Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management

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An Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest

Comments of Online Hotel Distribution Sites

Betsy Bender Stringam & John Gerdes Jr

To cite this article: Betsy Bender Stringam & John Gerdes Jr (2010) An Analysis of Word-of-
Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments of Online Hotel Distribution Sites, Journal of Hospitality
Marketing & Management, 19:7, 773-796, DOI: 10.1080/19368623.2010.508009

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Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 19:773–796, 2010
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1936-8623 print/1936-8631 online
DOI: 10.1080/19368623.2010.508009

An Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings

and Guest Comments of Online Hotel
Distribution Sites

BETSY BENDER STRINGAM

Department of Hotels and Resorts, School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management,
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA

JOHN GERDES, JR.

Department of Integrated Information Technology, College of Hospitality,
Retail, & Sport Management, University of South Carolina,
Columbia, South Carolina, USA

This study evaluates 60,648 consumer ratings and comments from

an online distribution site to explore what factors drive consumer
ratings of hotels. Ratings assigned by travelers were combined
with words used in their comments to bring to light the most
frequent commendations and concerns mentioned when rating
hotels. Specifically, the study yields information as to the most fre-
quently used words, as well as the pattern of word usage with either
high or low guest ratings. It also explores word choices of guests
scoring hotels at lower ratings versus higher ratings. Implications
of the differences in word choice are discussed. The results of
this study will help hotel management in allocating resources to
improve ratings and guest comments.

KEYWORDS Hotel, rating, comment, Internet, DBPM, Expedia

INTRODUCTION

Consumers often seek the opinions of like-minded consumers in purchas-

ing decisions (Misner, 1994). They seek the recommendations of family
and friends, or others who have “tried” the product or service (Murray,

Address correspondence to Betsy Bender Stringam, Department of Hotels and Resorts,

School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management, New Mexico State University, MSC
3HRTM, 129 Gerald Thomas Hall, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8003, USA. E-mail: betsys@nmsu.edu

773
774 B. B. Stringam and J. Gerdes, Jr.

1991). This feedback is referred to as word-of-mouth (WOM). Research has

shown that WOM recommendations are powerful in influencing consumers
(Helm, 2007).
The development of e-commerce or commerce over the Internet has
created a new venue for WOM recommendations (Gelb & Sundaram,
2002; Helm, 2007). The phrase “word-of-mouse,” first coined by Jon Zilber
in 1991, refers to online user generated feedback, or online WOM rec-
ommendations, using a computer mouse (as quoted in Callebaut, 2006).
Word-of-mouse recommendations differ from WOM recommendations in
their speed and breadth of distribution. While word-of-mouse recommenda-
tions are broadcast through the Internet, WOM recommendations are often
passed person to person. This makes word-of-mouse recommendations
unique in their impact. Research has shown that online word-of-mouse rec-
ommendations strongly influence purchasing decisions as well as consumer
perceptions of quality (Anderson, 1998; Gretzel, 2006; Sansoni, 1999; Tax,
Chandrashekaran, & Christiansen, 1993; Vansal, & Voyer, 2000). Almost half
of travelers shopping online report that travel reviews from other consumers
influence their purchase decision (Cannizzaro et al., 2008).
This study seeks to examine 60,648 word-of-mouse guest comments
and explore their associations to traveler assigned ratings for hotels. We use
two approaches to underpin our analysis. The first looks at word frequency
use to identify terms most frequently used by travelers, based on the premise
that words used most often are most important. The second combines the
user ratings and comments using a well known statistical approach to iden-
tify how these words are being used, i.e., in either a positive or negative
context. Specifically the study yields information as to the most frequently
used words, as well as those words that were highly associated to either
high or low traveler assigned ratings.

BACKGROUND

The online travel industry projects sales of over $56.2 billion for the year
2009, with more U.S. travel purchased online than offline (Cannizzaro et al.,
2008; Harteveldt, Stark, Sehgal, & van Geldern, 2009). In the year 2007, more
than 40 million U.S. households booked online travel (Hill & Bowling, 2007).
Hotel rooms can be reserved using the Internet through proprietary websites
of the hotel companies, or websites of third party travel intermediaries such
as Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, Venere, and so forth. The largest of these
companies, Expedia reported over 8 billion bookings in 2007 (Cannizzaro
et al., 2008). TravelClick (2008) reports 47% of hotel reservations are booked
through the Internet. In addition to making hotel reservations available
online, many of the third party travel intermediaries allow consumers to
write a short review of the hotel and provide an evaluative numerical rating.
 Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments 775

This has resulted in the public airing of guest comments. The proliferation
of Internet sites that post consumer feedback makes these guest reviews
available to millions of consumers.
Word-of-mouse recommendations have been shown to affect the pur-
chase decisions and public perception of hotels (Gretzel & Yoo, 2008).
Almost half of travelers shopping online report that word-of-mouse reviews
influence their purchase decisions (Cannizzaro et al., 2008). Several travel
industry experts posit word-of-mouse recommendations are becoming more
influential in travel decisions than those from the traditional standard rat-
ing companies (Haussman, 2007; Hendrie, 2007). One-third of all travelers
have posted a travel review online and regularly visit travel websites to seek
word-of-mouse ratings (YPartnership, 2008).
Review of guest comments or user generated feedback can help hote-
liers to improve service quality (Ford & Bach, 1997; Schall, 2003; Shea &
Roberts, 1998). In previous years the guest comment card was used for
internal quality control. Hoteliers were only able to review their own guest
comment cards, and travelers were not privy to this information. The preva-
lence of travel distribution over the Internet has provided hoteliers and
consumers alike the opportunity to review consumer generated ratings and
comments across the industry. When used together, these word-of-mouse
reviews and ratings provide a powerful tool and a wealth of data to hotel
management. Recently, this information has been used to investigate the
nature of different hotel markets. O’Connor (2008) conducted a small study
involving 100 hotels in the London hotel market. No comprehensive studies
have been conducted on the U.S. market.

