A Project Report on “An Analysis of Customer Reviews in the Hotel

Industry”
Submitted
In The Course of
Business Statistics
BBA
SEMESTER I

Under the guidance of

Dinesh Kumar
SOB, GU, Gautam Budh Nagar (GBN)

Project Analyzed and Documented by:

Dharmendra Singh (23GSOB1010333)
Dheeraj Kumar Madnawat (23GSOB1010111)
Divya Tyagi (23GSOB1010949)
Dhruv Goswami (23GSOB1010438)
Harsh Kumar (23GSOB1010022)

School of Business

Abstract
Background: Technology has changed the face of the hospitality industry; a great example is
the online reviews, which have become a critical facet of consideration during the hotel
booking decision. In the past similar research have been conducted which elaborate on the
transition from traditional word of mouth to the electronic word of mouth. While some
researchers have tried to bridge the gap between the hotel’s resolutions to a negative
experience to what the guest wants. However, very few have researched on how to effectively
manage the increasing online reviews and how to tackle online reputation on travel portals
such as Trip advisor. Through this research we have attempted to evaluate the impact of the
increasing online reviews and further, this research is to analyze the attitude of the hotels that
use modern software’s to reduce the negative impact on hotel bookings.
Methods: To fulfill this research, a mixed method approach is used , a combination of
qualitative tools such as semi-structured interviews and quantitative tools such as survey
questionnaires. The travelers ascertained that the reviews are a critical factor they considered
while booking a hotel room through these questionnaires and interviews. They also
highlighted on the impact of the recovery process to a negative experience and how does it
affect the hotel bookings. While interviews conducted gave the hotel’s insight to online
reviews and how they are overcoming it.
Conclusion:.This current research examines the relationship of these two factors and provides
implications for academics and hotelier’s, while it will also contribute to future research on
similar topics.

Introduction:
Technology is changing the world today; all the industries are getting more technology
oriented. A similar transition towards this has been seen in the hospitality industry. People
have moved on to become more aware of things due to Internet and have started to surf
Internet more than ever before. Internet has also given the travelers the medium to express
their opinions and thoughts. Following this trend, the online reviews have taken a great leap
forward and its importance has peaked in the recent years. The hotel industry has taken this
trend very seriously and shifted its focus towards managing these reviews in an effective and
efficient manner. This research intends to discuss the impact of online reviews on the hotel
bookings. The central question is ‘ How do reviews posted on TripAdvisor and the hotel’s
response to them impact the customer purchase behavior in booking hotels in New Delhi and
Mumbai? ’. The main argument is how critical is the impact of these reviews and how do we
tackle it if it is impacting the hotel to a major extent.
Evolution of the Hotel Industry : The hotel industry has witnessed an upward trend with the
increase in travel, as travelers needed a place for food and shelter along the routes they
traveled so the first Inns were established. As the demand for accommodation raised, the
number of private Inns grew to meet the growing needs of the travelers. As Inns grew in
number, there came about competition, improved service and value additions that the Inn
operators offered to the fellow travelers to attract them making this the first differentiating
factor to choose a property over the other.
The Inns in modern times became hotels as the real growth was seen in the USA with The
City Hotel opening in New York in 1794. In the European context, the lead was taken by the
emerging nations such as Switzerland. It was in Europe that the birth of an organized hotel
industry took place in the shape of small hotels and chalets, which provided a variety of
services and were patronized by the aristocracy of the day.
Then came the international hotel chains which started to dominate the market with chains
such as Marriott in the American subcontinent with brands JW Marriott, Ritz Carlton, Delta
Hotels, Renaissance, etc., Accor Hotels in the European context with brands like Sofitel,
Pullman, Novotel, Ibis, etc. the emergence of these international chains changed the ballgame
of the industry completely as they are widespread in the types of services, features, and
amenities offered by the various sub-brands ranging from economy or budget hotels to
Upscale and luxury hotels.
Incorporation of Technology in the Hotels Industry: As time passed, Internet has been
incorporated to be an essential part of the hotel industry moreover with the international
brands stepping in, right from booking a hotel to seeing its features, amenities, ratings and
reviews of a hotel. Especially online reviews which have been a major decision making the
element in booking hotel rooms online especially amongst the millennial, in the past these
reviews were not of much significance to the hotels and were not analyzed and acted upon by
the hotels, until recently when these have become increasingly critical. With the fellow
traveler constantly sharing his/her experiences both positive and negative through Internet
review sites such as TripAdvisor, it has become more essential than ever before to understand
the significance that these reviews have on hotel guests and hospitality industry.
According to Gretzel, 96.4% of guests use the Internet at some point during their pre-trip
planning and booking especially the millennial audience. Online reviews are key to maintain,
repair and promote a hotel’s image which will, in turn, have an impact on choosing to stay in
that hotel and repeat visit of a guest i.e. intent to stay and return. Using responding to these
online reviews as a tool the hotel managers are reclaiming the marketing potential provided to
customers by these online review sites; this means that the customer can base their
conclusions on the hotel recovery to the review while also relying on the customer’s
experience at that hotel. The hotel manager must apprehend these reviews (whether positive
or negative) to understand the motivation behind writing these reviews before anyone from
the hotel could be in a position to respond to these reviews. In this research, we will focus on
TripAdvisor as a platform to review hotels Tripadvisor as a Review Site.
Tripadvisor is world’s largest travel site, founded in 2000 with the original idea just having a
button in the beginning to add a review which was just a minor element in the website, which
soon became that major reason for the website to function, enabling travelers to unleash the
full potential of every trip. The idea was to share ideas, thoughts, and comments about your
recent experience and tell the world about it whether it is promoting a hotel or a word of
caution for the fellow traveler, it helps the guest reading the review get a better insight about
the place he is about to visit. With over 570 million reviews and opinions covering the
world’s largest selection of travel listing worldwide, covering 7.3 million accommodation,
attraction, airline and restaurants. It provides travelers with the wisdom of the people, to aid
them to decide where to stay, how to fly, what to do and what to eat. Tripadvisor also acts as
a meta-search engine comparing prices from more that 200 booking sites so that the fellow
traveler pays the least and book what is true for them. Tripadvisor branded sites are available
in 49 markets and are home to the worlds largest travel community of 455 average monthly
unique visitors all looking to get most out of every trip.
Reading and writing online reviews: A great amount of research has been conducted to
comprehend what motivates travelers to go online and write reviews. It is critical to access
the motivation factor associated with customer reviews as a lot of travelers are engaging in
electronic word of mouth (eWOM), which results in an increase of the monetary value of
travel-related purchases. About $73 billion dollars annually is spent online on the travel
industry—which accounts for 35% of all online spending . The trend shows that online
spending has a major influence on the travel and tourism industry. The impact of these guest
reviews could aid or hinder a particular hotel to access these funds specifically a dissatisfied
guest who has experienced poor service four or more times are likely to share their story with
others in the form of online reviews. As we all know the impact of a negative review is much
worse than a positive review, one negative review in multiple positive reviews can take the
hotel down the drains, as discontent spreads through eWOM, the hotel managers need to
monitor and act on these negative comments, reply promptly and try to recover the customer
to increase the potential for positively marketing the hotel property.
Rationale of Interest: The main agenda to conduct this research was the emergence of
technology and the sudden increase in the importance of online reviews. The hospitality
industry has been affected by this too as the hotels are reviewed very often as there are 3-4
guest contact points from restaurants to rooms to events. When the guest decides to book a
hotel room showed that 90% of respondents who pre-planned their vacations online
considered Internet reviews when booking a hotel. Of those same respondents, 77.9% placed
extreme importance on reviews written by others. With majority emphasis being placed on
reviews, the hospitality industry needs to look at how a hotel’s response to online travel sites
can influence guests. This research is trying to find out that why are guests so dependent on
online reviews before making a choice.
Potential Contribution/Objective: This research mainly focuses on two main contributions.
Initially, by studying the how have the review changed the hospitality business in becoming
more critical than ever before. This research will try to see the significance it has on the
booking behavior of the hotel. While there are other factors it also has started to play a vital
role. Secondly, through these findings, the research would try to establish how to tackle these
reviews especially the negative reviews which might create a potential problem for the hotel
as the guest trying to book a hotel online might refrain to do so post reading a negative
comment.

