What have hosts overlooked for improving stay experience in accommodation-sharing? Empirical evidence from Airbnb customer reviews

Lee, Kar Hang Carmen, Tse, Ying Kei ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6174-0326, Zhang, Minhao and Wang, Yichuan 2023. What have hosts overlooked for improving stay experience in accommodation-sharing? Empirical evidence from Airbnb customer reviews. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 35 (2) , pp. 765-784. 10.1108/IJCHM-12-2021-1544

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Abstract

Purpose In accommodation-sharing, hosts must provide satisfactory stay experiences for guests, who will then express intentions to revisit (behavioral loyalty) and/or recommend the experiences to others (attitudinal loyalty) in their reviews. Through the lens of expectation-confirmation theory, this study aims to investigate the service dimensions customers focus on in their reviews and their relationships with customer-loyalty manifestations in accommodation-sharing. Design/methodology/approach This study uses topic modeling to discover distinctive dimensions from Airbnb reviews from a micro perspective and map them onto overarching themes from a macro perspective, and further examine the relationships among topics using cluster analysis. Findings This study reveals “information” as an important theme rarely mentioned in the literature. Besides, “homeliness” is a unique dimension associated with behavioral and attitudinal loyalty toward accommodation-sharing. Practical implications The findings help accommodation-sharing platforms and hosts identify customer concerns and the drivers of customer loyalty in accommodation-sharing. Originality/value In the existing literature, customer perceptions and loyalty are largely determined through surveys, and the findings are not univocal due to the inconsistencies of measurement items used, the potential response bias and limited sample sizes. This study capitalizes on the wealth of user-generated content and extracts service dimensions and customer loyalty directly from textual reviews, overcoming previous research limitations.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	Emerald
ISSN:	0959-6119
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	27 September 2022
Date of Acceptance:	5 September 2022
Last Modified:	06 Nov 2023 20:01
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/152448

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