Hotel Rating Systems

There are more than 100 formal and informal hotel rating systems world-
wide. Hotel ratings are managed and administered either through commer-
cial organizations, governmental agencies, or through industry associations
(Ingram, 1996; Su & Sun, 2007). In the 1960s the World Trade Organization
attempted to develop a unified or standardized global rating system. Despite
these efforts, hotels throughout the world still use a wide variety of rating
assessments (Ingram, 1996).
The hotel and lodging industry has traditionally relied on these rat-
ing systems to establish and communicate quality to consumers. (Ingram,
1996; Vallen & Vallen, 2005; Yu, 1992). While rating systems worldwide
vary, all have traditionally relied on “experts” to evaluate and rate hotels and
other forms of lodging accommodations (Haussman, 2008; Henley, Cotter,
& Herrington, 2004). In the past, consumers had little influence or effect
on hotel ratings. This has changed as the Internet now allows consumers
to turn to one another to evaluate and rate hotels. Hotels have relatively
little control over these consumer generated ratings and word-of-mouse
776 B. B. Stringam and J. Gerdes, Jr.

recommendations (Cornell Center for Hospitality Research, 2008). A hotel

with a high rating from experts or governmental systems may find them-
selves with a low consumer rating, thus downgrading the potential consumer
perception of the hotel. This has alarmed and concerned many hoteliers
(Cornell Center for Hospitality Research, 2008).
There is very little research examining hotel ratings systems. Henley
et al. (2004) found a relationship between hotel ratings and the pricing
behavior of the hotels. They found that hotels anticipating improved rat-
ings raised room rates, and hotels predicting lower ratings lowered their
room rates.

User-Generated Feedback
The best way to gain a full understanding of a customer’s feelings about
a hotel is to analyze the content of the customer’s comments (Lewis &
Pizam, 1981; Pullman, McGuire, & Cleveland, 2005). Analysis of guest com-
ments has long been used to correct omissions and errors in service and
product, and to utilize hotel resources in an effective manner (Kreck, 1998;
Lockwood, 1994). Hoteliers have found that review of the information in the
comment cards enabled them to make management decisions that resulted
in improved service operations, increased profitability of the hotel, and
increased loyalty of hotel guests (Ford & Bach, 1997; Lewis & Pizam, 1981;
Shea & Roberts, 1998).

Hotel Guest Satisfaction

While research examining word-of-mouse comments for hotels is very lim-
ited, there have been many studies examining satisfaction of the hotel
guest and product or service attributes of the hotel (Atkinson, 1998; Berry,
Zeithaml, & Parasuraman, 1990; Cardotte & Turgeon, 1988; Carneiro & Costa,
2001; Choi & Chu, 2001). Researchers found friendly front office staff, effi-
cient check-in and check-out, and restaurant and bar availability to be
influential factors in hotel satisfaction. Factors found to be the least influen-
tial hotel features included the presence of recreational amenities, business
services, and an in-room minibar (Shanka &Taylor, 2003). Lockyer (2003)
found a direct relationship between cleanliness of a hotel and the guest’s
intent to return. These studies provide insight to consumer satisfaction for
hotels. However, there is very limited research examining whether or not
these same factors drive word-of-mouse ratings.

Online Distribution of Hotel Rooms

The Internet has resulted in numerous changes to the distribution of hotel
rooms. Research has been instrumental in evaluating the quality of hotel
 Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments 777

and travel websites (Harrill & Bender, 2008; Jeong & Lambert, 1999; Jeong,
Oh, & Gregoire, 2005; Law & Cheung, 2006; Law & Hsu, 2005; O’Connor
& Frew, 2004; Park, Gretzel, & Sirakaya-Turk, 2007). Research has also
identified hotel website factors that influence purchase decisions (Bender
& Gerdes, 2007; Perdue, 2001; Wong & Law, 2005). Despite this preva-
lence of research on the distribution of hotel rooms over the internet,
only three studies have examined word-of-mouse ratings and reviews of
hotels. Pekar & Ou (2008) discuss the difficulties in deciphering online
guest comments, and propose a method for doing so. Gretzel & Yoo (2008)
found travelers who use travel review sites to have high incomes and to
travel frequently. They found review sites to be more influential in des-
tination accommodations than for accommodations utilized en-route. An
additional finding of their study revealed differences in gender and genera-
tion, namely that travel review sites had less of an impact on male travelers
and older travelers. O’Connor (2008) explored word-of-mouse comments for
100 hotels in London. He found the most frequent concerns of reviewers to
be the size of the guest room, breakfast, staff, location, bathroom, bed, and
shower.
While these studies have been insightful, they have been limited in
size and scope. The present study presents new knowledge derived from
the analysis of over 60,648 comments from 10,537 hotels in the 100 largest
U.S. cities. New knowledge is also generated by exploring the association
of user-assigned ratings with the user’s word-of-mouse comments. The pro-
posed study will assist U.S. hoteliers in understanding consumer generated
ratings and comments. It will help to determine the most common concerns
of guests when writing online word-of-mouse reviews. The study will help
hoteliers to understand which factors contribute to high traveler-assigned
ratings and which factors contribute to low traveler-assigned ratings. More
importantly, the study seeks to help hoteliers gain a better understanding of
the underlying issues that drive consumer perceptions and ratings by analyz-
ing word-of-mouse comments and comparing them to consumer-generated
ratings. The exploration of these differences can point to areas of operation
that most notably impact customer-assigned ratings. The results of this study
will help hotel management to focus their limited resources on those areas
of the hotel or service which are most frequently mentioned by guests in
comments, and to understand the association of those words to the ratings
received by the hotel.