Literature Review

This section will focus on finding articles, which relate to the research question and will
eventually help in fulfilling this research. This literature review is divided into three
categories based on the research objectives; this research will dive on those specific topics in
detail to be able to fulfill the objectives. The three sections are as follows- Importance of
online review sites, which is important, as it explains why and how often do people go to
these review sites and actually write reviews, the second section talks about electronic word
of mouth and its implications on reviews posted online, this tells us how dependent are
travelers on online reviews in the pre-planning stage of the trip and the final stage explains
the importance and reasons to reply to online reviews and why is it becoming more critical
than ever before.
Importance of Online review sites: Online review sites play an ever-important role in guest
booking a hotel. According to trust you “95% of travelers read reviews before making a
booking online”. In this day and age customers have the right to raise their voice and today
they have a platform to do so, the online customer review as told by Kelly “all major players
including Amazon.com, Yahoo.com, Hotels.com amongst others are allowing customers to
rate and review the products listed on their domain”, in our case the hotels. Kelly talks about
the art of storytelling and what are the crucial elements which one must consider to write a
good review the very first element being trust and building trust when someone else reads
your review, for him to be able to relate to it and have a sense of resonance and these reviews
will be rated to be much more than other reviews. She also said that reviews which develop
character and which are more detailed are generally more helpful than those lacking attention
to detail, this way the traveler who is reading can step in your shoes and get a better
understanding about the situation. She also told that reviews must not have a superior tone
and should not be poorly written, as they will not prove to be useful to the fellow traveler.
It is a human tendency to fall back on negative things while ignoring the positives just so
with the hotels. The dissatisfaction spreads twice as fast in an electronic medium as compared
to offline. This is increasingly posing a risk to the hospitality industry with people referring to
online reviews more often than before and considering word of mouth as the most trusted
form of information especially new and potential customers. Historically Zeithaml explains
that word of mouth was obtained from a” very limited number of people as it was offline and
one could only get to know from friends and family” about itbut with the integration of the
world wide web into the hospitality sphere the various service providers are reviewed by
various travellers across the globe from diverse backgrounds.
Likewise, 70% of reservations, which are made, are booked online, and, with the constant
rise of online booking activity, this translates to eWOM having the potential to reach a vast
majority of guests who are booking online while ordinary WOM only reaches friends and
family. This explains that if the guest doesn’t have a trustworthy source of a hotel property by
a friend or acquaintance he will look out for reviews on the internet to make his choice here
we again incorporate the thoughts of Kelly with the trust which will be an influential factor.
According to a research conducted by Fernández-Barcala shows that to anticipate the quality
of a hotel 77.9 % read online reviews quantified that 84% of all hotel guests claim that online
reviews helped them plan their future vacation.
The comments posted on Internet also act as an “opportunity for the hotel and the managers
to incorporate these changes”, to progress forward and finally connect the dots to complete
the loop. To achieve that one must identify the key reviews about the hotel, how it is
affecting the business and most importantly reply to them diligently. In the age of technology,
software’s have been developed to monitored guest feedback i.e. Trust You. It collates all the
information related to your hotel posted online and also your internal feedbacks to analyze
and interpret this data and segregate it to focus on the key area, which needs to be
improvised, thus making the job of the hotel management easier. There is a lost opportunity
by the hotel staff in the inability to reply to guest comments, which could harm the hotel's
image, therefore hampering the bookings.

Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM):

In order to understand eWOM, took factors such as price, hotel quality, and into
consideration when analyzing guest likelihood to post a review of a hotel noticed that factors
such as price and hotel quality negatively impact the online guest reviews while on the other
hand location did not have any major effect in shaping. Taking an example of New Delhi as a
market, which is highly priced sensitive, hence if the hotel is priced higher and has a high
rating, guest tends to expect more to attain his/her perceived value of the overall hotel. These
preconceived notions regarding the hotel eventually lead to negative comments posted online.
When these notions are not met the guest can influence new customers as well as challenge
the hotel’s overall image and reputation, if a corrective action is not taken care by the
managers on time. When the guest has expectations that are not met these negative reviews
result in actions that harm the hotel’s bottom line.
Similarly Mattila, revealed that there are two main driving forces behind guest’s online
reviews of a property. First of all that guests review hotels is a desire to reciprocate; such
instances happen if the hotel has managed to create a wow moment or any such instance
which has pleased the guest and the guest intern wants the hotel and the staff to be
recognized, hence promoting the hotel by writing a positive review. Though the reverse also
holds true when the guest’s expectation is not met so the guest writes a negative review of the
hotel. The second factor that influences guest reviews is a desire to share with or warn others
away. In case of a positive comment, the guest wants others to have the pleasant experience
too, taking the contrary if travelers have had a difficult time at the hotel property; they try to
warn the other guests who might book the same hotel in the coming time. However if the
guest puts up a negative review, to punish the hotel or to caution the others from the
upcoming experience, the hotel property has the capability and capacity to recover by
responding to these posts heads on but it needs to be backed up else it can be misfired leading
to an even worse situation.

Hotel Responses to Online Reviews:

A critical element in this research as discussed previously is managing to respond to the
reviews posted online, therefore one needs to find out how ways to deal with the problem
online especially the major negative reviews which impact the hotel’s image. Depending on
the level of failure from the hotel side will set the precedence to determine whether the hotel
can recover from the loss and to what extent. If the magnitude of the loss incurred is too high
to be recovered, then the process of recovery is not of much significance to the guest.
However only if a customer is retained through the process of service recovery is when it
holds significance, as the cost of acquiring a new customer is much higher than to retain the
same customer? The Guest should be able to relate to the response to reviews or complaints
from the hotel’s side; hence there is a need for the hotel management to deploy specific
techniques to handle particular complaints and feedback. To begin with, take a look at the
situations offline.

Offline Hotel Response:

In this case O'Connor, talks about ‘six dimensions to an organizational response”, these
dimensions are “timeliness, facilitation, redress, apology, credibility, and attentiveness’.
While all these factors are critical to the success he considers attentiveness as one of the most
crucial factors with the credibility of the hotel a close second when comparing it to other
factors.
Attentiveness of the hotel implies on the extent to which the hotel pays attention to detail,
from the hotel experience to recovering the guest while being active and prompt is also of
importance, talking about credibility it deals with hotel taking ownership of their doings
while also being responsible for it, whether good or bad. Davidow also found a positive
correlation between “repurchase intent, customer satisfaction and WOM” and the eagerness
of the hotel to admit and resolve the mistakes, which again boils down to the fact hotel
managers need to own up to the mistakes committed, take the necessary actions to correct the
inaccuracies to be able to retain the guest.

Online Hotel Responses:

Quadri-Felitti, analyzed 504 reviews online and found that only one had a hotelier’s response
in which he asked: “the readers to ignore the reviewer”. This case suggests that the hotel
managers must critically analyze the reviews before posting it online. Likewise, in a study
Rosenberg proved that “less than 0.5% of the reviews on TripAdvisor were responded”
despite TripAdvisor providing a “ right to reply” button on their website for the hotel
managers to reply. In another research Lee concluded that “only 31 out of the 222 reviews
used had responses” that translates to about 15% %. In the process, the guest is frustrated and
dissatisfied and feels that the hotel company is indifferent and doesn’t care it is also referred
to as “cyber ostracism”. Similar to the studies above stated “ 85% of hotels have no
guidelines in Place for responding to online reviews.

Material & methods:

Copy paste the methodology section of your research here.In this chapter, we will discuss the
methodology, which this paper will adapt to answer the aims and objectives to complete this
research. It will include all the approach and strategies this paper shall be using to fulfill the
aims of this research.

Research Questions, aims and objectives

As discussed in the previous chapters this research revolves around online reviews and how
they are affecting the hotel bookings and hotel’s image, we would also observe the attitude of
the hotels towards these reviews and why has it become critical to respond to these reviews.
Precisely the main research question is – ‘How do online reviews on Tripadvisor and the
hotel's response to them impact the customer purchase behavior in booking hotels’. To
further understand the topic this research would like to explore the following-
Do customers read & write reviews and rate hotels on tripadvisor pre and post stay?
Do customers look at tripadvisor reviews to make hotel bookings?
What is the hotel’s attitude towards online review?
Do hotels actually incorporate the suggested changes by online reviews?
These sub-questions will help in completing this research and understand the key concepts of
this research, while it will also fulfill the aim which is to study the impact of online reviews
and their responses on the hotel bookings and hotels overall image in the highly sensitive
market of New Delhi
Research Philosophy
Research Design

Mix Methods
The ideal method to complete this research is to use a combination of both quantitative and
qualitative methods, which is also known as “Mixed Methods”. While Quantitative data deals
mostly with objective questions (eg- survey questionnaires) that could then be represented in
a numerical way on the other hand qualitative data is more subjective and usually lengthy, as
they give a more detailed insight on the topic and are not predetermined but rather
spontaneous responses. Both methods have their pros and cons and it is up to the researcher
how to make the optimal use of them. Greene (1997) defines mix method design as "those
that include at least one quantitative method (designed to collect numbers) and one
qualitative method (designed to collect words)”, which in our case is critical to get to the final
point.
Research Approach

Inductive Research Approach

To fulfill the research we would be using the inductive approach. Inductive is a theory
generating research style, in which the researcher study’s various theories associated with the
research topic to understand the topic of discussion in a better way, this includes observations
through past work or personal experiences. The second step involves the researcher to try to
look for patterns and map the observations and try to link them. Then you must arrive at a
hypothesis of the said observation or any other observation, which would help in fulfilling
this research. The final step is to arrive at a theory based on the previous steps.
Research Strategies
To complete this research will use a combination of survey and case study.

