Content area
Purpose
With the proliferation of Web 2.0 and the travel-related user-generated content platforms, researchers can obtain abundant unsolicited data to examine guests’ perceptions, preferences and behaviors. Drawing on online reviews, this study aims to identify the key factors that determine guest satisfaction in lodging businesses.
Design/methodology/approachA total of 400 English-language reviews posted about the best-rated hotels in Istanbul, Turkey, according to TripAdvisor’s ranking system, were selected and content-analyzed. A hybrid approach of inductive and deductive content analysis was adopted in this study.
FindingsThe findings suggested that the quality and size of rooms, along with the service quality from staff, mainly determine guest satisfaction. The findings also reveal that relatively young European male travelers who stay in couple and with family are more likely to share their accommodation experiences in cyberspace.
Originality/valueThe study adds to the literature on the determinants of guest satisfaction by examining online reviews. Unlike research using conventional research methods, the present study contributes to the existing literature of guest satisfaction in the hotel industry by harnessing the power of the word of mouse.
1. Introduction
Increased reliance on technology information throughout the decision-making and purchasing processes posed numerous challenges and opportunities for marketers in the tourism and hospitality industry (Buhalis and Law, 2008). In particular, the emergence of user-generated content (UGC) websites allowed consumers to obtain and share information about products and services with peers who can provide first-hand feedback with either positive or negative reviews. The reliance level on online information shared by peer customers is arguably greater when purchasing tourism and hospitality services mainly because of the intangible nature of these services (Litvin et al., 2008; Yang et al., 2018a, 2018b).
Tourism and hospitality services are among the most expensive services, which implies certain levels of risk and uncertainty during the travel-related decision-making process (Chung and Buhalis, 2008). Customers tend to examine online reviews about services they may purchase to reduce uncertainty and risk (Kim et al., 2011). The informal communication between customers about products, services or their providers that occur online is called electronic word of mouth or simply, word of mouse (Litvin et al., 2008). The interpersonal effect of word of mouse seems to be increasingly influential with the proliferation of online platforms where travelers can share and exchange their experiences with tourism services. A prominent example is TripAdvisor, one of the most popular UGC platforms that currently hosts 465 million reviews and is visited by an average of 390 million unique users monthly (TripAdvisor, 2017). With the exponential proliferation of these platforms within the tourism and hospitality, word of mouse has become a highly influential element of modern marketing strategy (Litvin et al., 2018).
The influence of online travel reviews seems to be greater for the hotel industry. Online reviews are consulted mostly for informed accommodation decisions (Gretzel and Yoo, 2008). Empirical evidence supports the positive relationship between the online reputation and financial performance of hotels, that is, hotels with higher ratings receive more reservations and gain more profits (Ye et al., 2011; Öğüt and Taş, 2012; Kim et al., 2015; Cezar and Ögüt, 2016). Therefore, hotel managers and marketers are recently challenged by new game rules, wherein access to information has placed greater power in the hands of customers. By contrast, online reviews constitute an important learning tool that can help service providers understand their problems and identify areas of improvement (Li et al., 2013; Melián-González et al., 2013).
With the increasing competition in the current lodging industry, hotels are required to attach greater importance to guest satisfaction as an essential asset to foster loyalty and generate positive word of mouth (Cetin and Dincer, 2014). Constantly monitoring and examining customers’ word of mouse about their accommodation experiences and understanding their perceptions, behaviors and demands are therefore necessary. With these thoughts in mind, this study aims to identify the determinants of guest satisfaction by examining the nature of online reviews shared about hotels in Istanbul, Turkey. The study’s main contribution lies in its attempt to add to the growing literature on the determinants of guest satisfaction by examining online reviews. Compared with conventional research methods, this study draws upon travel-related UGC to identify the determinants of guest satisfaction in hotels in Istanbul, a world’s top urban destination.
2. Literature review
2.1 Word of mouse in tourism and hospitality
The exponential progress of information technology over the past decades radically changed travel-related information search and exchange processes. The internet revolution and the emergence of the second generation of the internet, widely known as Web 2.0, in the 2000s altered the landscape of the hospitality and tourism industry (Law et al., 2014). One of the salient aspects of this process is the growing power of the word of mouse in influencing customers’ purchase decisions (Ruiz-Mafe et al., 2018).
