in the Lodz metropolitan area. The sample for the quantitative research consisted of all of the 155 accommodation establishments in the investigated area. The final sample for the qualitative part of the study consisted of 17 accommodation establishments (chain-affiliated and independent hotels, guesthouses and others) in the metropolitan area of Lodz.
The data on the characteristics and attributes of the accommodation facilities was obtained for the quantitative analysis. Detailed information was collected on the official type and category of every investigated accommodation enterprise, including the legal form of the company, its postal address and geographical coordinates, the number of bed places and number of rooms (if available), and its contact information. Furthermore, the prices examined included taxes and referred to the cheapest available accommodation for one night for two people travelling together. Values of location-based determinants were calculated as distances (great-circle distances were employed) or dummy variables (GIS selection tools were used).
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Data for the quantitative study were obtained from various sources:
governmental and regional registers of accommodation enterprises, and the websites of both the accommodation companies themselves and their reservations systems (including online travel agencies). Furthermore, missing data were gathered via telephone enquiries conducted with the staff of the accommodation establishments in question. It should be noted that various sources of price information were compared in order to achieve the cheapest offer.
Figure 9.1 – Location of accommodation facilities in Lodz
The reason for collecting this data on prices was to prevent any changes derived from an unusual demand for accommodation facilities on the specified dates. As Balaguer and Pernias suggested (2012), local holidays or special events could potentially distort the results of the study.
Moreover, the analysis of the differences between midweek and weekend rates at different times of the year was requested. Thus, the information on the prices in 2012 was obtained using specific check-in dates: 8th of August (summer, work day); 11th of August (summer, weekend); 3rd of
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October (autumn, work day); and 6th of October (autumn, weekend). The data collection was conducted in June and July 2012.
For the quantitative research, hedonic functions of prices of accommodation facilities were employed. As Andersson (2010) suggests, hedonic price models can be used by revenue managers as part of their pricing policies and processes. Moreover, the results of regression analysis into the relation between accommodation prices and their determinant factors may support location investment decisions. More precisely, hedonic analysis allows managers to estimate the value of various attributes of the lodging industry in various locations (Bull, 1994).
The statistical significance of various location-based determinants of accommodation prices was examined. As independent variables the two types of attributes and characteristics of accommodation facilities were considered: general and location-based. The logged rates (best available rates) of rooms offered in the Lodz metropolitan area, sold during summer and autumn 2012, both on weekdays and at weekends, were used as dependent variables. Therefore, a semilogarithmic regression model was used four times for accommodation prices for each period.
As suggested by Israeli (2002), differences in accommodation quality should explain a large element of the variation in prices. Thus, types of accommodation establishments defined by the Polish Central Statistical Office: hotels, motels, and boarding houses, both luxury (LUXHOT) and budget (BUDHOT), other hotel establishments (OTHHOT), other accommodation establishments (OTHACC), and private rooms and agrotourism lodgings (PRVROO), were considered as independent, dummy variables. The number of beds (BEDSNO) as an intrinsic characteristic of lodging enterprises was used.
Furthermore, independent variables included location-based factors.
The following variables, as discussed previously, were used in this study:
urban location (LOCURB), location in the city centre (LOCCEN), distance from the city centre (DSTCEN), distance from the nearest competitor (DSTCOM), distance from the nearest accommodation establishment (DSTACC), and finally, distance from the nearest transport node (DSTTRA). It was not possible to include tourist opinions regarding the location of accommodation facilities. Zhang et al. (2011) used data from www.tripadvisor.com. However, only a very limited number of investigated accommodation facilities feature on this website.
Near-linear dependence was found between two independent variables:
distance between hotel and nearest transport hub, and distance between hotel and centre of the city in the metropolitan area. To verify the presence of multicollinearity in the model, the variance inflation factor (VIF)
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(Montgomery et al., 2012) was calculated. It must be noted that belonging to one type of accommodation establishment was entirely explained by not belonging to any other types. Thus, analysis of the VIF values of dummy variables representing types of accommodation establishment was omitted.
However, VIF values for all other variables were below the critical value (Lin, 2008).
The qualitative part of the study was used to define and verify the significance of location-based determinants of accommodation prices. It was designed primarily to provide description, interpretation or explanation of the investigated phenomenon from an internal perspective, through the analysis of the subjective experiences. The qualitative data obtained were very different, but all are examples of actual human communication. To facilitate analyses most of the data were converted to text format. Analysis of the data is twofold. Firstly, it is necessary to utilize ordering techniques due to the large amount of data followed by data interpretation (Angrosino, 2010; Gibbs, 2008; Kvale, 2011).
For the qualitative part of the study a method of in-depth interviews (IDI) was used. The managers of 17 accommodation establishments operating in the Lodz metropolitan area were interviewed: the managers of six hotels located in the centre of Lodz – the main city in the metropolitan area, and the manager of another city centre accommodation establishment; the managers of six hotels located outside the city centre, and the managers of four other accommodation establishments in the same location (Figure 9.1).
Whilst the managers of the chosen accommodation establishments were willing and able to participate in the IDI, feedback from the interviewers was that some of the questions were perceived as being overly complicated, namely those questions concerning pricing strategy, policy or competition. Therefore, in many cases the interviewers modified the more complex questions into shorter and more understandable ones that respondents found easier to follow. It should be emphasized, however, that in many of the visited establishments, knowledge of the subject was, in general, exhaustive.