Hi everyone,

I am currently doing research for my BA Hospitality Management dissertation. The research is in the form of an online focus group where participants will discuss a selection of questions with each other over a two week period. The purpose of this is to look at how hotel policies and regulations impact on ‘the customer is always right’ and, therefore, make recommendations on improving hotel policies in order to improve customer satisfaction and employee performance.

There will be two focus groups – one for anyone who has ever worked in a hotel (or similar) and one for anyone who has ever stayed at a hotel (or similar). The research will take place over a couple of weeks (probably the first two weeks of January if I have enough participants by then) and you can take part at leisure (5 minutes a day or 5 hours a day, it’s up to you!).

The information gathered from this study and the conclusions made will be used solely for my dissertation and will be accessed only by my dissertation tutor, an internal verifier and an external verifier. All participants have the right to confidentiality, anonymity and protection from harm from other participants. I will monitor the group regularly and if I notice any abusive behaviour, I will delete the comments and remove that participant from the study. If you have any concerns or questions about the study, please contact me.

You have no obligation to take part in this study and you have the right to withdraw at any time, without an explanation.

If you are interested, please complete this consent form and return it to me at 142267@student.loucoll.ac.uk, also letting me know which group you would like to participate in (you can take part in both if you like). I will then send you the link for the focus group. I would also greatly appreciate it if you could forward this message to any of your friends, even if you are not interested yourself.

Thank you for your help. I hope to hear from you soon!

Natalie.