Market Research Client Brief

Background

Royal Melbourne Airlines (RMA) is an Australian airline that flys to over 80 different domestic and international destinations each week. Providing high-quality service at affordable prices, RMA is dedicated to making regional Australia and the world accessible for both business and leisure travellers.

Like other businesses in the travel and hospitality industry, RMA have been hit hard by COVID-19 and the resulting travel restrictions since the start of 2020. While RMA are confident that they will be able to recover over the next few years, they know that understanding the concerns and fears of travellers will be essential to developing initiatives that will build consumer confidence in airline travel. As travel restrictions ease, anticipating likely demand for airline travel will also help RMA plan a sustainable reopening of the business.

Current Situation

In response to the substantial impact COVID-19 has had on the airline travel industry, RMA have identified the need to undertake marketing research to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on traveller concerns around airline travel in the future, anticipate demand for domestic and international travel, and help develop services and initiatives that will build consumer confidence in airline travel.

This research will inform the priority routes (domestic and international) that RMA will schedule over the next 12 months, the development of initiatives related to COVID-19 safety and hygiene for RMA, and a consumer education campaign on these safety and hygiene initiatives from RMA.

To achieve this goal RMA is planning to conduct a marketing research project with consumers who have booked at least one flight with RMA in the last 24 months domestically and/or internationally.

Specifically, this marketing research has four (4) research questions (RQ):

1. What are the specific COVID-19 related concerns consumers have with planned or anticipated airline travel?

2. What is the planned or anticipated airline travel frequency and destination of different segments of RMA consumers in the next 12 months?

3. What type of initiatives would make consumers feel more safe/hygienic when travelling with RMA before, during and after the flight(s)?

4. How has the traveller journey changed post-COVID-19, and how effective are the initiatives RMA developed in making consumers feel more safe/hygienic when travelling with RMA before, during and after the flight(s)?

Market Research Requirements

The client has requested that your company perform the research in two studies:

Study 1: A quantitative study to address research questions 1, 2 & 3.

Study 2: An exploratory, qualitative study to address research question 4.

RMA has also specified the following additional requirements that should be met in the proposed research design:

 Study 1:

- A minimum sample size of 500 respondents

 Study 2:

- A mix of participants from domestic and international travel routes. This study should be planned to commence at a time after the initiatives identified in

Study 1 (RQ3) have been implemented.

Your research assistant, in conjunction with the client, has started to develop the market research project by constructing a draft questionnaire for Study 1 (attached on pages 6-14 of this document). Before the research project continues, you have been given the task of preparing a report for the client that addresses the questions assigned (Questions 1-7 on pages 2-3 of this document).

DRAFT QUESTIONNAIRE

o Circles mean the respondent can only choose one answer 

 Squares mean the respondent can choose more than one answer

____ means that the respondent writes their answer in a text entry box

Check attached for questions

Appendix