Although traditional word-of-mouth communications usually occur between consumers who enjoy strong social ties such as friends and families, consumers can seek information about products and services from peer consumers with whom they might have no social ties at all, with the emergence of new internet applications (Ring et al., 2016). Therefore, the social network that online information seekers depend on is virtually unlimited (Hart and Blackshaw, 2006). Consumers usually share reviews online without commercial interests; therefore, word of mouse from anonymous consumers enjoys a credibility similar to that of word of mouth from friends or family (Sparks and Browning, 2010). Moreover, compared with information gained from commercial parties, information obtained directly from customers is perceived to be more reliable and more influential on the purchasing decision-making process (Gretzel and Yoo, 2008; Fotis et al., 2012).
Tourism and hospitality services are characterized by intangibility, perishability, high competitiveness and perceived high-risk purchase decisions. These factors elevate the importance of online interpersonal influence (Litvin et al., 2008). Marketers who recognize the importance of positive word of mouse are now using techniques to encourage customers to talk about their products or services to create awareness and demand (Litvin et al., 2008). Customer online reviews also provide valuable feedback for tourism businesses; therefore, they are useful sources of information for service recovery and development (Briggs et al., 2007; Melián-González et al., 2013; Kim et al., 2016). Positive reviews may attract new customers and help retain and enhance the loyalty of current customers, whereas negative reviews can potentially harm business reputation and reduce opportunities to acquire new customers (Papathanassis and Knolle, 2011). However, online travel reviews, both positive and negative, can increase consumer awareness of tourism businesses (Vermeulen and Seegers, 2009). Therefore, travel-related UGC websites are arguably a source of major threats but an important avenue of opportunity if well monitored and managed (Briggs et al., 2007).
Hotel managers and marketers are becoming aware of the powerful influence of online reviews on hotels’ financial performance. This awareness is a consequence of the wide agreement on the significant relationship between online consumer reviews and business performance of hotels. For example, Ye et al. (2011) found that a 10 per cent increase in customer review ratings can increase online bookings by more than five per cent. Similarly, Öğüt and Taş (2012) argued that a mere 1 per cent improvement in customer review ratings can increase room sales by more than 2.5 per cent. Although the prevalent understanding is that hotel guests’ feedback is important for hotel management, today’s rapid pace of life and growing reliance on technology decreased face-to-face interaction between guests and hotel employees. Hotel guests increasingly rely on cyberspace as a more convenient way to express themselves. This situation elevated the importance of UGC in understanding hotel guests’ satisfaction.
2.2 Hotel guests’ satisfaction
Guest satisfaction is argued to be the ultimate goal of every hotel business (Torres et al., 2014). According to Xiang, et al. (2015, p. 122), guest satisfaction is “the guest’s evaluation of his/her experience through interaction with various service areas.” In today’s competitive environment, guests have better access to information and have much more choices than before, and thus, they have become more demanding (Sujithamrak and Lam, 2005). Additionally, the hotel industry offers homogenous services, engendering a more competitive environment (Xiang et al., 2015). Hotel managers who strive to obtain high levels of guest satisfaction are increasingly challenged because of the complex nature of guest satisfaction and the intense competition in the accommodation sector.
Understanding the determinants and antecedents of guest satisfaction has been an attractive area of research in the hospitality and tourism domain. The literature on the determinants of hotel guest satisfaction has been extensive. Most previous studies have used structural methods to identify the factors that lead to guests’ (dis)satisfaction (Gundersen et al., 1996; Choia and Chub, 2001; Choi and Chu, 2001; Skogland and Siguaw, 2004; Knutson et al., 2009; Mohsin and Lockye, 2010; Yang et al., 2011). For example, Choi and Chu (2001) examined the factors determining hotel guests’ satisfaction in the Hong Kong hotel industry; they identified that staff service quality, room quality and value for money as the three most influential factors. Gundersen et al. (1996) found that guests’ overall satisfaction is considerably influenced by the tangible aspects of the housekeeping and the intangible aspects of the reception departments, respectively.
