Xiang, Z.; Krawczyk, M. at ENTER2016 eTourism Conference

1. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 1
What Does Hotel Location Mean for the Online
Consumer? Text Analytics Using Online Reviews
Zheng Xiang & Matthiew Krawczyk
Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management
Pamplin College of Business
Virginia Tech, USA

2. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 2
Expedia and Travelocity

3. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 3
Tripadvisor

4. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 4
Hotels.com

5. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 5
Hotwire

6. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 6
In summary…
• Within the online search and transaction setting methods
to present location info are
– Heterogeneous (unsystematic?)
– Focused on visual cues (maps)
– Focused on “areas” and “neighborhoods”
• Location info related to a specific hotel is fragmented and
unclear, especially with respect what a hotel’s location
actually means for online consumers.

7. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 7
What do customers say about location?

8. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 8
Research goals
• To understand the meaning of hotel location within
an online information and transaction context.
– Specifically, to develop new insights into the meaning
of hotel location using online customer reviews.
• To provide useful perspectives on product
recommendation and communication strategies.

9. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 9
Related Literature
• Location as a strategic resource
– Economic value (Baum & Mezias, 1992; Medlik, 1993; Yang et al., 2014)
– Location as primary driver for competition (STR Analytics)
– Promotional gap (Bull, 1994)
• Location as a decision-making factor
– Location and guest experience (Shoval, McKercher, & Birenboim, 2011)
– Location as a hotel attribute (Choi & Chu, 2001; Lewis, 1984; McCleary et
al., 1993)
– Values associated with location (Arbel & Pizam, 1977; Lee et al., 2010)
• Hotel location within the online search and transaction context

10. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 10
Research Design
• Step 1: Deconstruct hotel guest experience as
reflected in hotel customers’ online reviews.
• Step 2: Identify and understand the factors of
guest experience related to hotel location.
• Step 3: Evaluate the usefulness of this knowledge
within the context of online information search
and purchase of the hotel product.

11. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 11
Data
• A stratified sample of 3-, 4-, and 5-star hotels in
Manhattan, New York City; total=59.
• Representing several locations within Manhattan such as
the Time Square, Central Park, Wall Street/Financial
District, Chelsea, and East Side, etc.
• Online reviews collected on March 16, 2015.
• Total 49,374 reviews with an average of 847 reviews per
property.
• 3-star: 732; 4-star: 1046; 5-star: 728.

12. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 12
Data processing and analysis
• 90,095 terms (including unigrams and bigrams)
mentioned 3,578,789 times.
• Narrowed down to a set of ~700 terms related to
guest experience (Xiang et al., 2015).
• Location-related “factors” identified by manual
coding.
• Developed a Term-Document Matrix and applied
an index of “performance” of location-related
factors to evaluate each property.

13. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 13
Findings (1)
Term N Term N Term N
staff 31382 shower 6730 lovely 4528
service 19566 subway 6411 problem 4449
clean 18993 trip 6357 drink 4303
bed 17988 enjoy 6308 goback 4180
location 17288 frontdesk 6279 modern 4109
comfortable 14399 food 6277 welcome 4072
friendly 14080 wonderful 6164 charge 3913
helpful 13640 elevator 6158 old 3865
breakfast 12750 noise 6011 business 3850
restaurant 12719 quiet 5969 return 3804
bathroom 12153 amazing 5873 rate 3760
view 11166 beautiful 5620 manager 3522
timessquare 10667 centralpark 5562 pleasant 3397
walkingdistance 10013 pay 5485 shopping 3368
centrallocation 9775 spacious 5219 issue 3324
bar 9446 free 5175 complain 3318
recommend 9355 sleep 5161 disappoint 3210
lobby 8807 concierge 4746 luxury 3167
price 8396 spend 4728 wifi 3040
work 7853 coffee 4644 convenient 2998

14. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 14
Findings (2)
Location-related factors Terms
Shopping & Attractions Theater, Museum, Shopping, Attractions
Transportation Metro, Subway, Train
Noise Loud, Noise
View View
Convenience Central location, Walking distance, Convenient
Dining Restaurant, Café, Bar

15. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 15
Findings (3)

16. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 16
Findings (4)

17. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 17
Implications (1)
• Findings show hotel location has rich
connotations within a tourist place like
Manhattan.
• Semantic space within online reviews can be
established using text mining tools and location-
related factors are “scalable”, allowing us to
describe hotel sectors/properties in more
meaningful ways.

18. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 18
Implications (2)

19. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 19
Implications (3)
• Location is highly linked with different market segments
and local competition and, thus, it is essential for
managers to understand how consumers truly perceive
the location of their property (Masiero et al.).
• As shown by the study, hotels within the same geographic
location could be differentiated by perceived values such
as convenience, transportation, tourism activities, dining,
as well as having a view in the room to experience the
destination.

20. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 20
Limitations and future research
• Limitations in data and methodology.
• Hotel location as an anchor variable to
understand guest experience and “tourist-
activated networks” (Shoval et al., 2011;
Fesenmaier & Xiang, 2015).
• How we should validate this knowledge and
methodology?