Survey
Surveys are mostly linked to deductive style as they help give a qualifiable answer to your
hypothesis proving it true or false. It also helps us answer the "what?" and "how?" within the
research. According to Gable (1994), "survey refers to a group of methods which emphasize
quantitative analysis, where data for a large number of organizations is collected through mail
questionnaires, telephone interviews, or from published statistics, and this data is analyzed
using statistical techniques". As explained survey method involves the distribution of
questionnaires which are standardized (allowing easy comparison) amongst a wider audience
and are collated, at the same time the audience must be willing to help the researcher by
filling the questionnaire with full consent and honestly. This method is useful as online
reviews cannot be judged based on a single set of replies and this strategy will help be reach a
wider audience in a very economical way to complete the said research. Therefore, This
research will use this strategy to ascertain “how are online reviews and responding to them
affect hotel bookings?”

Case Study
Complementarily the second strategy used in this research is a case study, which is a group of
methods that emphasize on qualitative analysis (Yin, 1984) strategy that is used for research
that involves an empirical investigation of a current situation with its real-life contexts using
multiple sources of evidence. As a strategy, it also works well with surveys. It answers the
"why?" component to a larger extent any a hint of "what?" and "how?" components as they
are seldom answered in the survey approach better. This is another strategy primarily used for
investigative research. In this research studying Tripadvisor is critical that is one major
reason to employ case study as a strategy. In this method, data is collected from a relatively
smaller audience through methods such as ‘Participant observation and in-depth interviews’.

Method of Data Collection

For conducting this research will be using a combination of two methods which are
Questionnaires and Interviews.

Questionnaires
To be able to give justice to this research strategies case study and surveys, questionnaires
help to formulate the data taken from a wider audience in order to get a better perspective on
the argument. Questionnaires are a method of data collection where the researcher asks the
same set of questions to a sample of audience, which fits in the criteria and category,
predetermined by the researcher.

Interviews
The second method that this research will employ is interview method, which is a subset of
qualitative method used to get the better insight of some of your topics enquired in the
questionnaire (Feather, 2012) therefore allowing to analyze the findings from both
quantitative and qualitative data. Interviews gauge the participant deep into the topic and this
helps us to access and interpret the information in a much better way. Interviews are of three
types: the first type is structured interviews which is used to get more quantifiable data, in
this the respondent is asked certain predetermined set of questions which are structured in a
formal setting, they are hence also referred to as ‘qualitative research interviews'.

Results and Discussion:

Copy This chapter will elaborate the on the main research objective, which revolves around
the impact of online reviews, and how does it affect the booking of the hotel. This research
has observed that mostly leisure guest review the hotels online and they are the one's who go
online to check a review about a hotel. In most cases, a hotel is viewed online because you
are not aware of the hotel and want to get a better understanding about the hotel you would
stay in future, especially if one of your friends or a family member has not visited that
property. The reviews, comments, and photos posted by fellow travelers are of greater
significance than the content posted by the hotel online on a travel website or on the brand
website.

Location of Research
The research is conducted and based in India, further, this research have primarily targeted
two of the most popular metropolitan cities in the Indian subcontinent which are New Delhi
and Mumbai. A major reason to choose these cities out of the others is the reason that these
cities get the most demand in terms of inbound and outbound travelers while the residents of
these cities are mostly well traveled amongst the entire population of India. These cities,
which host the best air and rail connectivity within India, the inhabitants of these cities travel
the most domestically and to other countries internationally. In addition, these cities have the
more hotels than any other city in India with most major domestic brands including Taj
Hotels, ITC, Oberoi, etc while also hosting an array of international hotel companies like
Marriott, Accor, Hyatt, Hilton amongst many others. As these cities have the highest city
demand amongst other cities in India, this increases the awareness of the people staying in
these cities and thus leads to increased expectations as they have the most seasoned travelers
who travel both for business and leisure.

HYPOTHESIS 1 – Trend of reading and writing reviews about hotels

on tripadvisor Pre and Post stay

Survey Findings
In this research the survey of people staying in New Delhi and Mumbai while also grouping
them into 3 different age groups to identify how each of them responds differently. In the
recent past, there has been a sudden upward shift in the number of travelers using the
Internet; this has a major impact on the hotel industry with people looking for hotels online,
and in this process also seeing the ratings and reviews posted by people who have stayed
there in the past. This has now become a major part of the hotel business, which has started to
affect the hotel sales as the consumer is spoilt for choices for the same price and now he does
not have to blindly trust the hotel's content which is published online. The traveler now has a
right to express his thoughts on social media and make the other fellow travelers aware about
the property.
The total number of respondents for the paper was 110. Amongst the people who filled the
survey 44, people traveled more than 5 times a year amongst them 3/4th of the people
belonged to the age group of 25-40. They are the people who travel the most out of any other
age group and also have one of the highest spending powers as many reported an annual
income of above Rs. 2,000,000. The second most well traveled group was 40 years and above
which also reported a similar income. Contrastingly there were a few respondents who
showed opposite statistics amongst these age groups, they were mostly homemakers, who
don't travel as much and don't earn significantly. A similar statistics were observed amongst
the respondents who were between 18-25 years of age, they traveled less due to limited
financial resources making travel 1-2 times the second highest with 30% as the survey
respondents had a fair mix of students and interns. While almost one-fourth of the
respondents traveled 3-4 times in a year that included bankers, selfemployed people and
others from the service industry where travel is not so frequent.
 Pie chart showing the frequency of travel in a year

