Our firm has worked with the University of New Hampshire (UNH) for several years. We completed extensive market research in Spring 2002 in order to prepare a comprehensive master plan for Housing & Hospitality Services. Focus groups as well as personal and intercept interviews were facilitated over a four-day campus visit. This qualitative data informed a web-based survey that probed both housing- and dining-related issues at UNH. Nearly 2,000 members of the campus community provided feedback via this survey. The master plan included facility recommendations, meal plan changes and a financial analysis.
Since the master plan was completed, a new centrally-located all-you-care-to-eat facility has opened, new meal plans have been implemented, and Hospitality Services’ bottom line has significantly increased as a result of an uptick in cash business as well as higher enrollment in meal plans. Our firm also assisted UNH with future meal plan recommendations for the commuter population at the University.
Our team also completed a review of the retail dining venues, some of which were not meeting sales goals. To accomplish this project, we spent two days at UNH touring all of the retail dining venues and interviewing campus customers to understand their perceptions of these venues. We also reviewed pricing and product mix at each venue as well as customer satisfaction reports and feedback. This market research allowed us to identify possible solutions to boost business and customer satisfaction. As part of this project, we also worked with the UNH Hospitality Services team to outline the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing the retail campus dining business and to identify ways to build on the department’s strengths and opportunities while minimizing threats and addressing possible weaknesses.
