Know your guests’ preferences before they arrive at your hotel: evidence from TripAdvisor

Purpose Toward achieving a better guest experience, the current study aims to use the word frequency comparison technique to evaluate the types of attributes and services that are used most frequently in guests’ five- and one-star reviews on TripAdvisor. The working-paper also aims to investigate the differences between reviews written by men and women. Design/methodology/approach A combined sentiment and text analysis was applied to 329,849 UK hotel reviews from UK TripAdvisor to identify factors that influence customer satisfaction, including those with gender differences. Findings The present findings reveal important differences between the male- and female-produced terms. The results show that female travelers pay more attention to the hotel’s core products and their comfort compared to male travelers. In terms of food and beverage, men’s comments tended to focus on pubs, beer and certain types of food. In contrast, women’s comments were more likely to be related to healthy eating, such as homemade, vegan and vegetarian foods, as well as fruits and healthy breakfasts. Women also pay more attention to the soft skills of staff such as friendliness, helpfulness and welcoming messages. Practical implications While core attributes of a hotel stay remain crucial for all guests, disparities exist between the language men and women use to describe them. For core products, women pay more attention to the room’s cleanliness, comfort and features such as bed, pillow, blanket, towel, toiletries and decoration, whereas men pay more attention to the layout, size and type of room. Hotels may use gender as a segmentation variable and use these findings in their marketing campaigns. Originality/value This is one of the first studies offering insights into the differences between the male and female reactions to and preferences for hotel services at a national level. Following a novel method, this study has listed and ranked attributes and differentiated them based on gender.