The respondents were also asked how often do their read and write reviews online. It was
seen that people in general preferred reading rather than writing reviews, 30 respondents out
of 110 read reviews 1-2 times a year this consisted of people who were over 40 years of age
as they were not used to this rapid shifting technology. 28 respondents read reviews 3-4 times
of the year and 9 respondents read more than 7 times, these are the more tech-savvy students
and millennial’s who have a lower income but have a very high internet usage. It was
observed when it came to writing reviews most of the respondents were not very active
writers .53 respondents wrote 1-2 reviews per year while 28 of them never wrote any review
online. This shows that the people still shy expressing themselves on a common platform,
which is accessible to the public. This also includes females which were mostly housewives
amongst others are people with the age group of 40 this consisted 20 of the 28 respondents
who have never written a review. There were 2 students who have not written any review
because they were not well traveled. Contrastingly there were 11 respondents who wrote 7 or
more reviews these included people who very active on social media and also people who
stayed in hotels very often, who were the pilots, top businessmen, the hotelier’s amongst
others.

Chart showing the frequency of reading, writing and staying in hotels.

While we consider all these factors, another important factor is what kind of trip you are
planning to go on, 42 travellers who go on a leisure trip value online reviews contrastingly
only 7 business travellers value online reviews, while 64 people value it for both out of that
most leisure guest are more concerned as they have to pay for the product rather than the
company paying for your travel. A large share of guest i.e. 30% when traveling prefer to stay
in luxury hotels, these include people who have an average annual income of above than
Rs.2,000,000 and travel on company expense while there were about 3 businessmen who
financed their trip like to travel in luxury hotels. While 30 respondents choose to stay in
midscale property these include students, people from the education sector, homemakers,
people from the service industry and mostly people who have a lower average income
ranging from Rs. 1- 10 lakhs per annum. 4 students were of a different opinion and picked
budget hotels as they were not earning and did not have the financial means to stay in a better
hotel. Other responses included Airbnb, which is a new entrant in the hospitality industry;
some pet lovers chose hotels, which were pet-friendly irrespective of the scale and type of
hotel.

Pie chart showing the category of hotel chosen by the travelers

During the course of this research, we also wanted to ascertain what are the other factors,
which travelers consider in the pre-planning stage to make hotel bookings. Given that the
demand in these two cities are relatively high while to compensate the demand the supply of
hotels are also increasing to cater to this increasing demand. 95 out of 110 respondents
mentioned that price and location were the two most important factors, which they consider
other than the reviews before making their choice. These cities have a very price sensitive
population as they have many choices for the same price, so they try and look out for an
option, which is a good bargain between price and good reviews. The second most critical
factor is the rating of the hotel, which has emerged as a factor in the recent past with the
review's coming into the picture. The amenities and Facilities were important as well with 25
and 26 respondents choosing that option as it is also a value add when considering a hotel. On
the other hand, there was one businessman who chose brand as a critical factor.
 Bar graph showing the factors considered while choosing a hotel

Interview Findings
This research interviewed experienced industry professional's working in hotels across New
Delhi and Mumbai markets this would give us a picture of the other side of the table. Most of
the hotelier's said that there has been a sudden rise in the online movement of the travelers.
Across their careers, they have seen this develop to be a critical factor, which people consider
before booking a hotel. With the high demand the hotel managers said that the impact is still
not at its peak, however, it is playing a critical part and is affecting the hotel bookings as it
get's people in dual minds. Hotelier's say that the content published online by the hotel on the
brand website and on other travel websites is not of much significance to the travelers, but the
photo's and comments written by fellow travelers post stay are most valued.
Hotels these days have started using software's to keep them up to date and to cope with the
increased traffic online. Travelers have started posting content online while they are still
staying in a particular hotel, hotelier's said that it is a great opportunity for the hotel to
recover the guest while also monitoring the activities of the guest. A general manager of the
hotel said
We are receiving almost 15-20 reviews everyday this year as compared to 5-7 reviews
everyday previous year" he also elaborated by saying that this is due to the increased number
of point of sales from food and beverage outlets to banquets to rooms. Hotels have started to
employ specific people to handle the immense amount of online content across various
channels. The software's like hotels use trust you, which is online guest experience managing
software, widely. While to monitor and improvise the guest experience software’s like local
measure which are more handson are used which track a guest's social media as a whole to
observe his comments and other online activity while also increasing your hotel's online
reach.
Inference
In the findings above we have observed that there is an upward trend of the content posted
and reviewed online. Out of the 110 respondents 104 chose to look at a travel website at the
pre-stay stage. This indicated how dependent we have become on these travel portals. While
the travel is on a rise most people prefer to read than write reviews online. People who write
reviews are very active online and are of the age group between 25- 40 years of age. While
the people who have crossed the 40-year mark do not prefer to express themselves on a
public platform. While Tripadvisor was the most popular travel website with 60%
respondents choosing it as one of the most preferred travel websites while the respondents
also chose MakeMyTrip as the second most preferred website. In India, MakeMyTrip is seen
as a popular travel portal, which offers promotions and has captured a large market share.
Tripadvisor is a key portal for checking the rate parity along with the review and content
along with photographs posted online by travelers.

Hypothesis 2- Dependency on online reviews posted on tripadvisor to

make hotel bookings and conversion of potential guest.

