Refreshing hotel satisfaction studies by reconfiguring customer review data

This study reconfigures the user generated content in online hotel reviews to provide comparative and benchmarking insights about customer satisfaction. Hangzhou, an emerging tourism city in China, was selected for the study. Over a thousand user-generated reviews about four and five star hotels that were posted on Agoda.com were coded and analysed. Seventeen attributes influencing customer satisfaction were identified. The attributes were classified on the type of influence exerted: satisfiers (work in a solely positive direction), dissatisfiers (work in an exclusively negative direction), bidirectional forces (influence either positive or negative outcomes), and neutrals (no marked influence). The approach enabled the comparison of customer satisfaction between 4 and 5 star hotels, properties with different ownership, and the views of guests from different origins. The study suggests that a focused reclassification of the online review data can deliver powerful customer feedback messages for both researchers and hotel managers.

[1]  Hani I. Mesak,et al.  Dynamic efficiency assessment of the Chinese hotel industry☆ , 2011, Journal of Business Research.

[2]  Cathy H. C. Hsu,et al.  Thirty years of research on tourism and hospitality management in China: A review and analysis of journal publications , 2011 .

[3]  Haemoon Oh.  Service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer value: A holistic perspective , 1999 .

[4]  B. Mak.  The future of the State-owned hotels in China: stay or go? , 2008 .

[5]  L. Raymond,et al.  Sustainable development practices in the hospitality industry: an empirical study of their impact on customer satisfaction and intentions. , 2013 .

[6]  P. Pearce.  Tourist Behaviour: Themes and Conceptual Schemes , 2005 .

[7]  Li Miao,et al.  Consumers’ responses to ambivalent online hotel reviews: The role of perceived source credibility and pre-decisional disposition , 2011 .

[8]  Pierre Benckendorff,et al.  Benchmarking, Usable Knowledge and Tourist Attractions , 2006 .

[9]  Lau Pei Mey,et al.  Measuring Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction of the Hotels in Malaysia: Malaysian, Asian and Non-Asian Hotel Guests , 2006 .

[10]  P. O'Connor.  Managing a Hotel's Image on TripAdvisor , 2010 .

[11]  Exploring the internationalisation prospects of a Chinese domestic hotel firm , 2011 .

[12]  Basak Denizci Guillet,et al.  Travelers’ Takes on Hotel—Restaurant Co-Branding: Insights for China , 2010 .

[13]  A. Decrop.  The antecedents and consequences of vacationers' dis/satisfaction: tales from the field. , 2000 .

[14]  R. Law,et al.  Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet - the state of eTourism research. , 2008 .

[15]  Yen-Soon Kim,et al.  Determinants of customer loyalty and purchasing behavior for full-service and limited-service hotels. , 2012 .

[16]  Metin Kozak,et al.  Comparative assessment of tourist satisfaction with destinations across two nationalities , 2001 .

[17]  C. Ryan,et al.  The changing structure of the Chinese hotel industry: 1980–2012 , 2012 .

[18]  W. Kim,et al.  The effects of perceived justice on recovery satisfaction, trust, word-of-mouth, and revisit intention in upscale hotels. , 2009 .

[19]  Maria Banyai,et al.  Evaluating Research Methods on Travel Blogs , 2012 .

[20]  Andrew M. Hardin,et al.  The Impact of Virtual Worlds on Word-of-Mouth: Improving Social Networking and Servicescape in the Hospitality Industry , 2010 .

[21]  Tat Y. Choi,et al.  Determinants of hotel guests’ satisfaction and repeat patronage in the Hong Kong hotel industry , 2001 .

[22]  Betsy Bender Stringam,et al.  Addressing researchers' quest for hospitality data: mechanism for collecting data from Web resources. , 2008 .

[23]  D. Gursoy,et al.  Employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and financial performance: An empirical examination , 2009 .

[24]  B. D. Guillet,et al.  Interpreting the mind of multinational hotel investors: Future trends and implications in China , 2011 .

[25]  Jonathan D. Barsky.  Customer Satisfaction in the Hotel Industry , 1992 .

[26]  Matthias Fuchs,et al.  Benchmarking indicator-systems and their potential for tracking guest satisfaction. , 2002 .

[27]  A. Mauri,et al.  Web reviews influence on expectations and purchasing intentions of hotel potential customers. , 2013 .

[28]  J. Crotts,et al.  The perceived usefulness of blog postings: An extension of the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm , 2011 .

[29]  Xu Li,et al.  China in the Eyes of Western Travelers as Represented in Travel Blogs , 2011 .

[30]  P. Pearce.  Tourist Behaviour and the Contemporary World , 2011 .

[31]  Viktor Pekar,et al.  Discovery of subjective evaluations of product features in hotel reviews , 2008 .

[32]  R. Pine,et al.  Performance comparisons of hotels in China , 2005 .

[33]  S. Stepchenkova,et al.  Ecotourism experiences reported online: Classification of satisfaction attributes , 2012 .

[34]  Harry Timmermans,et al.  Consumer Psychology of Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure , 2001 .

[35]  Andrew J. Frew,et al.  An evaluation methodology for hotel electronic channels of distribution. , 2004 .

[36]  Michael J. Gross,et al.  China hotel research: A systematic review of the English language academic literature , 2013, Tourism Management Perspectives.

[37]  U. Gretzel,et al.  Role of social media in online travel information search , 2010 .

[38]  Rodney C. Runyan,et al.  International Journal of Hospitality Management Hospitality Marketing Research: Recent Trends and Future Directions , 2022 .

[39]  Muchazondida Mkono.  A netnographic examination of constructive authenticity in Victoria Falls tourist (restaurant) experiences. , 2012 .

[40]  R. Langer,et al.  Sensitive research topics: netnography revisited , 2005 .

[41]  Mary Jo Bitner,et al.  The Service Encounter: Diagnosing Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents: , 1990 .

[42]  John C. Crotts,et al.  Understanding Customer Delight , 2011 .

[43]  A. Mattila,et al.  Effects of Gender and Expertise on Consumers’ Motivation to Read Online Hotel Reviews , 2011 .

[44]  B. Stringam,et al.  An Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments of Online Hotel Distribution Sites , 2010 .

[45]  Cathy H. C. Hsu,et al.  Managerial ties in economy hotel chains in China: Comparison of different ownership types during entrepreneurial processes , 2012 .

[46]  Q. Xiao,et al.  International hotel development: A study of potential franchisees in China , 2008 .

[47]  Mao-Ying Wu,et al.  Appraising netnography: towards insights about new markets in the digital tourist era , 2014 .

[48]  Haemoon Oh,et al.  Asymmetric relationship between attribute performance and customer satisfaction: A new perspective , 2010 .

[49]  R. Kozinets.  Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online , 2009 .

[50]  K. Wöber.  Benchmarking in tourism and hospitality industries : the selection of benchmarking partners , 2002 .

[51]  Q. Ye,et al.  Determinants of Customer Satisfaction in the Hotel Industry: An Application of Online Review Analysis , 2013 .

[52]  Tekle Shanka,et al.  An Investigation into the Perceived Importance of Service and Facility Attributes to Hotel Satisfaction , 2004 .

[53]  T. D. Botterill.  Dissatisfaction with a construction of satisfaction , 1987 .

[54]  R. Law,et al.  Social Media in Tourism and Hospitality: A Literature Review , 2013 .

[55]  Kyung Hyan Yoo,et al.  What Motivates Consumers to Write Online Travel Reviews? , 2008, J. Inf. Technol. Tour..

[56]  C. Cheung,et al.  Hotel development in China: a review of the English language literature , 2009 .