FORMTEXT [ENTER REPORT TITLE INCLUDING THE NAME OF THE BUSINESS BEING ANALYSED]

FORMTEXT [ENTER REPORT TITLE INCLUDING THE NAME OF THE BUSINESS BEING ANALYSED]

for

George and Jane Forrester, owners

FORMTEXT [Enter the date of submission]prepared by

FORMTEXT [Enter your name] FORMTEXT [Enter your student ID number]

Introduction

(2 marks)

Include:

Purpose

Qualitative description of report contents/problems addressed

Write this after you have a clear understanding of the content of your report.There is no word limit, just ensure you have explained what the report will contain. As a guideline, one or two paragraphs will be sufficient.Highlight and delete this message before submission

FORMTEXT [Click here and insert your text for the Introduction]1. An incentive for early bookings

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Write a report-style discussion of the main results of your analysis in Appendix 1. You may use subsections, tables etc. as you see fit.

Quote your results but do not include numerical calculations. These should be placed in Appendix.

(8 marks)

Compare and contrast the distributions of advance days with and without the incentive for early bookings. Discuss key features of the two distributions in managerial rather than technical terms. In other words, focus on practical meaning of your results.

Include a copy of the side-by-side boxplot to support your discussion.

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FORMTEXT [Click here and insert your report-style discussion of the matters addressed in Appendix 1]

2. Relationship between comfort and overall ratings

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Write a report-style discussion of the main results of your analysis in Appendix 2. You may use subsections, tables etc. as you see fit.

Quote your results but do not include numerical calculations. These should be placed in Appendix.

(8 marks)

Discuss the results of your regression analysis from Appendix 2. Include a copy and comment on your scatterplot from part (a). What sort of relationship does it show? How much does satisfaction with comfort influence overall satisfaction?

Describe the key features of the regression model you have obtained and discuss the prediction you have made for The Treetop Retreat.

Avoid using technical terms (e.g. slope, coefficient of determination) as much as possible, focusing instead on practical meaning of your results.

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FORMTEXT [Click here and insert your report-style discussion of the matters addressed in Appendix 2]

Conclusions and Recommendations

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(2 marks)

Conclusions:

Summarise the main findings of your report. Base this on your discussion.

Do not introduce new information in the conclusions.

Indicate whether the report fulfilled the purpose as stated in the introduction.

Recommendations:

Base these on your conclusions.

Do not introduce new information in the recommendations.

Present options for resolving the issue (purpose) presented in the introduction.

Be brief use dot points.

There is no word limit. As a guideline, one to three paragraphs will be sufficient.

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FORMTEXT [Click here and insert the text for the Conclusions and Recommendations]Appendix 1 (22 marks) Offering an incentive for early bookings

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Include full details of your working out in this appendix.

Bookings for The Treetop Retreat are made anywhere from a couple of days to several weeks in advance. To reduce the uncertainty, George and Jane are considering offering an incentive (for example, a lower nightly tariff or a complimentary breakfast) to guests who book well in advance of their stay.

George and Jane want you to analyse the impact on the number of days in advance that bookings are made if an incentive is offered. You have been able to obtain two sets of data from a similar accommodation venture that introduced an incentive scheme. The first set of data describes the number of days in advance that bookings were made before the introduction of the incentive scheme. The second set of data describes bookings information after the introduction of the incentive scheme. The data is stored in an EXCEL sheet called Appendix 1 within the file TheTreetopRetreat.xlsx.

(6 marks) Make a histogram and obtain Descriptive Statistics, including Quartile 1 and Quartile 3, for variables Without incentive and With incentive. Include histograms and Descriptive Statistics in this Appendix. Do not include printout of the data!

EXCEL Instructions:

Add your network ID to the column names (e.g. With incentive bloggsj001).

Refer to Activity 5C for instructions on how to obtain and format a histogram. Use bins provided in the data file. Make sure that the title of each histogram ends with your network ID (e.g. Advance days without early booking incentive bloggsj001).

Refer to Activity 6B for instructions on how to obtain Descriptive Statistics and the two quartiles. Use QUARTILE.EXC function to obtain the quartiles.

(6 marks) Describe the shape (symmetry, modality and outliers) of each distribution.

Instructions for identifying outliers:

Whether an observation is an outlier is a matter of judgement. One rule commonly used for identifying outliers is the so-called 1.5 IQR rule. An observation is suspected to be an outlier if it is more than 1.5 IQR below the first quartile Q1 or above the third quartile Q3.

Apply this rule to both With incentive and Without incentive variables.

(4 marks) Consider the side-by-side boxplot shown below in Figure 1. What does it tell you about the distributions of advance days? Comment briefly on the shape (symmetry and outliers) and spread of the two distributions. Does the boxplot confirm your conclusions from part (b)?

Figure 1. Side-by-side boxplot showing the distribution of advance days

(6 marks) Nominate appropriate summary measures of centrality and dispersion for the two distributions. Give reason(s) for your choice. For each distribution, give and interpret the values of the summary measures you have chosen.

Appendix 2 (18 marks) Relationship between comfort and overall ratings

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Include full details of your working out in this appendix.

In this Appendix you are again working with data relating to 28 randomly selected guest ratings. The data is stored in an EXCEL sheet called Appendix 2 within the file TheTreetopRetreat.xlsx. For each guest, you will be analysing the rating given for comfort together with the overall rating given to The Treetop Retreat. Both ratings are on a scale from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent).

(5 marks) Use EXCEL to draw a scatterplot of Satisfaction with Comfort vs Overall Satisfaction, with Satisfaction with Comfort as the explanatory variable and Overall Satisfaction as the response variable. Include a copy of your scatterplot in this Appendix. Based on your scatterplot, is it appropriate to fit a regression line in this case? Comment briefly.

EXCEL Instructions:

Refer to Activity 7B for instructions on how to obtain a scatterplot. Make sure that the title of your scatter diagram ends with your network ID (e.g. Overall satisfaction versus comfort bloggsj001).

(8 marks) Use EXCEL to add a trendline and display its equation and R-squared value. Include a copy of your revised scatterplot in this Appendix and interpret the values of the intercept, slope and coefficient of determination.

EXCEL Instructions:

Refer to Activity 7B for instructions on how to add a trendline and display its equation and R-squared.

(5 marks) Use the simple regression equation from part (b) to predict the overall satisfaction rating if the satisfaction with comfort rating is 3.5. Comment on the accuracy of that prediction.