Survey Findings
In the second objective, we focus on the importance of online reviews in our daily lives.
These days we have been surrounded by online reviews whether we have to buy a toothbrush
or a car or for that matter a hotel room. As discussed earlier the major reason for this is the
increase in the number of options available to the end customer. In this surplus supply, the
traveler wants the best possible deal at the cheapest price, while the rating of the property
should be great as well and should have minimalistic negative reviews. As human's we have a
tendency of overlooking the good for the bad, similarly the online reviews we look for the
bad reviews and try to overlook the positive reviews of the hotel property.
The survey was filled by 110 respondents and 95% were seen to have visited a travel website
before making a hotel booking. This way they are trying to judge the property and comparing
it to other hotels available in the similar price points. This satisfies our objectives partially.
While Tripadvisor was a clear leader in the travel websites with 60% travelers reading and
writing reviews, it was also seen amongst the Indian population MakeMyTrip is also a close
second with 55% reviewing it before traveling. While booking.com and Expedia were also on
the list of 30% and 20% travelers respectively. The most important reason to visit these
websites according to 60 respondents is for planning a trip, while 40 visit these sites for a
combined purpose of planning a trip and just for fun. There was also 1 respondent who used
this website for bookings, while there was another who has only viewed these sites for fun.
 Chart showing the preferred travel websites.

In another question we also asked the effect of negative reviews about a hotel property and
how does it influence the bookings of a hotel. 5 respondents replied saying that there would
not stay in that property, which means that the online reviews are a critical decision making
factor especially if they can relate to it. While 55 out of 110 respondents said that the review
changes their opinion about the hotel or makes them search for other alternatives. This results
in these people getting in two minds to book a room at that hotel. The respondents which got
fickle minded after reading were mostly people who were above 40 years old or less than 25
years old who were mostly traveling for leisure than business. Contrastingly there were about
20% travelers who were not affected by the negative review as they look at both sides of the
picture and focus more on the positives than the negatives, these are the progressive
generation of millennial-aged between 25-40 years especially if they are from the service
industry and face similar issues in their workplace. Ahead of the negative reviews, the
respondents were also asked their opinions after reading a negative review online 50
respondents said that they feel somewhat negative about the overall impression of the hotel.
This indicates the overall image of the hotel is lost amongst these people, which need to be
rectified unless the hotel will not be a preferred choice. Further, this could lead to negative
word of mouth. While 40 people said they were neutral about it and it was not a very critical
factor to access a hotel, the respondents further said they look at the broader picture rather
than one review affecting their purchase decision.
 Bar graph showing the impact of a negative review of a hotel.

The hotel must reply to these reviews especially if the review is negative, as the person has
spared time to review your product. It does not matter if the review is of significance to the
hotel or not, the traveler must be replied to especially if it is a serious issue. In the survey the
respondents were asked what is their perception of a review without a response from the hotel
and 80% of the respondents felt negative or somewhat negative about it this is a warning for
the hotel and show's how crucial it is to reply to the reviews online unless they are bound to
lose a share of their online business. We also looked at the review in which the manager
disregarded the review and analyzed that it was a losing point for the hotel too with 72
feeling negative in some way or the other. Contrastingly it was seen that if the manager
replied diligently to the review more than 55 respondents felt positive or somewhat positive
about it, which is a green signal for the hotel and clearly an indication of the importance of
replying to the reviews online.

Bar graph showing the overall perception after reading a negative review.
Interview Findings
Taking into consideration the other side of the table the, from the hotelier's perspective it is
very critical to maintain a healthy image of the hotel online. Recently most of the hotels have
specifically employed people to manage the guest experience of the hotel as the online traffic
of reviews has significantly increased and is following the upward trend. According to a front
office manager of a hotel in New Delhi " The hotel has seen the reviews doubling up this year
as compared to the previous year" she further explained that it is extremely important to reply
to each and every review and analyze it to avoid similar incidents in the future while at the
same time protecting the hotels overall rating and reputation.
While TripAdvisor is a major review website according to the hotels MakeMyTrip also
affects certain midscale and upper midscale hotels. Tripadvisor is also used to compare the
rate parity of the hotels, which makes it even more popular amongst the travelers. Hotelier's
also told that now Google has emerged as a major review site itself and is growing in a major
way. Google now showcases as a platform, which has both reviews and various room prices
of a property. While the hotels are stuck on the fact that reviews are still not a major
disrupters for the hotels as the location and the ever-increasing demand of the cities is what
makes the hotels hit the high occupancy mark. They further added that though there are
immense competition and the supply increase, yet there are limited hotels, which offer
quality, and competitive pricing most of them belong to a chain of hotels and hence have a
huge financial backing. This way we understand that the impact is significant but not to the
level of disturbing the occupancies of the hotel.

Inference
In the end, we have a broader picture of the importance of reviews as part of the booking
decision. While the hotels say that the online reviews don't have a very high impact on the
demand of the hotel. This is because they benefit from the high demand levels of the city
while a prime location also acts as a USP and is a plus. On the other hand, the travelers in this
day and age think that the hotel must be viewed online as it is completely unknown to the
new customer and through the medium of reviews one could judge the property in a better
way. Another important aspect was that the reviews must be viewed and acknowledged by
the hotels and must be responded to irrespective of the fact whether it would add value to the
hotel or not.
They further added and said that reading a negative review about a hotel has a negative affect
on them and especially if it is not replied to by a manager. While if the manager replied to the
review but disregarded the reviewer it was not a good sign from the hotel's side and the
respondents still had a negative feeling about it. Contrastingly if the hotels replied to the
review meticulously it gave an opportunity to the hotel to recover that guest and avoiding the
negative review to overpower their decision of booking the hotel. In the end, after observing
the replies and the interviews there is still scope for the hotel to improve it's bookings if it
regularly monitors the reviews and acts on it and avoids people being influenced not to book
the hotel.
Hypothesis 3- Hotel’s attitude towards online reviews