With the emergence and proliferation of Web 2.0 and travel-related UGC platforms, researchers can obtain abundant unsolicited data to examine guests’ perceptions, behaviors and demands. Online travel reviews shared on UGC websites are probably the most common type of this unsolicited data. As noted by Zhou et al. (2014), online travel reviews provide large, inexpensive and unbiased data to understand guest satisfaction. As shown in Table I, several studies have attempted to determine the factors that tend to contribute to guest (dis)satisfaction, using data available on UGC platforms. For example, Li et al. (2013) used text mining and content analysis on online reviews posted about hotels in a Chinese city. The findings suggested the room, convenience of transportation, proximity to tourist destinations and value for money as the main attributes affecting guest satisfaction. Similarly, in their recent study, Kim et al. (2016) used online reviews to identify hotel guests’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction factors in both full- and limited-service hotels. Their findings identified several key factors determining guest satisfaction including location, staff and room. The study concluded that the staff and their attitude were highly ranked among both satisfaction and dissatisfaction factors within full- and limited-service hotels. Xu and Li (2016) noted that the determinants of guest satisfaction and dissatisfaction differed for each hotel type. They concluded that the determinants of guest satisfaction were more general (e.g. core services), whereas those of guest dissatisfaction were more specific (e.g. behavior issues).
As noted by Briggs et al. (2007), the exponential growth in UGC websites such as TripAdvisor increased the pressure on hotel management, thereby creating a more competitive environment where satisfying guests may be insufficient and delighting them is increasingly becoming more important. Therefore, the use of unsolicited data such as online reviews in understanding and monitoring guest satisfaction has become important in the current hospitality industry.
3. Methodology
This study primarily aims to identify the influential factors that determine guest satisfaction in hotels by examining online reviews. As noted by some scholars (Li et al., 2013), online reviews can help explore aspects of guest satisfaction uncaptured by traditional research methods. For the purposes of this study, the 40 most recent reviews posted about each of the ten best-rated hotels in Istanbul, according to TripAdvisor’s ranking system (as per February 1, 2015), were selected. A total of 400 English-language reviews were chosen and examined using content analysis. Considering the recency effect, which implies that potential hotel guests are more likely to read and consider recent reviews than earlier reviews (Buda and Zhang, 2000), recency was chosen as a criterion in selecting the reviews for the current study. In addition, hotel guest behavior and accommodation sectors are dynamic; therefore, relying on fresh and recent data helps obtain accurate insights into the determinants of guest satisfaction. The star rating of a given hotel is regarded as the most reliable predictor of guest experience (Radojevic et al., 2015). The rationale for selecting only the best-rated hotels is that these hotels have apparently achieved high levels of guest satisfaction; therefore, the reviews posted for these hotels tend to provide insightful information into the determinants of guest satisfaction.
The research context of the current study is Istanbul, a top international destination that has hosted an average of more than 10.5 million tourists over the past five years. In addition to its cultural, historical and artistic patrimony, Istanbul is appreciated for its developed tourist infrastructure (Alrawadieh et al., 2018). TripAdvisor was chosen in this study because it is the most popular online travel review website (Briggs et al., 2007; Xiang and Gretzel, 2010) and because the reviews posted on this platform are considerably reliable (O’Connor, 2008; Chua and Banerjee, 2013) and of a high quality (Xiang et al., 2017). Moreover, the ranking system supported by TripAdvisor helps identify which hotels seem to have achieved high guest-satisfaction levels.
In this paper, online reviews about hotels were examined using content-analysis technique. Content analysis is “a technique for gathering and analyzing the content of text. The content refers to words, meanings, pictures, symbols, ideas, themes, or any message that can be communicated” (Neuman, 2003, p. 219). This technique is proven effective in research addressing word of mouse in tourism and hospitality (O’Connor, 2010; Ekiz et al., 2012; Khoo-Lattimore and Ekiz, 2014; Alrawadieh and Dincer, 2018). The findings obtained through content analysis can be presented in qualitative or quantitative forms (Berg, 2001). In this study, the results are presented in both forms through descriptive analysis and authentic citation from the original reviews to enhance understanding of the data.
Unlike similar studies (Li et al., 2013; Barreda and Bilgihan, 2013; Berezina et al., 2016), the coding process in the current study was conducted manually given the relatively small number of reviews included. By contrast, examining data manually is more effective than computer software in extracting meaningful insights from complex textual contents (Krippendorff, 2004) and understanding hidden meanings (Au et al., 2014). A hybrid approach of theory-driven and inductive content analysis was adopted in this study. First, an extensive literature review was conducted to identify the determinants of hotel guest satisfaction as reflected in online reviews (Barreda and Bilgihan, 2013; Khoo-Lattimore and Ekiz, 2014; Li et al., 2013; Zhou et al., 2014; Berezina et al., 2016; Kim et al., 2016; Calheiros et al., 2017; Kizilirmak et al., 2015). After this stage, coders became familiar with the dimensions identified in the literature, main themes were identified and categories were developed in light of previous literature (deductive) and analyzed data (inductive). This method helped coders address data with more flexibility without ignoring the body of literature.
