How languages influence online ratings in the most iconic tourist spots

How languages influence online ratings in
the most iconic tourist spots
Juan Pedro Mellinas

Index
1.Introduction
2.Methodology
3.Results
4.Conclusions

4
Juan P. Mellinas How languages influence online ratings in the most iconic tourist spots
1. Introduction
Some research identified differences in scores from
online reviews by:
 Gender: Male, Female.
 Type of trip: Business, Pleasure.
 Group: Couple, Family, Friends, ...
 Language: Nationality

5
1.1. Titular de apartadoBibliography
Sample
location
Key Research Findings
(Schuckert et al., 2015)
Hotels in
Hong Kong
English speaking customers tend to give higher ratings than non-
English speaking customers.
(Antonio, de Almeida, Nunes,
Batista, & Ribeiro, 2018)
Hotels in
Portugal
Average rating for English reviews is 79.8 (out of 100).
Portuguese 76.1 and and Spanish is 75.1.
(Liu, Teichert, Rossi, Li, &
Hu, 2017)
Hotels in
China
Chinese: 3.96, English: 4.03, French: 3.95, German: 4.13,
Italian: 3.99, Japanese: 3.81, Spanish: 4.02; Portuguese: 4.11,
Russian: 4.14
(Hale, 2016)
Tourist
attractions in
London
DIFFERENCE TO AVERAGE RATING: Japanese: -0.17,
Portuguese: 0.17, Russian: 0.29, English: -0.07, Italian: 0.02,
Chinese: -0.10, Spanish: -0.01, French: -0.05, German: 0.02
(Radojevic, Stanisic, Stanic,
& Davidson, 2018)
Hotels in 80
capital
cities.
Highly developed countries are more demanding as hotel
customers. A 100% increase in the GDP (gross domestic
product) of the guest’s country is associated with a 0.03
decrease in average overall ratings.
(Pacheco, 2016)
Hotels Porto
(Portugal)
English: 3.97, Spanish: 3.87, French: 3.94, Portuguese: 4.00,
Brazilian: 4.20

6
2. Methodology
• We use TripAdvisor reviews.
• We focus on Tourism spots (museums, cathedrals, palace, etc…)
• Places that have huge number of reviews in several languages.
• 15 places: France, Spain, Italy.
• Reviews in 9 languages: English, Spanish, French, German,
Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
• 1,132,141 reviews, ranging from 10,003 of the Santiago’s
Cathedral to 155,626 of Sagrada Familia.

7
Eifel Tower

8
Louvre Museum

9
Notre Dame

10
Versailles

11
Disneyland Paris

12
Cathedral Seville

13
Alhambra Granada

14
Sagrada Familia (Barcelona)

15
Cathedral Santiago

16
Prado Museum (Madrid)

17
Coliseum

18
Pisa Tower

19
Vatican Museums

20
Cathedral Florence

21
Pompeii

22
1.1. Titular de apartadoPlace Total
English
Spanish
French
Italian
Portug.
German
Chinese
Japanese
Russian
EIFEL TOWER 4.597 4.55 4.62 4.44 4.63 4.80 4.46 4.62 4.37 4.68
LOUVRE MUSEUM 4.594 4.52 4.57 4.57 4.64 4.79 4.47 4.67 4.51 4.71
NOTRE DAME 4.615 4.61 4.61 4.53 4.63 4.69 4.47 4.61 4.39 4.84
VERSAILLES 4.229 4.15 4.27 4.00 4.11 4.70 3.98 4.32 4.35 4.41
DISNEYLAND 4.034 3.95 4.07 3.88 4.30 4.45 3.61 4.09 4.02 4.48
CATHEDRAL SEVILLE 4.611 4.57 4.61 4.60 4.62 4.72 4.56 4.59 4.53 4.86
ALHAMBRA 4.707 4.68 4.73 4.66 4.70 4.82 4.59 4.63 4.69 4.69
SAGRADA FAM. 4.692 4.73 4.72 4.57 4.66 4.76 4.56 4.79 4.66 4.77
CATHED, SANTIAGO 4.649 4.65 4.65 4.52 4.61 4.77 4.49 4.59 4.56 4.85
PRADO MUSEUM 4.664 4.63 4.72 4.45 4.55 4.67 4.57 4.59 4.50 4.81
COLISEUM 4.643 4.64 4.66 4.51 4.73 4.77 4.48 4.58 4.45 4.67
TOWER 4.472 4.46 4.48 4.40 4.47 4.62 4.28 4.49 4.49 4.66
VATICAN MUSEUM 4.404 4.25 4.27 4.20 4.44 4.65 4.00 4.60 4.59 4.66
CATHEDRAL 4.618 4.60 4.63 4.45 4.64 4.72 4.42 4.67 4.64 4.90
POMPEII 4.565 4.60 4.60 4.44 4.48 4.76 4.47 4.52 4.62 4.77
TOTAL 4.539 4.51 4.55 4.42 4.55 4.71 4.36 4.56 4.49 4.72

23
3. Results
• Spain has the highest scores in its monuments (4 best rated).
• Min. Score: Disneyland (4.034); Max. Score: Alhambra (4.707)
• No significant differences by type of place (Museum, Palace,
Religious building, etc.)
• Language behaviors are repeated systematically: Speakers of
each language tend to rate all monuments in the same way,
regardless of their typology or location.

24
3. Results
• Scores in the two most used languages (English and Spanish)
are very similar (close to the average)
• Italians provide average scores close to the average.
• Lowest Scores: German (4.359) and French (4.41)
• Highest Scores: Russian (4.718) and Portuguese (Brazilian)
(4.712).
• Chinese and Japanese love Vatican and Versailles.

25
3. Results
• French value all their attractions below the average (like they do in
Italy and Spain).
• Spanish value their monuments like the average, except Prado
Museum (overated).
• Italians value their monuments like the average. They prefer
French monuments rather than Spanish.
• German and French have the highest percentage of travelers who
assign them the worst possible score (1 out of 5).

26
4. Conclusions (differences with other research)
• German travelers provide high scores to Chinese hotels (Liu et al.,
2017) but low scores to European monuments.
• English travelers provide the higher scores in Portuguese hotels
(Antonio et al., 2018; Pacheco, 2016) but a little bit under the
average for European monuments.
• German and French value attractions in London (Hale, 2016) similar
to the average but under the average for European monuments.
• Reviewers of countries with higher GDP (gross domestic product)
tend to value the places they visit worse (Radojevic et al., 2018).

27
4. Conclusions
• Locals do not value their own most emblematic tourist places
better. No nationalism or national pride detected.
• When French people visit French monuments, run by French
people and served in their language, they are less satisfied than
foreigners.
• Geographic and psychic distance (Phillips et al., 2019), cultural
quality requirements (Schuckert et al., 2015) or the use of a known
language (Mariani et al., 2019) are supposed to vary scores.
• That factors are not determining the scores. GDP seems the only
explanatory cause.

28
4. Conclusions
• Managers of all types of tourism services should take these results
into account, being aware that there are certain nationalities that
tend to score better than others.
• If Russians score better, it is not because the services are better
suited to their specific needs, they just tend to score better.
• If French or Germans scores a business under the average, there
is not a problem with those travelers, their culture implies that on a
1-5 scale they tend to assign lower scores.

www.upct.es
Thank You
Juan Pedro Mellinas

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