Survey Findings
During the process of conducting this research one key factor to address was the hotel's
attitude towards the ever-rising online reviews. The trend of reviewing hotels has been
around for some time now, however, the importance to analyze these reviews has just started
in the recent past. The reviews posted on travel sites back in the days were just neglected by
the hotels as they did not think that it was important to reply to these reviews, however, they
soon realized that it was critical to respond to these reviews as they saw the reviews affecting
their sales. Gradually hotels started responding to these reviews diligently and saw a change,
which was a missed opportunity earlier.
It was seen that 104 of the guest have has an exceptional experience with a hotel, further 70%
respondents also added that they have had an extremely dissatisfying experience, these were
guest who preferred to stay in the upscale and luxury hotels and 80% had an average annual
income of above Rs. 2,000,000. The expectations of this guest were high as they paid a hefty
amount for their stay and with the emergence of the online reviews; they voiced their
comments on the internet. The hotels today are very careful about these reviews as they
spread bad word of mouth about the hotel and these guests must be handled with care. The
recovery process must take place in the attempt to retain the guest. These guest who had a
dissatisfying experience need to be compensated for and the hotel may choose different
methods to do so. 70 respondents replied saying that an apology was given against the
negative experience, while 46 were given a meal voucher as a gesture to compensate them for
the undesirable experience. Amongst the other popular steps taken included a free upgrade
and a discount to 35% and 25% respectively. This indicated that hotels compensated the
guest critically analyzing the situation while also taking the guest profile into consideration.

Chart showing the steps taken by the hotel to recover guests.

In the above paragraph, we saw what are the most common steps taken for guest recovery
against a negative experience. Now we would further look at the most preferred recovery
option according to the guest. Apology topped the list of the most preferred response to
compensate while discount and free upgrades were the 2nd and 3rd most preferred choice of
the guest while they were not same from the hotel's perspective as it is a high-cost option and
hotel restricted it to a very few guests. Meal voucher was next on the list as the 4th while spa
voucher and substitution stood 5th and 6th respectively and was the least preferred options.
The meal voucher were seen to be used by the hotels extensively after apology, as it is a cost
saver as compared to the discount or free upgrade that was a more preferred choice for the
guest.
As discussed earlier people shy from writing reviews online, they were asked if they had a
negative experience did they write a review about it to a surprise 48 respondents said that
they did not write a review about it. Another interesting factor was that the hotel did not reply
to 65% of the reviews posted, which meant that hotel was neglecting the review posted.
While some of them were replied to by the manager and most cases reported an apology for
the issue faced by the guest, while there were some that were neutral and certain positive
which also were specific and addressed the issue of the guest to which the respondents felt
obliged. When asked to rate the hotel staff on the recovery process of the negative experience
55 respondents thought that the hotel staff had good professionalism and were efficient while
about 35 thought that they were very good in their approach. Further, the guest also
mentioned that they were very responsive with 42.5% rating it a good, on the other hand,
most guest i.e. 42.5% guest thought that the staff was very polite and gave it a very good
rating. In the end, it seems that 60% of the guest were satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the
overall approach to retain the guest while 27.5% were neutral about the attitude of the hotel
and 1/8th of the guest were dissatisfied by the strategy.

Bar Graph showing the overall recovery process on various parameters

 Pie chart showing the satisfaction with the recovery process.

Interview Findings
Reviews are a necessary evil for the hotel industry, while we want it to increase our reach and
showcase our product to the customers and share our positive experiences. This also has the
other side of it which no hotel wants to face the as it is the negative comments posted about a
hotel online. The online contribution has followed an ascending trend in the past years and is
still growing at a faster pace. Hotels are reviews more than ever before, according to a hotel
manager his hotel receives an average of 20 reviews a day this is a contribution from his
guest staying in his rooms using the food and beverage outlets while some also come from
the people who use the event spaces. The guest profile who are writing these reviews are 25-
40 years old as they have seen processes evolve in front of their eyes.
In the present day, we are surrounded with technology and the hotels are using the same to
tackle the reviews with the integration of software's which help them to manage the content
posted online and analyze where are they going wrong and recover the possible missed
opportunities. The aim in the past has changed from replying to certain specific reviews to
replying to all the reviews within a stipulated time frame of 24-48 hours. The reviews, which
have a lower rating, are critically analyzed and brought to the notice of the general manager
of the hotel and a collective decision is taken to recover the guest, while a root cause analysis
is also conducted to find out why the incident occurred and how to rectify the process to
avoid similar issues in future. The hotels are taking the review business very seriously and
discuss these as part of the morning and evening meetings and the resolution with a complete
report is sent to the general manager by the concerned departmental head. This way the
problem could be countered and avoided in the future stays.
Inference
We have broadly touched upon the key aspects of the reviews and how are the dynamics are
changing, with the need to reply and analyze the reviews, which were not a practice done in
the past. Hotels have become more cautious while handling these reviews, as they are aware
that the cost of acquiring a new customer is much higher than retaining an existing customer,
hence the negatives must be turned to positives and guest must be happy to leave the hotel
and must speak well about the property. The aim at the end of the day is to reduce such
incidences and look out all the possible solutions to recover the guest. In most hotels, a root
cause analysis is followed which means the department concerned along with the
departmental head must justify and find out why the problem occurred and submit a report to
the general manager. With the evolution of technology, hotels have resorted to software’s,
which handle guest experience and could help them to get a swift action to prevent future
issues and strive for a continual increase in the positive reviews and a better rating of the
hotel.

Hypothesis 4 - Incorporation of the suggestions by the reviewers for

improvement of the hotel.

Survey Findings
The Internet has given everyone a medium to express his or her views online. While some
people have made effective use of it especially in the hotel industry with expressing their
feelings about their post stay experience in a hotel. On the contrary, for some, it is a tool,
which is destructive and is misused by many to cause harm to the hotel. The hotel industry
has faced the brunt of these negative reviews, which affect the hotel's image while also
changing the perception of the traveler who is viewing the hotel on a travel portal. The hotel
receives a very high number of reviews, which offer their views about the hotel, while certain
are generic whereas others are specific and tell the hotel to change a service or product.

Pie chart showing the likeliness of recommending a hotel to another guest.