As recommended by several researchers (Neuman, 2003), reviews were coded independently by two coders (the first author and an external coder), and inferences were discussed to reach a consensus on the primary common themes. When the coders disagreed, the areas of disagreement were re-examined until a consensus was achieved. Following this process, the identified common themes were compared and combined. For instance, staff attitude and staff performance were initially identified as two different themes under service quality. However, these two themes were later combined as “staff’s attitude and performance.” The content analysis of 400 online travel reviews produced 1,664 positive and 236 negative elements, grouped under four main constructs, namely, rooms, service quality, hotel characteristics, and food and beverage.
Reviewers’ demographic and tripographic characteristics were also extracted and analyzed. In some cases, when the reviewer’s profile information was totally or partially undisclosed, an attempt was made to gain insight into the reviewer’s identity through their profile photo or the review text.
4. Findings and discussion
4.1 Reviewers’ demographic characteristics
As shown in Table II, slightly more than half of the reviewers did not specify their age group, and about one-fifth did not identify their gender. Of the reviewers, 15 per cent did not identify their countries and 21 per cent did not disclose whom they traveled with. The demographic profile of the reviewers suggests that relatively young European male travelers who stay in couple and with family are more likely to share their accommodation experiences in cyberspace. Generally, this result seems to support findings reported in previous research (Wenger, 2008; Bronner and Hoog, 2011; Dinçer and Alrawadieh, 2017; Au et al., 2014).
On average, each reviewer was found to have shared 43.5 reviews, of which 17 were about hotels. Thus, we could assume that these reviews were written by experienced travelers who are active followers of UGC travel websites such as TripAdvisor (Park and Nicolau, 2015). Although these relatively high figures could also indicate a high level of reliability of the reviews (Filieri, 2016), a total of 62 reviews in this study were found to be shared by single-review writers; about one-quarter of these reviews mentioned the names of certain hotel employees. These kinds of reviews can be construed as fake reviews shared by hotel employees themselves to attract their managers’ attention and to maximize their chances of being promoted.
4.2 Determinants of guest satisfaction
When posting a review on TripAdvisor, reviewers are required to rate their overall satisfaction using a five-point Likert scale (ranging from 1: terrible to 5: excellent). As the reviews in this study were drawn from the best-rated hotels in Istanbul according to TripAdvisor’s ranking system, the mean overall satisfaction was quite high (4.64). As illustrated in Figure I, an overwhelming majority (approximately 78 per cent) of reviewers reported excellent or very good experience during their stay.
Table III shows that the extracted elements were grouped under four main constructs. The findings indicated room as the top category mentioned by satisfied hotel guests, followed by service quality, hotel’s characteristics and food and beverage. The room quality in terms of its size, furniture, amenities, location, bathroom, cleanliness and design was found to be the most mentioned issue by reviewers. An American reviewer mentioned: “very tasteful, spacious rooms; comfortable beds; all sorts of very special amenities” (R56). The room is the core service of hotel businesses. Previous research identifies the quality of room as an influential factor in guest satisfaction (Radojevic et al., 2017; Ekiz et al., 2012; Ren et al., 2015; Xu and Li, 2016).
Service quality was the second top frequently mentioned dimension, indicating that hotel guests are more likely to disseminate positive online reviews when they receive high service quality. This finding confirms the results of several previous studies (Liu et al., 2017; Dinçer and Alrawadieh, 2017; Khoo-Lattimore and Ekiz, 2014). Our findings suggest that the theme labeled as staff’s attitudes and performance was the top mentioned theme within the dimension of service quality. For instance, an English guest commented that the “service was very good, friendly warm and helpful […]” (R27). Extensive empirical evidence also underscores the influential role of hotel employees in achieving guest satisfaction and guest loyalty (Xu and Li, 2016; Skogland and Siguaw, 2004; Chi and Gursoy, 2009). The role of the hotel staff is influential in driving guest satisfaction because the interaction between hotel employees and guests is particularly high in the hospitality industry (Kassinis and Soteriou, 2003). In a recent study, Nieto-Garcia et al. (2018) examined the dimensions of hotel customer ratings that enhance the hotel financial performance and found that staff is one of the key dimensions that plays a central role in terms of revenue maximization.
