This study analyzed negative online reviews and hotel responses on Macau hotels ranging from 2 to 5-star ratings. Key themes in negative reviews included room quality, staff, service time, food, and location. Higher rated hotels received more complaints about service while lower rated hotels focused on value. Most hotel responses to negative reviews came from 5-star properties and focused on apology, service improvements, and acknowledgment. The study concluded customized responses are important for reputation management across hotel star ratings.

1. “Thank you for your stay,” and then what?
Macau hotels’ responses to consumer
online reviews
Dr Shanshan Qi
Institute for Tourism Studies, Macao, China
shanshan @ift.edu.mo
Dr Chris Chen
University of Canterbury
chris.chen@canterbury.ac.nz

2. Outline
• Introduction
• Research Objectives
• Research Background
• Methodology
• Findings
• Conclusion

3. Introduction
Compared with traditional feedback channels, online social
media presents a new means of promoting hotel products (Sun,
Fong, Law & Luk, 2015).

4. Introduction

5. Introduction
• Comments in online social media represent the voluntary,
unmediated opinions of hotel guests, past and present (Volo, 2010).
Consumers value this type of information due to its unique user-
generated content (UGC) (Gretzel, 2006; Pan, MacLaurin, & Crotts,
2007).
• The user-generated content significantly influences tourists’ pre-trip
planning and post-trip reflections (Leung, Law & Buhalis, 2013).

6. Introduction
• Hotel selection is significantly affected by online reviews; three-
quarters of travellers have considered online reviews as an
information source when planning their trips(Gretzel & Yoo, 2008).
• Positive reviews stimulate consumer purchases, especially their hotel
bookings (Ye, Law & Gu, 2009).
• Negative reviews cause lasting damage to hotel reputations, damage
that hoteliers endeavour to prevent or, failing this, to mitigate, in each
case by way of prompt action (Sparks, So & Bradley, 2016).

7. Research Objectives
• This paper uses social media comments on Macau hotels (low to high
star range) as a case study in order to investigate consumers’ negative
comments and hoteliers’ responses to these comments.
• The research focus can be further divided into three sub-objectives:
1. Generalize the characteristics of consumers’ negative online
reviews.
2. Learn how comments vary with hotel star level.
3. Perform a content analysis of, and summarize, hoteliers’ responses
to negative consumer reviews.

8. Macau

9. Research Background
• Existing literature emphasizes investigation of, and effective
approaches to online reviews (Cantallops & Salvi, 2014).
Accommodation providers differ in their assessments as to
the impact of eWOM, and so they must develop
standardized measurements and analytical criteria with
which to assess the online comments of hotel guests (Crotts,
Mason & Davis, 2009; Hills & Cairncross, 2010).

10. Research Background
• Perceived “value” is one of the key predictors for hotel guest
satisfaction and hotel star ratings (Jeong & Jeon, 2008). Online
reviews of Manhattan hotels confirm the importance of hotel
“location” (Xiang & Krawczyk, 2016). Kim, Kim and Heo (2016) fund
that that “staff and their attitude” is a key to fulfil customer
satisfaction and resolve dissatisfaction in both full-service and limited-
service hotels.
• Consumers are likely influenced by negative reviews, given that
lodging reputation is more significant when it results from consumer
evaluations (Spark & Browning, 2011; Loureiro & Kastenholz, 2011).
Maxham (2001) found that a firm’s recovery efforts can either salvage
customer relationships or compound the failure.

11. Methodology
In total 1,180 negative reviews and 389 responses from hoteliers, comprising
postings dating from late 2008 to 10 December 2014, were collected.

12. Findings
Understanding Negative Review: ThemesTop Ten Themes in Negative Reviews
Rank 2 Stars 3 Stars 4 Stars 5 Stars 5 Star Deluxe
1 room room room room room
2 bed staff staff staff staff
3 location bed service service casino
4 floor service time time time
5 staff bus bed breakfast floor
6 time time breakfast pool service
7 price breakfast casino casino experience
8 clean shuttle location floor breakfast
9 breakfast floor price experience shower
10 door location shuttle lobby bathroom 2 Stars 3 Stars 4 Stars 5 Stars 5 Star Deluxe
Room
Staff
Service
Time
Breakfast
Location
Price
Pool
Casino

