New Product Development  - Business Traveler Hotel Room Case Study

Business Objective:

The advent of lighter and smaller personal computers created the need for hotel rooms that provide modem access and accommodate business travelers' computers.  In response, a major hotel company launched an effort to design a room that profitably meets the needs of business guests.

Research Objective:

The research consisted of several phases with various objectives:

• Available research was reviewed to understand what information existed and what did not.
• Next, CMI helped the team understand business guests' current and emerging needs by segment as input for designing alternative room concepts.
• CMI then designed and executed the quantitative research to finalize the design concepts, beta test 3 concept rooms, and estimate market share and ROI for alternative pricing structures. 

Methodology:

CMI employed a combination of qualitative and on-site quantitative research to uncover business travelers' needs and test the room concepts in hotels in three cities.

The Result:

Construction of a hotel room designed to meet business travelers' needs was fast tracked, and an additional spin-off product that could facilitate computer usage in regular hotel rooms was developed.