Statistics Assignment

Overview

You are an analyst at Portal Associates, a consulting firm headquartered in Rodeo, New Mexico. Your firm has just acquired a key new client - Hyperion Hotels, a lodging company with over 500 properties in the United States.

As Portal's first assignment, Hyperion has requested a descriptive analysis of selected performance data for a representative sample of its properties. The performance data come from two data suppliers: Smith Travel Research, Inc. and Medallia, Inc. In providing the descriptive analysis, Hyperion has asked that you address several specific questions about the data.

The data have already been organized into an Excel file available on the course website in the Analysis Assignment #1 folder. NOTE: All of this information is "simulated" data - it is similar in format to the information supplied by Smith Travel Research (aka STAR) and Medallia to their clients but it is not real data. The hotel names in the data set are also fictitious.

The variables in the data set include each property's April 2008 RevPAR and RevPAR Index values (from STAR) , and the property's April 2008 Loyalty measurement (from Medallia). For the purposes of THIS assignment, you should assume that RevPAR and RevPAR index are related (dependent) but that Loyalty is independent of both RevPAR and RevPAR index.

You will receive two sets of research "questions" concerning these data. You will address them using the concepts and procedures covered during the first 5 weeks of this course. You will perform appropriate analyses and report your findings and conclusions to Hyperion's management in the form of one or more business memos or sets of Power Point slides with charts and/or tables as appropriate.

Your biggest challenge is to avoid falling into the trap that caused Hyperion's CEO, Charles Burnham, to cancel three previous consulting contracts: writing reports containing "a lot of number mumbo jumbo that only some egghead statistician could understand." Mr. Burnham is a charismatic, outspoken, self-made hotel magnate with an undergraduate degree in Art History and "no time for any of that formal B-school quantitative jargon." So, you have to write up the analysis results and conclusions with as little statistical terminology as possible for Mr. Burnham, while also providing firm support for the points you make in your report for the highly skilled and well-

compensated "B-school" folks who work for Mr. Burnham and ARE expected to see the relationship between what Mr. Burnham sees and "the number mumbo jumbo".

The Product

Please be aware that there is not one single absolutely correct way to accomplish this assignment. You will be graded on both the accuracy, appropriateness, and completeness of the procedures you use (aka "substance") AND the way you present your findings and conclusions to your primary audience, Mr. Burnham (aka "style"). You are encouraged to consult with other class members as you work through the assignment but each of you must submit an individual product. The number crunching will be the EASY part.

Comparing notes about how you're going to analyze the data and present your findings will be the INTERESTING part.

Your response to Question Set #1 can be a set of 10-15 PowerPoint slides or a 3-4 page memo. Provide charts, tables, and other supporting materials as appropriate. Mr. Burnham and his highly paid B-School "Alpha Force" can spot excessive padding and irrelevant crap a mile off so "more" is not always "better." Keep it focused.

If you find that someone in the class is trying to just "pick your brain" and is not contributing anything to discussions about the project, please feel free to deal with them firmly but diplomatically (viz. no real or virtual bloodletting, "flaming" or You Tube postings.) You are not obligated to work together - it's just more interesting. A discussion board has been set up for Analysis Assignment #1. You can also use the "communication" capabilities of the class website to communicate directly with each other and/or form subgroups.

Question Set #1

1. What are the distributions and descriptive analysis findings for RevPAR, RevPAR Index, and Loyalty for April 2008 ?
2. How does the distribution and descriptive analysis findings for RevPAR in April 2008 compare with those for RevPAR from 2007?
3. How has monthly RevPAR changed between April 2007 and April 2008 ? Based on the information you have, what do you project average RevPAR will be for these properties in December 2008 and in April 2009?
4. Based on the information you have available, how were the "color zones" assigned in April 2008? (red zone, yellow zone, green zone)

1. for RevPAR
2. for RevPAR index
3. for Loyalty

5. What were the differences between actual RevPAR April ' 08 values and RevPAR

April ' 08 goals in terms of

1. actual dollar amounts?
2. percentage differences?

Discuss based on descriptive analysis findings for these variables.

6. How does the performance of the Red Zone properties compare and contrast with that of the Green Zone properties for RevPAR, RevPAR Index, and Loyalty.

Price: $26.26

Solution: The downloadable solution consists of 13 pages, 1326 words and 10 charts.
Deliverable: Word Document