More than one-quarter of the extracted elements (with major positive loading) pertained to the hotel’s characteristics. Location was frequently mentioned by reviewers. For instance, a reviewer expressed satisfaction with accommodation experience, saying that “the location [of the hotel] is one of the best in Istanbul in the midst of shopping, cafes, and galleries” (R101). Several studies have identified location as one of the top issues that influence hotel guest satisfaction (Khoo-Lattimore and Ekiz, 2014; Barreda and Bilgihan, 2013; Ren et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2017; Xu and Li, 2016). Accessibility to points of interest, transport convenience and surrounding environment were also identified as key factors affecting guest satisfaction with hotel location (Yang et al., 2018a, 2018b). A recent study by Mellinas et al. (2019) proposed that the assessment of location is influenced by the evaluation of other hotel attributes.
Of the 1,900 elements extracted from the reviews, only 236 (12.4 per cent) were negative. Online negative reviews are often referred to as e-complaints (Lee and Hu 2004; Sparks and Browning, 2010; Dinçer and Alrawadieh, 2017). About 41 per cent of the negative elements pertained to the hotel characteristics, such as applied prices, the lack and insufficiency of facilities and hotel location. Slightly more than one-quarter of the negative elements complained about service quality. Staff’s attitude and performance and perceived service quality were the most mentioned issues within this category. The quality of bathroom, as well as the room size, were also key issues the dissatisfied guests highlighted in online reviews. As mentioned earlier in this paper, the reviews were selected from best-rated hotels. Therefore, the findings are likely to reflect the determinants of satisfaction rather than dissatisfaction.
5. Conclusions
As noted by some researchers (Law et al., 2013), the need for a synergistic relationship between the information technology department and senior management is increasingly important in the highly competitive tourism and hospitality sector. Therefore, the adoption of policies to monitor word of mouse and the use of online reviews to measure guest satisfaction are crucial issues in today’s hospitality industry. The present paper aimed to explore the determinants of guest satisfaction using unsolicited data. Although the paper joins similar research endeavors that have been undertaken over the past few years, it contributes to a growing body of literature examining satisfaction using qualitative research methods. This is particularly important, given that hospitality research exploring satisfaction is largely biased toward quantitative methods (Prayag et al., 2018).
Drawing on the findings of the study, hotel managers need to focus mainly on two key elements: quality of the rooms and quality of the services. Attributes related to the hotel room are tangible and thus can be easily managed. Hotel managers may improve the quality of furniture and amenities to trigger positive word of mouth. Attributes related the service quality are largely intangible, and thus managing them can be more challenging. Providing continuous training to hotel staff to ensure genuine and high service quality is therefore essential.
Service failure in the hospitality industry is a fact of life. Guests who report their dissatisfaction or negative feelings in person to the frontline staff provide the hotel with a “second chance.” By contrast, those who complain online could be well considered as lost guests who air their anger for revenge against the hotel in question and/or to help others avoid similar negative experiences. Hotel management should encourage guests to report their negative feelings during their stay. Frontline employees, particularly in the reception, should encourage “unhappy” guests to air their anger and express their negative feelings. The negativity of emotions expressed by guests online tend to be greater than if they were expressed to the hotel management where the dissatisfaction occurred (Tassiello et al., 2018). Our findings indicate that negative reviews are more likely to be triggered by the hotel’s general attributes, including pricing, hotel location and hotel facilities. The quality of bathroom, as well as room size, are also key issues the dissatisfied guests tend to highlight in online reviews. Drawing on these findings, hotel managers should improve the areas that receive complaints. For instance, hotel facilities, including room, may be renovated; the problem of location can be mitigated by providing free shuttle to hot spots such as frequently visited attraction sites. Special offers, as well as small gifts or free amenities, may also be used to reduce hotel guests’ sensitivity to prices.
This paper has some important limitations. First, the sample is drawn from reviews posted on only ten hotels with the highest ratings on TripAdvisor, rendering the generalization of findings difficult without further research on a larger sample and across different types of hotels. Specifically, reviews from only best-rated hotels are more likely to represent the perceptions of satisfied rather than dissatisfied guests. Second, this paper selected hotels in one urban tourism destination, and the findings may not apply to other types of tourist destinations (e.g. sun and beach destinations). Third, this study considered only recent reviews written in English. Fourth, the sample size is also another important limitation. Although still small, the sample size was enlarged using the same data set about two years from the first data collection. The authors’ decision of conducting the coding process manually led to the inclusion of a limited number of reviews in the analysis. The manual coding approach also limited the ability to conduct advanced analysis. Although the study identified the key determinants of guest satisfaction, it did not examine the importance of these determinants across guests’ demographic and tripographic variables. Therefore, by using unsolicited data, future studies may need to examine what matters more for whom to offer an in-depth understanding of the underlying factors that contribute to guest satisfaction and to develop a better segmentation of hotel guests.
