Hybrid Conjoint Analysis as a Research Technique to Measure Meeting Planners' Preferences in Hotel Selection

Abstract

This article addresses the need for measuring meeting planners' preferences of hotel selection to help hotel management better understand their customers' expectations in the meeting business. Using hybrid conjoint analysis (HCA) the authors incorporated meeting planners' trade-offs in the preference measurement to overcome the drawbacks of traditional measurement methods. The HCA methodology is discussed to provide a better under standing of this research technique. This article reports which attributes are considered most important and least important to meeting planners. The most preferred hotel profile in the study was identified as a reference for hotel operators to improve their meeting packages. HCA model validations were carried out to examine the validity of preference prediction. Finally, the authors explain the implications and some limitations of this research.