Hotel Satisfaction: An Exploration in Tourist Preferences

The purpose of this research was to evaluate hotel satisfaction among tourists attending their most memorable travel experience. A sample of 103 participants in the US completed an online questionnaire evaluating their most memorable travel event in which they stayed in a hotel using the pre-existing hotel satisfaction attributes of hotel value, room, service, cleanliness, and location to determine their overall hotel satisfaction. Additional amenities including Wi-Fi, pool, continental breakfast, and exercise area were also included in the questionnaire to evaluate participant hotel satisfaction. It was found that the most important attribute contributing to hotel satisfaction and in the hotel selection process was Wi-Fi followed by cleanliness, location, room satisfaction, and service. These findings could be of use to hotel owners everywhere interested in raising their guest’s satisfaction. Understanding what guests value most allows hotels to shift their focus onto improving those attributes of higher value first to significantly change their reviews

Hotel online reviews: different languages, different opinions

Online reviews are one of the main influencers of hotel purchase decisions. This study performs an analysis of reviews extracted from well-known online review sources in combination with hotel sales data and concludes that ratings differ according to the language of reviews. Data science tools have been applied to English, Spanish, and Portuguese reviews, revealing that reviews written in English achieve higher ratings when compared with Spanish or Portuguese reviews. A new visualization method is proposed to quickly depict the sentiment of main topics mentioned in reviews, clearly revealing that not all customers are influenced by reviews in the same way or look for the same things in a hotel. This study has great implications for online reviews research and for hotel management as it clearly shows that language can be used to identify preferences of guests from different origins and because it gives hoteliers more information on how to provide a better service according to guests’ cultural background.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Service quality and customer satisfaction: The moderating effects of hotel star rating

This research contributes to customer satisfaction knowledge with regard to accommodation in South Africa whose star grading differs. A multi-group analysis and an importance-performance map analysis by means of PLS-SEM allow us to differentiate between service quality performance scores and their influences on customer satisfaction across accommodation with a different star grading. The two most important predictors of satisfaction with one-star and two-star category accommodation are the accommodation infrastructure and the employee expertise. Both predictors were found to have relatively low levels of performance. Safety and security and room quality are two significant determinants of satisfaction with three-star establishments, although they under-perform with regard to safety and security. In respect of four-star and five-star accommodation, waiting time and customer interaction, both of which have an above average performance scores, influence customer satisfaction. We provide specific guidelines for managerial interventions to improve service quality and guests’ satisfaction for each grading category

A Booking.com and TripAdvisor comparison study

Rita, P., Ramos, R., Borges-Tiago, M. T., & Rodrigues, D. (2022). Impact of the rating system on sentiment and tone of voice: A Booking.com and TripAdvisor comparison study. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 104, 1-12. [103245]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2022.103245 --- Funding Information: Paulo Rita was supported by FCT ( Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia ) under UIDB/04152/2020 — Centro de Investigação em Gestão de Informação (MagIC).Online reviews have bridged the gap between traditional word-of-mouth and viral communication, influencing peer's decision processes. Analyzing tourists' online reviews helps hotels address overall customer (dis)satisfaction. Using sentiment analysis to understand reviewers' satisfaction and analyze the voice tone and expressed feelings, this research attempts to enlarge hotel, platform, and tourist trilogy's knowledge. A total of 38,292 reviews posted on Booking.com and TripAdvisor from 191 hotels were analyzed. Results indicated that the rating system influenced reviewer's sentiment, even though sentiment did not increase alongside the hotel category, leading to using a sterner tone of voice. Differences were acknowledged according to reviewers' nationality. The most positive feelings were expressed on TripAdvisor linked to staff-tourist encounters whereas Booking.com presented more negative feelings, especially linked to overcharging and billing issues. These outcomes can guide managers in establishing priorities to improve service and meet customers' expectations.publishersversionpublishe

Are the States United? An analysis of US hotels’ offers through TripAdvisor’s eyes

This empirical data-driven research aims to unveil thought-provoking insights on the U.S. hotel offer across its 50 states. Information of more than 30,000 hotels was collected through web scraping from TripAdvisor. Using such data, 50 support vector machine models were trained to model the TripAdvisor score, one per state, to assess the convergent and divergent factors in customer satisfaction across all the U.S. states. A conceptual model is proposed and validated through the data-driven support vector machine models developed for each state to identify convergent features across the states to explain customer satisfaction (here represented by TripAdvisor score). Hotel size, price, and stars are not moderated by the location, expressed by the corresponding state, although these highly influence satisfaction, whereas both hotel number of published photos and the amenities are affected by the location. Thus, adaptation issues were found regarding amenities and published photos within each state’s offer.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Managing the Smiley Face Scale Used by Booking.com in an Ordinal Way

Producción CientíficaUser reviews are a new source of information in the hospitality and tourism sector. Usually, these reviews contain comments of users and assessments expressed through ordered qualitative scales. The website Booking.com uses a smiley face scale to ask users the degree of satisfaction regarding several aspects of accommodations. The scoring system of the website assigns numerical values to each item of the smiley face scale. However, when users perceive different proximities between pairs of items of an ordered qualitative scale, these numerical codifications are because they may misrepresent the original ordinal information. In this paper, we analyze the drawbacks and limitations of the scoring system of Booking.com and we manage its smiley face scale through a purely ordinal procedure. This procedure avoids assigning numerical codifications to items of scales and it takes into account how users perceive the proximities between pairs of items. The findings show the importance of considering how users understand qualitative scales when they face subjective assessments through ordered qualitative scales

What Kind of Online Ratings is Most Significant for Hoteliers? Case of Central Poland

The aim of this enquiry is to asses significance of impact of different sources of online reviews on hotel room rates. This is the very first research comparing various types of online reviews’ sources as determinant of hotel prices. This research was conducted for all 193 star-ranked hotels operating in July 2017, in central Poland. However, analysis covered only those of establishments which were using all considered online reviews’ sources (118 star-ranked hotels). To describe the impact of online reviews on hotel prices various models were estimated: for separate category of hotels (economy, midscale, and luxury) and for different date of check-in (working days versus weekends, and summer versus autumn) each

The Impact of Business Strategy Formulation Towards Accountant Role: Star Rating as Moderation Variable in Hotel Industry in Southern Sumatera Region

This research aims to test and prove the relation of choosing strategy formulation towards accountant role in hotel business management, and also to test and prove star-hotel rating to moderate the relation between choosing strategy formulation towards accountant role in hotel business management in Southern Sumatera region. This research used survey data to star-hotel General Manager (Hotel Leader) in Southern Sumatera region. 134 questionnaires had been sent to General Manager (Hotel Leader). The questionnaires used in this research are 118 (88.06%). This data was analyzed by Moderating Regression Analysis using SPSS software version 21. Findings show that deliberate strategy formulation gives positive impact towards the increase of accountant role in the hotel industry, star rating gives negative interaction effect to deliberate strategy formulation towards the increase of accountant role in the hotel industry. A new insight of this research is the effort to see interaction effect from star-hotel to strategy formulation practice towards accountant role in the hotel industry