PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING VERY CAREFULLY AS

THIS PROVIDES YOU GUIDELINES THAT HELPS YOU

TO WRITE YOUR RESEARCH PROPOSAL.
Important points to remember:
This is a major research project
o include both qualitative & quantitative research
You are to assume that a company/newcomer in the market
place has commissioned your agency to conduct exploratory
and descriptive research on their behalf. Thus, you have to
use both secondary and primary techniques.
The report will include exploratory design stages
o Secondary data (relevant articles, statistics, etc)
In-depth interviews (include why? Who? & How?)
Go for SME in one industry sector in Malaysia, e.g:
o Convenience store
o Travel agency
o Food industry
o Beauty houses
o Boutiques/specialty store
o Others. The choice is yours

RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Industry Background
Say you have picked tourism in Malaysia and your client is Happy Travel Agency.
You have conducted secondary search. You have read articles from magazines,
newspapers, and statistical analysis provided by various private and government research
bodies. Keep records of these secondary sources. You may need that for your reference
list later.
Briefly present your findings here. Assuming you have found out that travel agencies in
Malaysia are facing stiff competition from the airlines as airlines are selling tickets plus
attractive tour packages to consumers. At the same time, consumers have expressed
dissatisfaction upon services offered by local travel agencies.
You may obtain more information pertaining to this section after the proposal stage. That
means, your final report will show a better write up for this section.

Company Background
Briefly tell about the company that you have chosen, e.i, Happy Travel Agency.

Problem Definition
(a) Management Problem Definition
Should the company adopt a different marketing strategy to encourage
customers to purchase holidays packages through the traveling agency
instead of airlines via on-line?
Should training for personalised service staff be stepped up?
(b) Marketing Problem Definition
Will a change in marketing strategy (namely, product/service, pricing,
distribution network, web capability and promotion) be able to create
competitive edge? How do consumers perceive a satisfactory tour
experience?
Are there customer dissatisfaction occurring in the areas of services? What
are those?

Research Objective

To determine the factors that lead consumers buying tour packages

through airlines via online.
To identify better marketing strategy to attract new customers, retain
existing ones as well as winning over competitors customers.

To determine customers satisfaction level on services offered by the

company, namely, ticketing, information provided pertaining to tour
packages, promptness of staff in dealing with queries/complaints, and staff
friendliness.

Say, a maximum of 3 objectives. Objectives must be specific (Please read

up chapter 4 for more details)

Research Design
(a)

Research type
Exploratory
o To gain more insights of the research problem (please read up your
text book for more details but you relate that to your problem).
Descriptive
o Please read up your text book for more details but you must relate
that to your problem.
Causal
There will be hypotheses tested.

(b)

Data source
Primary and secondary

( c) Data collection methods

Indepth interviews
o 8 other travel agencies
o Please explain why in-depth interviews are needed here.
o Explain how you are going to conduct the interviews.
Survey
o Questionnaire will be used
Please decide on whether you are going to use face-to-face,
telephone interview, postal or on-line.
Provide a brief description of the questionnaire (research
instrument)
E.g, Section A will include questions about factors
that lead customers to buying tour packages from
the airlines on-line. Section B will be about
peoples satisfactory tour experience. Finally
section C will be the respondents demographic
profile.
Questionnaire will be pilot tested using 20 respondents.

Sampling Design

Define your population

o At this point of time, please consider your respondents are within
the Klang Valley area.
Determine your sampling frame
o You may consider using telephone directory, etc
o You may suggest other forms
Decide on your sampling method
o You may consider using simple random sampling at this point of
time.
o Why are you using this method?
o Please read up your text book for more details but you must relate
that to your problem.
Sample size
o 1,000 respondents
o Why?
o Please read up your text book for more details but you must relate
that to your problem.

Data Analysis

Descriptive analysis
o Frequency tables, pie charts, bar charts, cross-tabulation
Inferential analysis
o Univariate
t-test
o Bivariate
correlation analysis
o Multivariate factor analysis