METHODOLOGY

Data used in this study were obtained from publicly available hotel
reviews posted on the travel website expedia.com. Expedia, Inc. main-
tains one of the world’s leading online travel companies, with more
778 B. B. Stringam and J. Gerdes, Jr.

than 8.1 billion travel bookings through expedia.com reported for the
year 2007 (Cannizzaro et al., 2008). Through this online travel distribu-
tion site travelers can access information about hotels, airlines, and other
travel products. Expedia offers travelers’ reviews and ratings of hotels.
To ensure that reviews are based on first-hand experience, Expedia only
accepts reviews of a hotel from travelers who have booked and paid for
a reservation for that hotel through their website. Travelers rate overall
satisfaction, with each score based on a 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) rating
system. Travelers can also enter a “free response” comment, in which travel-
ers often describe their experiences at the hotel, in part justifying the ratings
assigned.
The source for all data used in this study was from the publicly avail-
able information available from the Expedia website. During the period
December 18–29, 2007 an automated web spider (Gerdes & Bender, 2008)
visited expedia.com and collected traveler reviews for all hotels listed by
Expedia for the 100 largest U.S. cities, as defined by the most recent U.S.
Census Bureau population estimate (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007). The spi-
der gathered all available traveler comments and associated ratings for each
hotel, adhering to the site’s Robot Exclusion Standard restrictions (Koster,
2007). This included Expedia’s overall rating for the hotel, average traveler
overall satisfaction, and all available data for each traveler review, consisting
of the traveler’s overall rating for the hotel, and any free response com-
ments. During this time the spider collected data on 10,537 hotels and 60,648
customer comments from the Expedia site.
After the collection of the hotel critiques, the extraction process iden-
tified all unique words contained in the text comments. Word extraction
was done asynchronously from the data collection. While the researchers
developed an application to extract the words from the user comments,
commercial text analysis software could have been used to extract the words
from the traveler reviews (see Neuendorf, 2007). This process identified
6,642 unique words, ignoring capitalization.
The intent of the study was to identify actionable words: those that
would suggest areas where a hotel could take action and thereby improve
their customer satisfaction. Determining these words was a two-step pro-
cess. In the first step we identified those words that are used differently
by travelers—that is words that are used statistically more often in either
positive or negative comments, designated as either positive or negative
words, respectively. Words that did not exhibit a statistical difference in
usage were considered neutral words. These neutral words were not of
interest in this study, and therefore we wanted to eliminate them from the
analysis. To test word dispersion and screen out these neutral words we
used the difference between proportions method (DBPM) to compare the
frequency of word usage in the positive versus negative reviews (see dis-
cussion of this approach in Gerdes, Stringam, & Brookshire, 2008). This
 Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments 779

involved separating the reviews into three categories (positive, negative,

and neutral reviews) based on the traveler’s overall rating. Ratings of 1 or 2
were designated as negative; ratings of 4 or 5 designated as positive; and rat-
ings of 3 designated as neutral. Word usage totals were then found for each
category. Frequencies were found by dividing these totals by the number
of reviews in that category. The z-statistic indicated the difference between
the two proportions. A value of α = 0.01 was used to distinguish significant
versus nonsignificant words.
The second step in the word selection process was to determine if the
words were actionable. Four independent coders reviewed all the candi-
date words found in the first step and coded them as either meaningful or
not. Words coded as meaningful by all four coders were retained, result-
ing in a list of 134 words used in the word frequency analysis. Of the
60,648 comments, 48,505 contained one or more of these meaningful words.
We used this reduced set of comments as the basis of analysis for our
study.
The significance of travelers’ word usage was analyzed two ways.
The first research question sought to identify the most common terms used
by travelers. A simple frequency analysis of the words was conducted, with-
out considering the quantitative rating information. This method is based
on the premise that words which are used more frequently address issues
of higher importance (Ryan & Bernard, 2003). Word frequencies were cal-
culated across the set of nondifferentiated comments, yielding those words
used most frequently in the travelers’ comments.
The second research question sought to determine if there were words
used more often by travelers when assigning a lower (or higher) rating to a
hotel. For this analysis we used the set of comments that was partitioned into
five categories based on the traveler’s overall satisfaction rating. For each of
the five categories, the word frequency was calculated by dividing the word
observation count by the total number of comments for the category. Word
Ranking was also calculated for each word within each group. The word
most frequently used within each group was ranked 1, the second most
frequent word ranked 2, etc.
To determine if there was a significant difference in word usage by
travelers assigning ratings we turned to the difference between proportions
method used previously in the word list creation process. With this technique
it is possible to determine if words are used statistically more frequently in
positive or negative comments.
As with the word selection process, critiques were partitioned into three
groups based on the traveler’s overall satisfaction rating. Ratings of 1 or
2 were characterized as negative ratings (n = 6,588 or 13.6%), ratings of 3
were characterized as neutral (n = 6,676 or 13.7%), and ratings of 4 or 5
were characterized as positive ratings (n = 35,241 or 72.7%). While DBPM
analysis uses the quantitative responses to identify actionable words and
780 B. B. Stringam and J. Gerdes, Jr.

themes, neutral responses do not suggest a direction of improvement, and

therefore were omitted from the analysis (Gerdes et al., 2008). For both the
negative and positive ratings categories, the word frequency was calculated
by dividing the word count by the number of critiques in the category.
This normalizes the number of word observances to account for the dif-
ferent number of critiques in each category. These proportions were then
compared to determine if the word was used statistically more frequently
in negative versus positive comments, and vice versa, using the test for a
difference between proportions (Hamburg, 1989). The analysis utilized a
two-tailed test, α = 0.01, (99% confidence interval). Words associated with
negative comments were referred to as negative indicators and were identi-
fied as such by the negative sign of the calculated z-statistic. Similarly, words
associated with positive comments were referred to as positive indicators
and have a positive z-statistic.

