This document summarizes a study on the use of daily deals (DDs) in hotels in the Mediterranean region. The study analyzed data from over 13,000 daily deals offered by 3,525 hotels on three European deal websites from January to July 2018. It found that contrary to previous assumptions, hotels using daily deals tended to be in more popular tourist destinations and had relatively high TripAdvisor quality scores. The study also identified three levels of engagement with daily deal websites by hotels: single promotions, sporadic promotions, and frequent promotions one to three times per month. Future research areas are identified around seasonal DD usage patterns, the effect of DDs on TripAdvisor reviews, and geographical qualities of DD usage.

1. Daily Deals in the
Mediterranean Region: a Data
Analytical Approach
Luka Tomat a
, Miha Bratec a
, Katarzyna Minor b
and Marko Budler a
a
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
b
Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales, United Kingdom

2. The problem
• The rise of e-sales in hotels to include third party channels such as
OTA and daily deals
• Daily deals combine:
• advertising benefits for merchants
• substantial discounts for customers
• Utilisation of the power of social media to propagate the offers
• Daily deal model is a popular booking medium amongst the industry
and the customers
• Yet, daily deals are still a fairly unexplored phenomenon
May 3, 2019 ENTER2019 – Research Track Page 2

3. Focus of the study
• To address current basic assumptions about daily deals:
• 1) DD are used off-season, and by struggling destinations;
• 2) DDs are used by low quality hotels, or hotels with poor online presence;
• 3) DD are used as one-off promotion.
• Based on English versions of ‘niche’ DD websites and TripAdvisor
May 3, 2019 ENTER2019 – Research Track Page 3

4. Methodology
• Web analytics based on observations - January to July 2018
• Three main Europe-wide, similar characteristic, travel-focused DDs websites;
• 13,963 daily deals offered by 3,525 hotels
• TripAdvisor quality scores of the participating hotels
• Individual attributes mapped using Web parsing in JAVA script
• destination, longitude, latitude, offer start date, offer end date, offer title,
hotel name, and hotel address
• Data collated in SQL database and processed in MS Access, analysed
applying descriptive techniques.
May 3, 2019 ENTER2019 – Research Track Page 4

5. Findings 1
• Contrary to research to date daily deals are offered mainly by the
hotels in destinations, where the tourist demand is higher
May 3, 2019 ENTER2019 – Research Track Page 5

6. Findings 2
• Hotels using the DD websites have relatively high TripAdvisor scores,
thus DD usage is not likely to be linked to hotel quality.
May 3, 2019 ENTER2019 – Research Track Page 6

7. Findings 3
• Three levels of engagement with daily deal websites: single (one
promotion), sporadic (minimum of two and maximum of six
promotions), and frequent (one to three times a month)
May 3, 2019 ENTER2019 – Research Track Page 7

8. Future research
• 1) DD seasonal and destination usage
• Further investigations into regional DD usage and distribution
• 2) DDs’ effect upon TripAdvisor reviews
• Two sets of year on year data, where both DD and quality scores are observed
• 3) DD usage patterns
• Further detailed cluster analysis of DD variables, e.g. availability of offer vs time of the
year, the length of the booking window
• 4) DD geographical qualities
• e.g. deepness of discount vs frequency of deals, location, quality scores etc.
May 3, 2019 ENTER2019 – Research Track Page 8

9. Thank You!
Contact: miha.bratec@ef.uni-lj.si; kminor@cardiffmet.ac.uk
May 3, 2019 ENTER2019 – Research Track Page 9

10. Thank You!
Contact: miha.bratec@ef.uni-lj.si; kminor@cardiffmet.ac.uk
May 3, 2019 ENTER2019 – Research Track Page 9