Interview Findings
The importance of online reviews is on a rise in the hotel industry, the hotels with all the top
management value are the hotel's online image. In the past hotel's have use the no response
technique to resolve the problem however it is no longer a practice used by hotels. Hotels
have now resorted to employing skilled people to understand the dynamics of online image
and handle online review traffic. The hotels have made it mandatory to respond to online
reviews within a stipulated time frame of 24-48 hours post the review has been posted. There
is a standard template followed for the introduction and end of the response however the
body is customized according to each review. The more critical 1-3 star reviews (out of 5
stars) are reviewed by the general manager of the hotel on a daily basis while they are also
discussed in the morning meetings. The reviews are critically analyzed by the department
related to the issue addressed in the review post for which a detailed report is to be submitted
to the general manager with the action taken by the team. There is a fair bit of these reviews,
which the hotel receives in regular intervals however all the suggestions of the guests are not
implemented.

Inference
In the above analysis we discussed the importance of responding to online reviews and how it
has become a mandatory process over time due to the increasing importance to preserve the
online reputation of the hotel. This, however, does not indicate that the hotel must incorporate
all the suggestions that a guest has suggested. It was observed that although the hotel replied
to all the reviews, all the suggestions were not implements due to practical challenges, which
could also involve huge time and money that has to be invested. Suggestions ranged from
process to the structure of the hotel. The process related issues were looked into, whereas the
structural changes or change in fixed assets were not taken into consideration for the same
reasons as stated above. The hotel also did research on the reviewer to check the background
of the reviewer before taking action as they were plenty of fake reviews who just reviewed
for fun and did not have any good intention towards the betterment of the hotel. As the
example stated above regarding the check-in experience of a hotel, such changes are usually
discussed thoroughly with the general manager and are implemented to make the stay
experience better. Finally all reviews are important, however, the hotel must critically access
what to consider and what not to, hence minimizing the negative reviews online.
 Calculation of Mean and Median Review Scores

Calculation of Mean Review Score

Find the mean of this data:

1, 2, 4, 5

Start by adding the data:

1 + 2 + 4 + 5 = 12

There are 4 data points.

Mean = 12/4 = 3

The mean is 3.

Calculation of Median Review Score

Find the median of this data:

1, 4, 2, 5, 0

Put the data in order first:

0, 1, 2, 4, 5

There is an odd number of data points, so the median is the middle data point.

0, 1, 2, 4, 5

The median is 2.
Analysis of Correlation Between Service Quality And Overall Rating

Recommendations
 Conclusion:

This research was started with the aim to prove that online reviews and replying to them
impact the hotels booking behavior. This chapter will broadly summarize the findings and
analyses to answer the research question. The chapter is divided into 4 sections; the first
section gives an overview of the research and elaborates on our findings from the previous
chapter. Section two gives key recommendations, which were observed during this research,
and might help the hotels, recover it’s guests. The third section talks about the limitations of
this research paper and the final section elaborates on the scope of conducting further
research, as there is alot that can be researched on this topic research. To begin with , this
research saw the evolution of the hotel industry, which in today’s day and age has become
technology driven. A recent entrant is an online review, which as we saw started impacting
the hotels. While studying various literatures we discussed the word of mouth and its gradual
transition to electronic word of mouth as people started expressing their views on social
media.

Limitations
There is no perfect research paper as we are all bound by our limitations, being it
geographical or time bound. This research could only take a limited geographical location of
two cities i.e. New Delhi and Mumbai; however, the data could differ in other cities within
India and also outside of India. Another aspect was the time in which we were bound to do
this research. While collecting and collating data another challenge was to manage time
effectively and travel to each place to take interviews and fill questionnaires as everybody has
their own priorities. To solve this problem, this research took the help of Google surveys for
questionnaires while interviews were conducted over the phone. Although TripAdvisor is one
of the leading review sites in the world other sites also play an equally important role like
MakeMyTrip, recently Google has also emerged as a review site as told to us by one of the
general managers, hence focusing on one channel could lead to skewed results. These were
some of the limitations amongst other, which were faced during this research.

Future scope
The hotel and hospitality industry is evolving at a very fast pace, trends are changing every
day and customers are becoming more aware and demanding. There are various factors,
which concern the booking pattern of the hotel during this research we looked at one of them
i.e. online reviews, while research could be conducted on other factors such as price, location
that is equally important to make a choice. The geographical location is also another aspect,
which could change the responses the research was conducted taking India as an emerging
market with two of the most popular and high demand cities. Further research could be done
on other cities within and outside of India to study the different trends. Research could also
be done on other research sites, which are region-specific such as Ctrip in China or
MakeMyTrip in India, while Google surveys could also be researched. One could further
study on the technological advancements in the hotel industry especially software’s which
help manage the social media of the hotels. In the end, this research would conclude by
saying there is still much to be researched in the hospitality sphere as it is evolving at a rapid
pace.
The research led to clarification of many aspects related to online reviews impacting the
booking pattern of a hotel. Firstly through the research, this research found that it is critical to
respond to all the reviews now as previously hotels used to respond only to certain reviews
only. Secondly, there is a need to retain the customers who have had a negative experience in
the hotel, as they will also spread a bad word of mouth about the hotel, also the hotel’s
overall reputation is at stake. Thirdly, from the research, this research found that replying to
these reviews is an opportunity for the hotel to regain the customers but they need to
acknowledge and address the issue diligently while also offering a resolution to the problem
faced by the guest. Most guests felt positive about the hotel after the issue was addressed; this
is one of the most suitable solutions to recover the guest. Finally, as technology has a played
a vital role in today’s industry hotels have seen to employ software’s which have helped them
to improve this situation however it could be used by many other hotels to improvise the
current position, expert help could be offered a more such tools could be implemented to
solve and better the present situation.
Ethical Clearance: Not applicable
Source of Funding: Self-funded
Conflict of Interest: There is no conflict of interest among the authors

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