RESULTS

Tables 1–6 provide details of the word usage from the traveler comments
posted on Expedia. Recall that when we applied the DBPM technique the
traveler comments were categorized into three groups based on the traveler’s
overall rating. This allowed the identification of words with statistically sig-
nificant usage patterns. However, for the analysis results, the detailed data
for all five traveler ratings are relevant, and thus are presented.
Table 1 provides a simple word frequency analysis of the words, inde-
pendent of the traveler’s overall rating. Table 2 provides the word usage
pattern, taking into account the traveler’s overall rating. Note that the sig-
nificance of different issues changes as the traveler rating changes. Many
of the terms listed when the traveler had an overall rating of 1 addresses
housekeeping issues (i.e., dirt, clean, smell, stain, broken, mold), while these
issues were less prominent at the higher traveler ratings. Of these six words,
only smell shows up as the 15th most frequent word when travelers rated
the hotel as 3, and none of the terms showed up in the top 15 words when
reviews had ratings of 4 or 5.
Table 3 provides the word occurrence count for each of the traveler
review ratings. Table 4 gives this same information as word frequencies,
where the word count is divided by the number of comments with the same
traveler rating. Table 5 provides the rank for each of these words based
on the word frequency observed in each of the review ratings categories.
Finally, Table 6 summarizes the results of the difference between proportions
analysis, listing the z-statistic. The sign of the z-score indicates the direction
that word usage was skewed. A positive (negative) direction indicates that
the word was used more frequently in positive (negative) comments than
negative (positive) comments.
 Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments 781

TABLE 1 Fifty Most Frequently-used Words in 60,648 Hotel

Review Comments

Word Count Rank Frequency

Clean 15, 307 1 31.6%

Staff 12, 981 2 26.8%
Breakfast 7, 544 3 15.6%
Bed 6, 850 4 14.1%
Price 5, 600 5 11.5%
Restaurant 4, 152 6 8.6%
Pool 3, 918 7 8.1%
Bathroom 3, 126 8 6.4%
Airport 2, 862 9 5.9%
Downtown 2, 178 10 4.5%
View 1, 992 11 4.1%
Shopping 1, 585 12 3.3%
Shower 1, 526 13 3.1%
Dirt 1, 276 14 2.6%
Coffee 1, 149 15 2.4%
Towel 1, 075 16 2.2%
Noise 1, 030 17 2.1%
Smell 1, 004 18 2.1%
Courteous 986 19 2.0%
Pillow 980 20 2.0%
Buffet 916 21 1.9%
Noisy 851 22 1.8%
Attractions 832 23 1.7%
Smoke 802 24 1.7%
Accommodating 788 25 1.6%
Pay 749 26 1.5%
Expensive 740 27 1.5%
Mall 733 28 1.5%
Cheap 651 29 1.3%
Employee 638 30 1.3%
Eat 621 31 1.3%
Rate 599 32 1.2%
Decor 584 33 1.2%
Dine 583 34 1.2%
Sheet 573 35 1.2%
Valet 550 36 1.1%
Disney 514 37 1.1%
Toilet 495 38 1.0%
Clerk 490 39 1.0%
Refrigerator 485 40 1.0%
Stain 484 41 1.0%
Broken 478 42 1.0%
Bath 472 43 1.0%
Bus 461 44 1.0%
Affordable 457 45 0.9%
Store 452 46 0.9%
Cost 426 47 0.9%
Shops 423 48 0.9%
Sink 422 49 0.9%
Dinner 414 50 0.9%
 TABLE 2 Top 15 Words and their Frequencies When Travelers Rated Hotels from 1–5

Frequency Frequency Frequency Frequency Frequency

Words (%) Words (%) Words (%) Words (%) Words (%)

Rating of 1 Rating of 2 Rating of 3 Rating of 4 Rating of 5

Dirt 21.3 Clean 19.5 Clean 27.3 Clean 35.5 Staff 35.8
Bed 18.4 Bed 16.6 Staff 17.2 Staff 25.1 Clean 34.3
Clean 16.8 Staff 14.6 Price 15.0 Breakfast 17.7 Breakfast 17.2
Bathroom 13.4 Bathroom 13.8 Bed 14.7 Price 13.7 Bed 13.9
Staff 12.6 Breakfast 10.1 Breakfast 12.7 Bed 12.8 Price 10.2
Smell 11.1 Dirt 9.2 Bathroom 9.5 Restaurant 9.6 Restaurant 10.1

782
Shower 8.2 Price 8.2 Pool 7.0 Pool 9.1 Pool 8.7
Towel 6.8 Shower 7.0 Restaurant 6.9 Airport 6.7 Airport 6.0
Breakfast 6.2 Smell 6.8 Airport 5.8 Bathroom 5.6 View 5.4
Smoke 6.2 Towel 5.7 Shower 5.2 Downtown 5.5 Downtown 5.1
Sheet 5.6 Pool 5.0 Towel 3.6 View 4.0 Shopping 4.2
Stain 5.6 Noisy 4.3 Downtown 3.6 Shopping 3.9 Bathroom 3.7
Broken 5.2 Airport 4.2 Noisy 3.4 Shower 2.6 Courteous 3.0
Price 5.0 Smoke 4.1 Noise 3.3 Coffee 2.5 Accommodating 2.5
Mold 4.6 Restaurant 3.8 Smell 3.1 Noise 2.2 Buffet 2.4
 Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments 783