13. Findings
Themes 2 Star 3 Star 4 Star 5 Star 5 Star Deluxe
Room 86.4% 87.2% 82.2% 77.0% 85.2%
Staff 49.2% 69.2% 66.7% 55.9% 70.4%
ServiceQuality 20.3% 39.7% 38.9% 49.5% 48.1%
Time 10.2% 14.1% 16.7% 34.7% 11.1%
Breakfast/Food 20.3% 26.9% 46.7% 31.5% 33.3%
Location 66.1% 52.6% 51.1% 26.6% 11.1%
Transport 13.6% 28.2% 33.3% 26.1% 25.9%
Wifi/Internet 18.6% 21.8% 18.9% 14.9% 3.7%
ValueforMoney 61.0% 42.3% 44.4% 30.2% 48.1%
Pool/Gym/Spa 0.0% 5.1% 12.2% 21.2% 11.1%
Casino 0.0% 3.8% 12.2% 19.4% 33.3%
Experience 8.5% 6.4% 13.3% 10.8% 18.5%
Themes df χ2
p. phi
Room 4 5.784 .216 .110
Staff 4 10.133 .038 .146**
Service Quality 4 17.462 .002 .192***
Time 4 29.728 .000 .250***
Breakfast/Food 4 13.447 .009 .168**
Location 4 52.742 .000 .333***
Transport 4 7.396 .116 .125
Wifi/Internet 4 5.766 .217 .110
Value for Money 4 21.475 .000 .212***
Pool/Gym/Spa 4 25.082 .000 .230***
Casino 4 30.456 .000 .253***
Experience 4 4.186 .381 .094
Significance<0.05 or <0.01***

14. Summary of Negative Review Themes
Room quality remains the top aspect in consumer evaluations of hotel
products, and:
(1) 2-star hotel guests have fewer concerns (or implicitly lower expectations)
as to staff quality (staff capability, language skills, attitude, etc.) but are
more concerned with value for money (price);
(2) lower star ranked hotel guests have fewer concerns (or implicitly lower
expectations) as to service quality but pay more attention to hotel location
and facilities such as pool, gym and spa services;
(3) 5-star hotel guests have significant concerns as to service time;
(4) 4-star hotel guests have significant concerns as to breakfast or food;
(5) the importance of casino increases as hotel star level rises;
(6) there were no statistically significant differences across different star
ranked hotels on transportation to and from hotel, internet service, or
general consumer experience.

15. Findings
Responds to Negative
Review
Responds to Positive
Review
Responds to
Recommendations
Hotel star rating
2-star (N= 19) 19 None None
3-star (N=1 ) 1 None None
4-star (N= 4) 1 3 None
5 Star &5 Star
Deluxe (N= 365)
102 231 32
Respond strategy (counts) (counts) (counts)
Apology Apologies (72); Service
(75);
Pool(43);Experience/expe
riences(72);
Room/rooms(62);
Facility/Facilities (22);
Accept (41)
None None
Correction Hope (57); Provide (20) None Distant (14)
Empathy Shortfalls (33);
Understand (15)
Proud (24); Glad(36);
Flawless (27)
Experience/Experiences
(30)
Compensation Future (45); Assistance
(11)
None None
Follow-up Following (68); Future
(45);
Improve/improvement
(45); working (31)
Operations (164); Future
(33); Director (163);
Assistances (139)
Following(31);Improve/
improvement(27);Future
(22);
Acknowledgement Thanks (137); Post (72);
Review (78); Feedback
(32); Comments (73)
Thanks (302); Kind
(166); Feedback (91);
Comments (83);
Enjoyed (63); Support
(34); Appreciated (32)
Thanks (64);Stay
(52);Comments (32);
Review (39); Post (35);
Note (14);Share (16)
Explanation On behalf (38); Peak (14) Team (192); Room (32);
Personalized (31);
Shopping (22); Family
(21); Provide (32)
Service (40);
Management (39);
Pool(33); Team (34);
Facility (20); Room (17)
Exceptional
treatment
None None None
Managerial
intervention
None None None
Hotel Response Mechanism
The most frequent 1000 terms
have been categorized into nine
response types based on Lewis
& McCann’s (2004) study:
apology; correction; empathy;
compensation; follow-up;
acknowledgement; explanation;
exceptional treatment;
managerial intervention.

16. Conclusion
• This study analysed the content of negative consumer reviews of
Macau hotels and found ten key themes: room; staff; service quality;
time; breakfast / food; location; transport; Wi-Fi / internet; value for
money; pool / gym / spa; casino; experience. Hotel responses to
negative reviews were matched with the content of consumer
complaints.
• Macau 2-, 3- and 4-star hotels should focus on providing detailed and
“custom-tailored” responses to different online reviews rather than
stock replies embodies an ideal of individualized service and helps
rejuvenate hotel reputations.

17. Conclusion
• Five-star and 5-star deluxe hotels replied most often to positive
reviews, perhaps because it is easier to build on positive impressions
than to mitigate negative impressions. But 5-star and 5-star deluxe
hotels may benefit from an equal focus on damage control.

18. Thank you !