Problem Statement
Chinatown is the central business district of Broome, a famous tourist destination in WA with a population of approximately 17,000. Recently, with the financial support of the state's ‘Royalties for Regions' program, the Chinatown Revitalisation Project (CPR) was drafted and founded in order to increase attractiveness and activity in Chinatown. A major issue addressed by the CPR was the need for extended trading hours, which has since been implemented through monthly trial nights from 5pm till 8pm.
This business report provides an overview about the issues of the previous trial nights, and therefore, the need for research about the effectiveness of the extended trading hours in Chinatown for participants.
The research questions to be answered are focused on identifying if longer opening hours will attract more visitors to Chinatown and the reasons for them to come to Chinatown. It will also be explored if it is lucrative for participating businesses to take part of the late-night trials in Chinatown.
Research Purpose
The purpose of the research is to identify if longer opening hours will attract more visitors to Chinatown and the reasons for the visitors to come to Chinatown. Another aim of the research is to determine if it is lucrative for participating businesses to take part in the late- night trials in Chinatown.
The first part of the research will be conducted, based on the following objectives: To identify how many visitors are attending late-night trading in Chinatown.
To find out the reason why they are visiting; is it for food, entertainment purposes or to purchase?
To find out which is/are the main attraction(s) for visitors to attend late-night trading in Chinatown.
In order to determine whether it is economically lucrative for participating retail businesses to open for late-night trading in Chinatown, the following are the objectives:
To find out how many late-night trial visitors are visiting retail shops.
To find out if the visitors to the retail shops are customers or potential customers.
Research Questions
This research will be conducted in order to answer the following primary research question:
Does late-night trading in Broome between the hours of 5pm-8pm result in an increased number of visitors and customers to Chinatown and the participating businesses?
The secondary/sub-questions relating to the research problem and to be investigated in this research are:
How many visitors are attending the late-night trials in Chinatown?
What draws visitors and customers to go to Chinatown and/or to visit the participating businesses at late night trading days?
Is it lucrative for the participating businesses to open for trade between the hours of 5pm and 8pm?
Research Hypothesis
On the basis what is known about the research problem and the theoretical considerations within it, as described by Bryman et al (2015, p.23), the following are the deduced hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: opening between the hours of 5 pm to 8pm attracts more visitors to Chinatown.
Hypothesis 2: opening between the hours of 5 pm to 8pm is lucrative for participating businesses.