ANALYSIS OF THE DATA

There was evidence that the word selection in traveler comments changed
as their ratings changed (see Tables 3 and 4). Several patterns are evident
in the data. Words regarding lack of cleanliness (dirt, smell, stain, smoke,
mold, etc.) appear more frequently when travelers assigned a lower rating,
and decrease in frequency as the travelers’ ratings increase. When travelers
assigned the hotel a high rating, the words dirt, smell, stain, and mold were
mentioned in less than 0.5% of the comments. In fact, dirt was the most
common word used by travelers in comments when rating a hotel level 1
(21.3% of the comments), but decreases to 0.2% of the traveler comments
on hotels they rated as level 5. In contrast, the word clean was the second
most frequently used word in level 5 critiques. The higher the rating, the
more often the word clean was used.
Travelers tended to discuss the hotel room bed and its components (i.e.,
sheet, pillow, blanket, mattress, linen, and bedspread) more frequently when

TABLE 3 Count of Word Occurrence for the Different Traveler Ratings

Word Rating 1 Rating 2 Rating 3 Rating 4 Rating 5 Sum

Dirt 554 366 203 112 41 1,276

Bed 479 661 981 2,023 2,706 6,850
Clean 437 775 1,822 5,592 6,681 15,307
Bathroom 349 550 634 880 713 3,126
Staff 327 581 1,150 3,950 6,973 12,981
Smell 289 271 206 143 95 1,004
Shower 213 277 350 402 284 1,526
Towel 178 227 239 260 171 1,075
Breakfast 162 402 848 2,786 3,346 7,544
Smoke 162 165 173 184 118 802
Sheet 146 123 119 107 78 573
Stain 145 141 118 64 16 484
Broken 136 148 105 67 22 478
Price 131 326 1,001 2,156 1,986 5,600
Mold 120 89 77 38 12 336
Pool 120 199 468 1,437 1,694 3,918
Noisy 99 171 228 260 93 851
Toilet 93 145 113 97 47 495
Airport 78 166 389 1,053 1,176 2,862
Pillow 72 97 128 279 404 980
Sink 70 99 88 101 64 422
Noise 68 139 218 346 259 1,030
Clerk 66 74 77 137 136 490
Coffee 65 130 195 389 370 1,149
Ceiling 60 49 58 40 28 235
Pay 60 108 178 249 154 749
Restaurant 55 153 461 1,518 1,965 4,152
Manager 54 38 45 58 62 257
Cockroach 54 30 19 8 2 113
Musty 51 91 57 47 16 262
784 B. B. Stringam and J. Gerdes, Jr.

TABLE 4 Percentage of Word Occurrence Frequency for the Different Traveler Ratings

Word Rating 1 Rating 2 Rating 3 Rating 4 Rating 5

Dirt 21.3 9.2 3.0 0.7 0.2

Bed 18.4 16.6 14.7 12.8 13.9
Clean 16.8 19.5 27.3 35.5 34.3
Bathroom 13.4 13.8 9.5 5.6 3.7
Staff 12.6 14.6 17.2 25.1 35.8
Smell 11.1 6.8 3.1 0.9 0.5
Shower 8.2 7.0 5.2 2.6 1.5
Towel 6.8 5.7 3.6 1.7 0.9
Breakfast 6.2 10.1 12.7 17.7 17.2
Smoke 6.2 4.1 2.6 1.2 0.6
Sheet 5.6 3.1 1.8 0.7 0.4
Stain 5.6 3.5 1.8 0.4 0.1
Broken 5.2 3.7 1.6 0.4 0.1
Price 5.0 8.2 15.0 13.7 10.2
Mold 4.6 2.2 1.2 0.2 0.1
Pool 4.6 5.0 7.0 9.1 8.7
Noisy 3.8 4.3 3.4 1.7 0.5
Toilet 3.6 3.6 1.7 0.6 0.2
Airport 3.0 4.2 5.8 6.7 6.0
Pillow 2.8 2.4 1.9 1.8 2.1
Sink 2.7 2.5 1.3 0.6 0.3
Noise 2.6 3.5 3.3 2.2 1.3
Clerk 2.5 1.9 1.2 0.9 0.7
Coffee 2.5 3.3 2.9 2.5 1.9
Ceiling 2.3 1.2 0.9 0.3 0.1
Pay 2.3 2.7 2.7 1.6 0.8
Restaurant 2.1 3.8 6.9 9.6 10.1
Manager 2.1 1.0 0.7 0.4 0.3
Cockroach 2.1 0.8 0.3 0.1 0.0
Musty 2.0 2.3 0.9 0.3 0.1

assigning lower ratings than for higher ratings. A similar pattern can be found
for bathroom. The word bathroom and its components (i.e., sink, shower,
toilet, and towel) were all among the top 25 most frequently used words in
level one rated comments, and in each case their frequency decreased as
the traveler ratings increased. The words shower and towel followed a sim-
ilar pattern with a higher frequency at lower ratings and a lower frequency
at higher ratings. Nevertheless regardless of rating, the word bed was men-
tioned more often than the word bathroom. While the bed was the 2nd
most frequently mentioned word for hotels rated levels 1 and 2, it was also
mentioned as the 5th and 4th most frequent word for hotels rated levels 4
and 5, respectively.
Further into the data, similar patterns exist. The words cockroach,
musty, bugs, leak, maintenance, odor, fix, and ants were each mentioned
in less than 5% of the level 5 rating comments.
 Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments 785

A reverse pattern exists for words describing certain elements of service.