The authors would like to thank Gonul Akin for her assistance in the data analysis.
Reviewers’ overall satisfaction
Summary of the key determinants of guest satisfaction identified in previous studies
| Author(s)/year of publication | Key themes |
|---|---|
| Cherapanukorn and Charoenkwan (2017) | Staff members |
| Hotel facilities (especially swimming pool) | |
| Quality of room | |
| Breakfast | |
| Calheiros et al. (2017) | Location |
| Quality of amenities | |
| Romantic surroundings | |
| Characteristics of the place | |
| Berezina et al. (2016) | Place of business |
| Room | |
| Staff | |
| Sports | |
| Furnishing | |
| Xu and Li (2016) | Location |
| Staffperformance | |
| Room quality | |
| Kim et al. (2016) | Location |
| Staff | |
| Room size | |
| Breakfast | |
| Bed | |
| Neighborhood | |
| Radojevic et al. (2015) | Amenities (especially air-conditioning, free Wi-Fi and hotel bar) |
| Membership in a branded hotel chain | |
| Price | |
| Zhou et al. (2014) | Room facilities |
| General hotel facilities | |
| Food quality | |
| Price | |
| Location | |
| Staff | |
| Khoo-Lattimore and Ekiz (2014) | Rooms |
| Staff | |
| Food | |
| Services | |
| Location | |
| Barreda and Bilgihan (2013) | Location |
| Quality of service from staff | |
| Li et al. (2013) | Room |
| Convenience of transportation | |
| Proximity to tourist destinations | |
| Value for money |
Descriptive profile of reviewers
| Variable | Frequency | (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Gender (n = 315; missing values = 85) | ||
| Male | 185 | 58.7 |
| Female | 130 | 41.3 |
| Age (n = 186; missing values = 214) | ||
| 18-24 | 2 | 1.1 |
| 25-34 | 47 | 25.3 |
| 35-49 | 87 | 46.8 |
| 50-64 | 46 | 24.6 |
| 65+ | 4 | 2.2 |
| Country of origin (n = 340; missing values = 60) | ||
| Europe | 124 | 36.5 |
| North America | 98 | 28.8 |
| Middle East | 79 | 23.2 |
| Oceania | 20 | 5.9 |
| Asia | 16 | 4.7 |
| Africa | 3 | 0.9 |
| Travel party (n = 316; missing values = 84) | ||
| Couple | 130 | 41.1 |
| Family | 76 | 24.1 |
| Business | 68 | 21.5 |
| Friends | 32 | 10.1 |
| Solo | 10 | 3.2 |
Dimensions of hotel guest satisfaction
| Category | Positive | Negative |
|---|---|---|
| Rooms | 498 (29.9%) | 45 (19.1%) |
| Size | 122 | 11 |
| Overall attitude | 103 | 3 |
| Bathroom | 71 | 13 |
| Location (e.g. room’s view) | 70 | 3 |
| Quality of furniture and in-room amenities | 65 | 9 |
| Cleanness | 36 | 3 |
| Design and décor | 31 | 3 |
| Service quality | 485 (29.1%) | 66 (28%) |
| Staff’s attitude and performance | 258 | 28 |
| Perceived service quality | 170 | 22 |
| Free of charge services, amenities, and upgrading | 49 | 16 |
| Satisfaction with handling service failure | 8 | 0 |
| Hotel’s characteristics | 432 (26%) | 97 (41.1%) |
| Location | 214 | 31 |
| Facilities and outlets (swimming pools and bars) | 90 | 36 |
| Overall attitude | 84 | 2 |
| Design and décor | 32 | 2 |
| Prices | 12 | 20 |
| Crowdedness and noisiness | 0 | 6 |
| Food and beverage | 249 (15%) | 28 (11.8%) |
| Quality and taste of food and beverage | 168 | 11 |
| Atmosphere in restaurants and bars | 46 | 7 |
| Variety of food and beverage | 35 | 10 |
| Total | 1664 | 236 |
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