Sentiment analysis of hotel reviews in Malaysia

Hotel industry in Malaysia can be described as monopolistic competitive market structure where many competitors exist and market share is obtained through product/ service differentiation. The aim of this study was to determine the sentiment drivers affecting customers’ choice of a hotel and provide recommendations to hotel owners about customer insights and preferences for each sentiment driver. The Latter part of the study focused on the relationships among sentiment drivers, behaviour intention (online review ratings) and usage behaviour (customer sentiment) of hotel customers in Malaysia. This study examines 9,826 online hotel reviews extracted from TripAdvisor covering 442 hotels located across 12 states in Malaysia. The study used Text Analytics process to identify sentiment drivers and compute the sentiment scores for each online hotel review using Microsoft Business Intelligence. Then Structural Equation Modelling was used to establish the relationship between sentiment scores, online hotel review ratings and sentiment drivers of online hotel reviews in Malaysia. Findings of this research revealed that sentiment drivers in Malaysia included location, room quality & facilities, sleep quality, hotel facilities, value for money, service quality and cleanliness. In addition, sleep quality was a new variable identified in this study. Furthermore, findings also indicated that all sentiment drivers were significant and have a positive relationship with hotel review ratings (behaviour intention) and customer sentiments (usage of behaviour). In conclusion, these findings provide valuable insights to hotel owners on factors that affect customers’ choice of a hotel and help hotel owners to take data driven strategic decisions