Words such as accommodating, attentive, and courteous were mentioned
more often by travelers when rating a hotel a level 5, than for lower ratings.
The word staff was important in all comments categories, ranking
among the top five mentioned words in each case, and was the highest
ranked word when travelers assigned the hotel a level 5 rating. While travel-
ers expect good service to begin with, when elements of service fail travelers
expect the staff of the hotel to assist in the service recovery. The high
frequency of the word staff in all guest comments, across all the ratings
highlights this expectation. Travelers also expect management to assist in
service recovery. The word manager appears more often when travelers
assigned a lower rating.
Travelers also assigned hotels a higher rating when they used words
relating to the location or convenience of the hotel. Words such as airport,
downtown, mall, shopping, shops, store, bus, and attractions appear more
often when travelers assigned a higher rating than a lower rating.
Other factors were important to travelers when rating hotels. Travelers
consider breakfast often when rating hotels. The word breakfast maintains
a high frequency across all ratings categories, scoring within the top 10 fre-
quency rankings for each rating category (see Table 5). With the exception
of the word pool, recreation amenities of a hotel were not mentioned fre-
quently by travelers, regardless of the traveler’s rating. The frequency of the
word pool varied from 4.6% to 9.1%, with frequency tending to increase
with traveler rating.
When the data was analyzed to identify statistically significant differ-
ences in word usage patterns, the results reinforce the patterns observed in
the word frequencies. This analysis shows that travelers’ use words related
to lack of cleanliness (dirt, mold, smoke, musty, odor) were all negative indi-
cators, showing up statistically more often in low rated comments than in
high rated comments. This was evidenced by the words’ negative z-statistics
as shown in Table 6. As with the frequency analysis, the word clean was
found to be a positive indicator, with significant and positive z-statistics.
Some words were used frequently regardless of the traveler rating, such
as employee, rate, valet, refrigerator, cost, drink, queen, and balcony. While
these words may be important, their pattern of use in the comments studied
did not suggest a positive or negative influence on the ratings. The DBPM
approach screens these words out, and focuses attention on words which
were used differently depending on the traveler’s rating. In the case of these
words, their calculated z-statistic did not reach the 2.58 threshold for sig-
nificance. This means that their usage is not statistically different between
positive and negative ratings.
Based on the DBPM analysis, words which are negative indicators
included (in order of significance) dirt, smell, stain, broken, mold, bathroom,
786 B. B. Stringam and J. Gerdes, Jr.

TABLE 5 Word Ranking Based on Occurrence Frequency for

the Different Traveler Ratings

Traveler assigned rating

Word 1 2 3 4 5

Dirt 1a 6b 16 49 85
Bed 2a 2a 4a 5a 4a
Clean 3a 1a 1a 1a 2a
Bathroom 4a 4a 6b 9b 12
Staff 5a 3a 2a 2a 1a
Smell 6b 9b 15 42 60
Shower 7b 8b 10b 13 23
Towel 8b 10b 11 22 39
Breakfast 9b 5a 5a 3a 3a
Smoke 10b 14 21 33 53
Sheet 11 22 25 53 64
Stain 12 18 26 80 100
Broken 13 16 29 77 96
Price 14 7b 3a 4a 5a
Mold 15 28 37 93 103
Pool 16 11 7b 7b 7b
Noisy 17 12 13 21 61
Toilet 18 17 27 57 81
Airport 19 13 9b 8b 8b
Pillow 20 25 23 19 16
Sink 21 24 34 55 70
Noise 22 19 14 15 25
Clerk 23 30 38 44 47
Coffee 24 20 17 14 18
Ceiling 25 41 53 92 93
Pay 26 23 20 24 43
Restaurant 27 15 8b 6b 6b
Manager 28 50 68 81 72
Cockroach 29 61 93 112 116
Musty 30 27 56 90 101
Bugs 31 59 99 103 104
Maintenance 32 26 28 52 78
Leak 33 37 62 96 105
Odor 34 35 61 84 99
Cheap 35 21 19 30 57
Expensive 36 36 22 23 29
Bath 37 32 30 40 54
Mattress 38 33 48 66 68
Linen 39 38 71 73 45
Bathtub 40 44 66 86 92
Employee 41 39 47 34 20
Fix 42 48 69 95 98
View 43 29 18 11 9b
Charge 44 49 54 60 80
AC 45 34 52 64 74
Blanket 46 40 74 97 90
Maid 47 42 45 61 62
Security 48 56 67 83 66
Rate 49 43 36 27 30
(Continued)
 Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments 787

TABLE 5 (Continued)

Traveler assigned rating

Word 1 2 3 4 5

Ants 50 69 91 104 114

Cost 51 46 32 43 48
Downtown 52 31 12 10b 10b
Valet 53 51 46 31 31
Bedding 54 62 72 79 55
Queen 55 66 55 45 56
Bedspread 56 86 97 106 102
Fixed 57 52 63 82 97
Damp 58 75 98 109 118
Iron 59 53 70 76 76
Refrigerator 60 45 33 38 38
Dust 61 64 81 110 108
Drink 62 73 58 41 44
Disrepair 63 90 119 113 125
Eat 64 60 44 25 24
Urine 65 80 108 123 128
Fee 66 74 80 71 75
Blood 67 105 112 130 113
Closet 68 58 76 78 87
Reeked 69 79 105 115
Balcony 70 77 79 50 41
Cable 71 65 50 62 58
Comforter 72 72 94 100 91
Disney 73 93 60 32 26
Dine 74 78 57 28 22
Dinner 75 85 64 46 34
Decor 76 55 39 36 21
Refund 77 120 124 128
Remodel 78 47 59 56 51
Dresser 79 104 104 107 110
Courteous 80 67 43 18 13
a
Word is in the top 5 in usage frequency for the given traveler assigned
rating.
b
Word ranked from 6 to 10 in usage frequency.

