I have to complete a reserach paper for part of my final year at
university.  IN the next few months I have to prepare a proposal and
so far I have no idea what direction I want my research to take me. 
Has anyone any ideas they could put forward?

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 25 Oct 2005 20:25 PDT

Depends a lot on what sort of interests you have...is it more towards,
e.g., food, cooking, restaurant menus, or human resources management,
or IT....or what?

Online hotel reservation services are a real mess, and can certainly
use some creative re-inventing -- is that of interest to you?

Give us a clue, and maybe we can offer some suggestions.

pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Question by steffyc2-ga on 27 Oct 2005 03:06 PDT

I have a lot of thoughts at the moment.  The Customer, staff turnover,
distribution channels, reservations.  Any help would be brilliant

It could also be about trends in hotel development in the industry or
perceived changes in customer desires.  There was a period when chains
built hotels that were virtually identical  - the Hilton in Kabul or
Istanbul looked like the ones in the States.  Now chains are accepting
more variety, partly because they are buying existing hotels, but
perhaps also because they perceive that customers want more variety or
not a US-style facility (I live in Europe).  Maybe they recognize that
their name (and online reservation service  - good or bad) is enough
to bring in the customers.  It is kind of surprising for me to see a
Best Western sign on traditional-looking German hotel.

Maybe something about the importance of conference facilities, which
could also be oriented towards local market capacity, or a local
market being able to support more facilities and/or hotels and for
what reason.
Example:  Indianapolis's sports arena, Indy 500, etc., seem to justify
a lot of hotel rooms.

Or how smaller, traditional hotels survive (if they do) by offering
special services or whatever it is that allows them to survive.

Could the paper be more oriented towards customer requirements and
desires, what they want to find in a hotel, what they miss, how they
choose/avoid hotels?
Online site customers'recommendations, blogs, ...?

Or you could concentrate on one segment of the industry:  major, minor
resorts, remote vacation spots, ...

Good luck, Myoarin