Question 1
a)
The pie charts show the proportion of various guest types who visit the hotel and those who visit the water park. The hotel is popular with guests who are single and under 25 as they form the largest proportion of visitors to the hotel and least popular among couples under 25. Similarly, the guests who form the largest proportion of visitors to the water park are singles under 25 while the least are couples under 25. Therefore, the choice of excursion is reasonable are the two pie chart almost mirror one another.
b)
Nominal data are labels that do not have any quantitative value. It is used to differentiate subjects or items. Examples of nominal data include months, guest names or name of food or drinks.
Ordinal data is quantitative data characterized by natural ordering. It is used to rank items with consistent intervals but it has no meaningful zero. Examples are rating scales such as Likert scale or sports rankings.
Population data is data collected from all the total set of observations or elements that the researcher is interested in assessing. For example, weight data on all women in the USA.
Sample data is data that is collected from a sub-set of the population of interest. Samples are used because it may be too costly or time consuming to collect data from the entire population of interest. For example, instead of weighing all women in the USA a representative sample of 1,000 women can be used to represent the entire women population in the USA.
Question 3
a)
Mean for raw data is computed by summing the individual values and dividing it by their count. For example, the mean for the following data will be given as follows;
Mean = Sum/Count = (5 +15+ 5+25+ 35+ 35+ 35+ 35+ 15+ 5)/10 = 210/10 = 21
Mean for group data is estimated by multiplying the midpoint of the each group with the frequency. The sum is then divided by the total frequency.
Grouped data mean = 215/10 = 21.5
b)
Changes in tastes and preferences. There may be an excursion that has become popular or trendy and has changed Americans preferences hence past data cannot be used to forecast the future.
Drastic change in climate or weather patterns. Water sports is popular in periods when it is warm. A sudden change in climate such as prolonged winter may make forecasts wrong.
Sudden entry of a competitor in the market. The entry of a competitor means that it may take away part of the existing market share hence making figures different from previous periods.
Introduction of a new law or government alert. The government may introduce a new law such as banning children below a certain age from visiting water parks thus changing historical data patterns.
c)
Question 4
a)
b)
The manager is not correct in his assertion. The regression equation shows a positive relationship between period and sales. Therefore, the sales have been increasing after eliminating the seasonal component