towel, sheet, smoke, toilet, shower, musty, cockroach, noisy, leak, and sink.
When comparing word use between high and low ratings, the word bath-
room and its components appear significantly more often when travelers
assigned lower ratings. Consistent with the frequency analysis results, terms
related to the bathroom, including towel, toilet, shower, and sink were all
found to be negative indicators. In this study, travelers primarily mentioned
the bathroom in conjunction with negative comments. This may suggest a
hotel should focus its resources on the guest bathroom to avoid travelers
reducing their rating based on the state of the bathroom.
788 B. B. Stringam and J. Gerdes, Jr.

TABLE 6 z-statistic Comparing Word Frequency at

Lower Ratings versus Higher Ratings

Word z

Dirt (63.762)
Smell (42.615)
Stain (32.912)
Broken (32.162)
Mold (28.782)
Bathroom (28.723)
Staff 28.473
Towel (26.215)
Clean 26.187
Sheet (25.584)
Smoke (25.139)
Toilet (25.093)
Shower (24.749)
Musty (21.087)
Cockroach (19.614)
Noisy (19.046)
Leak (18.307)
Breakfast 17.959
Restaurant 17.667
Sink (17.554)
Bugs (17.190)
Ceiling (16.775)
Odor (16.391)
Maintenance (14.594)
Shopping 14.097
Blanket (13.575)
Downtown 13.374
Fix (12.995)
Urine (12.927)
Dust (12.642)
Ants (12.527)
Reeked (12.252)
Cheap (12.095)
Bathtub (12.060)
View 11.601
Price 11.471
Damp (11.314)
Manager (11.079)
Pool 10.948
Disrepair (10.914)
Mattress (10.568)
Clerk (10.175)
AC (10.085)
Courteous 10.031
Blood (9.908)
Accommodating 9.545
Pay (9.031)
Attractions 8.996
Bedspread (8.932)
Buffet 8.690
Bed (8.334)
(Continued)
 Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments 789

TABLE 6 (Continued)

Word z

Mall 8.288
Airport 8.280
Refund (7.922)
Fixed (7.912)
Noise (7.697)
Apology (7.672)
Threadbare (7.541)
Bath (7.493)
Charge (7.298)
Maid (7.166)
Attentive 7.074
Shops 6.990
Linen (6.923)
Chipped (6.832)
Unprofessional (6.662)
Dine 6.606
Security (6.602)
Stench (6.447)
Atmosphere 6.406
Disney 6.391
Damage (6.292)
Decorated 6.276
Credit (6.097)
Blinds (5.821)
Note. All terms significant at α = 0.05.

The DBPM method indicates similar results for the word bed and its
components. Attesting to its importance in the travelers’ impression of the
hotel, the word bed was the 4th most frequently used word across all com-
ments. We found that bed was in the top five most frequently mentioned
words in each rating category, with an inverse association between word
use and traveler rating. The DBPM method identifies the difference observed
as significant, with this significance extending to words associated with bed,
such as sheet, blanket, comforter, pillow, and bedspread. Bedding, while just
missing being seen as significant (z = 2.426), is tagged as a negative indi-
cator. While the word bed and its components were high in frequency in
traveler comments overall, their significance when compared in word use
between ratings was not as high. This may indicate that while the bed is
high in importance, the guest’s satisfaction with the bed and its components
is not as likely to influence the traveler rating as the bathroom. While a hotel
cannot ignore the bed, its condition or quality, the bathroom and the overall
cleanliness of the hotel may have more affect on the rating given the hotel
by travelers, than the bed.
While lack of cleanliness is universally understood to lower a trav-
eler’s opinion of a hotel, what helps a hotel to attain high rating from a
790 B. B. Stringam and J. Gerdes, Jr.

traveler is found to be more diverse. When travelers assigned a hotel a

higher rating, the words which appeared significantly more often include
staff, clean, breakfast, restaurant, shopping, downtown, view, price, pool,
courteous, accommodating, attractions, buffet, mall, airport, attentive, and
shops (see the positive terms in Table 6). The data suggest several areas
of importance to travelers, and consequently hoteliers. As in the frequency
data, travelers assigning hotels a higher rating were more likely to use words
concerning the staff, service, and location of the hotel. Food and beverage
service is mentioned significantly more often in comments accompanied by
higher ratings than lower. Price was also mentioned significantly more often
in comments accompanying higher ratings than lower. Its appearance as a
positive factor may have several meanings. The researchers would recom-
mend further analysis of the comments with the word price to determine
how pricing affects the travelers’ rating of the hotel.
Some patterns in word use detected in the frequency analysis were
found not to be statistically significant. A total of 29 words identified in
the frequency analysis had absolute z-statistics lower than 2.58, and were
therefore identified as nonsignificant. This means that while their overall
usage was high, their usage in positive and negative comments was not
significantly different.

IMPLICATIONS

Hoteliers have expressed concern over their seeming lack of control of

ratings that has resulted with the movement to a word-of-mouse recommen-
dation and rating system. Ratings contribute to the profitability of a hotel. By
reviewing word-of-mouse recommendations and their association to trav-
eler assigned ratings hoteliers have knowledge concerning which factors
contribute towards high and low ratings.
Cleanliness of the hotel overall was a frequent concern in travelers’
comments. Words about lack of cleanliness appeared more frequently when
guests assigned hotels a lower rate. Hotel management should be aware of
the guest’s concern for cleanliness and allocate resources appropriately to
the Housekeeping department. Within the guest room, the bathroom and
its items were more likely to be associated with lower ratings than those
of the bed or the remainder of the guest room. This finding is important
given the recent bedding wars in hotel amenities. The data from this study
suggests that a hotel with limited resources should focus its resources on
the bathroom and overall cleanliness of the hotel in order to achieve higher
ratings from travelers. While bedding is important, the results of this study
suggest that a hotelier faced with limited resources would achieve higher
 Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments 791

ratings if more resources were allocated towards the cleaning of the guest
room bathroom, than to the bed.
Travelers in this study were more likely to assign higher ratings to hotels
convenient to attractions, shopping, airports, and downtown. While a hotel
cannot change its location, it can assist guests in realizing and utilizing its
convenience to local amenities. With a high importance placed on location,
hoteliers may also find that emphasizing a hotel’s location relative to com-
munity amenities to be an effective marketing tool. In this study the mention
of location positively influenced the rating received by the hotel.
Food and beverage offerings of a hotel were significantly more likely
to be associated with higher ratings than lower ratings. The data suggests
that guests can be positively influenced by quality food and beverage. When
travelers are pleased with the food and beverage offerings of a hotel and
surrounding restaurants, they rate the hotel higher. Yet, the lack of food and
beverage offerings may not in and of itself cause a traveler to give the hotel
a low rating. The word breakfast was mentioned frequently regardless of
rating, and the only food menu item to appear significantly more often in
higher ratings was waffles. This would suggest that hoteliers pay attention
to the breakfast offerings, and in particular that the investment in a waffle
machine may help to attain higher ratings.
When hotel staff is “courteous,” “accommodating,” or “attentive,” travel-
ers reward the hotel with higher ratings. Hotels can emphasize these specific
words in training to help achieve higher ratings. While not high in sig-
nificance, the words refund and apology were negatively associated with
ratings. This suggests that when service recovery is not attained, the traveler
is likely to rate the hotel lower. Similarly, training in service recovery will
likely assist a hotel in achieving a higher rating.

SUMMARY, LIMITATIONS, AND FUTURE RESEARCH

In this article we explored over 60,000 comments and ratings made by travel-
ers on an online distribution site in an attempt to find which factors influence
consumer ratings of hotels. This is one of the first studies that integrates the
consumer rating with the comment narrative. We find that using this inte-
grative approach, the ranking of issues is not the same as one would get
using a simple word frequency analysis. This suggests that utilizing both the
quantitative and qualitative reviews provides a different perspective of those
factors which impact the travelers’ opinions.
We find that the word usage of travelers when rating hotels exhibits
several patterns. The lack of cleanliness of a hotel was the most frequent
concern of travelers. Travelers were also concerned with bathrooms and
792 B. B. Stringam and J. Gerdes, Jr.

beds. When travelers mentioned the bathroom and its associated ameni-
ties, they were more likely to have assigned a lower rating to the hotel.
Travelers in this study assigned higher ratings more often when mentioning a
hotel’s convenience to attractions, shopping, airports, and downtown. Food
and beverage items were mentioned significantly more often in comments
associated with higher ratings. Breakfast and waffles were frequently men-
tioned by travelers. The hotel staff and management were mentioned often,
regardless of rating. However, words related to attentive service occurred
in significantly more comments associated with higher ratings than lower
ratings.
This study has some limitations. The study was explorative in nature,
focusing on a single distributor at a single point in time. The results of this
study warrant further analysis. For example, it did not consider the different
segments of the hotel industry. This study was limited in its analysis as it
did not examine the context of the comments or how each word was used.
Thus while frequencies of word use were analyzed, the intention of the
words was not determined. For instance a traveler could comment that a
room was “not dirty,” and the analysis would count the words not and dirty
separately. Due to the sample size, the detailed analysis of each comment
was not feasible. Future studies could utilize smaller samples and analyze
the context of the words used. Likewise future studies could examine in
detail the word use of a specific word found to be significant in the study
such as bathrooms. Future research could revisit those comments and assess
the usage context.
There were other limitations to this study. The study only utilized cities
in the United States, and the analysis was restricted to one distribution web-
site. Further analysis using other websites, and other countries would help
to validate the findings.
This study conducted an overall analysis of guest comments and ratings.
Segmenting the data by hotel classification or other market segmenta-
tion may reveal other patterns not evident across the entire hotel market.
For instance, the mention of recreational amenities was infrequent, with
the exception of the word pool. However it would be expected that com-
ments about resort hotels would show more frequent mention of recreational
items, and perhaps certain recreational amenities would be found to have
an association with high or low ratings.
While traveler rating sites try to limit their ratings to only those guests
making reservations through their websites, it is known that stuffing of the
ballots and intentional property slander exists (O’Connor, 2008). Despite
Expedia’s reservation requirement for reviewing hotels, it is possible that
some comments from travelers could be biased comments from the hotel
personnel itself, or from competing hotels. No attempt was made to filter
out these comments. Further work is needed to identify the impact of these
biased comments on the online guest feedback systems.
 Analysis of Word-of-Mouse Ratings and Guest Comments 793

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