International Journal of Hospitality Management 35 (2013) 4447

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International Journal of Hospitality Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman

Research note

A social media analysis of the contribution of destinations to client

satisfaction with hotels
Jacques Bulchand-Gidumal , Santiago Melin-Gonzlez 1 ,
Beatriz Gonzlez Lopez-Valcarcel 2
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Facultad de Economa, Empresa y Turismo, Campus Universitario de Tara, 35018 Las Palmas de G.C., Spain

a r t i c l e
Keywords:
Hotels
Social media
TripAdvisor
DMO
Hoteliers
Client satisfaction

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
To what extent do the ratings of hotels in social media depend on the hotels themselves and to what
extent do they depend on the destination of the hotel? That is, if we were able to place a hotel with the
same characteristics and services at two different destinations, would both have the same rating or would
they differ? By using multilevel regression analysis, we have quantied the extent to which differences
in client satisfaction with hotels can be attributed to the destination in which the hotels are located.
We have measured this through ratings provided through social media outlets. Data downloaded from
TripAdvisor from a sample of 7173 hotels were used. After controlling for specic variables, an 11.38%
of the variance could be attributed to the destination. Thus, both hotels and destination management
organizations (DMOs) are involved in client satisfaction and must work jointly to secure it.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The importance of social media in clients decisions is quite clear
these days. Recent studies have proven that good ratings in social
media have a direct impact on sales (Ye et al., 2011). Thus, the ability
to address social media challenges relates to hotel performance.
In this sense, there is no doubt about the importance of hotel
destination in determining client satisfaction. As Rigall-I-Torrent
and Fluvia (2011, p. 244) state, since tourism products must be consumed where they are produced, the physical environment where
the production or consumption takes place also matters. However,
one issue that has not been dealt with up to now is the measurement of the importance of the destination in the ratings hotels
achieve.
In other words, there is consensus on the fact that the infrastructure of the hotel, the quality of its rooms and services, and
the staff service quality are key factors affecting client satisfaction
(Choi and Chu, 2001). There is also consensus on the fact that the
destinations natural attractions and infrastructure, the entertaining and events available, the educational level of the population, the
care of natural physical resources and the cultural attractions at the
destination also contribute to client satisfaction (Chi and Qu, 2008;

Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 928 458958; fax: +34 928 451022.
E-mail addresses: jbulchand@dede.ulpgc.es, jacques.bulchand@gmail.com
(J. Bulchand-Gidumal), smelian@dede.ulpgc.es (S. Melin-Gonzlez),
bvalcarcel@dmc.ulpgc.es (B.G. Lopez-Valcarcel).
1
Tel.: +34 928 451784; fax: +34 928 451022.
2
Tel.: +34 928 452821; fax: +34 928 451022.
0278-4319/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2013.05.003

Ritchie and Crouch, 2003; Yoon and Uysal, 2005). But what is the
relative importance of each of these two sets of variables? To put
it in another way, if we were able to place a hotel with the same
characteristics and services at two different destinations, would
both have the same rating or would the rating differ? And if it did
differ, how much variation would there be?
Multilevel analysis allows us to answer this question by separating statistical effects specic to the individual (i.e. the hotel) and
those common to all individuals, or to the group, also referred to as
population effects (i.e. the destination).
To measure client satisfaction we have turned to eWOM, a
widespread behaviour among tourists. WOM and eWOM have been
found to have a great impact on the likelihood of a purchase (Buttle,
1998; Litvin et al., 2008; Lee et al., 2008; Doh and Hwang, 2009;
Steffes and Burgee, 2009; Karakaya and Barnes, 2010). eWOM has
also been found to be more effective than communication generated from marketing carried out by companies (Allsop et al., 2007;
Karakaya and Barnes, 2010), since it reects the satisfaction of
peers.
Specically in the tourism sector, several websites include client
reviews of services received, including lodging, transportation, and
dining. Out of them, TripAdvisor stands out: it represents the largest
travel community in the world, with more than thirty-ve million
visitors per month and more than forty-ve million reviews and
opinions (TripAdvisor, 2011).
2. Method
In March 2010, we downloaded from TripAdvisor all the information pertaining to the online reviews of hotels in all the 830

J. Bulchand-Gidumal et al. / International Journal of Hospitality Management 35 (2013) 4447

45

Table 1
Sample characteristics.
Source
Date of data collection
Data collection

TripAdvisor
March 2010
Automated
Initial

After hotel selection

Tourist destinations
Tourist zones
Total hotels considered

200
830
26,439

128
133
7173

Average reviews per hotel

120.9 (range: 311382)

Distribution of reviews

1 (terrible)

2 (poor)

3 (average)

4 (very good)

5 (excellent)

6.3%

8.3%

14.3%

35.9%

35.1%

available destinations in Europe. This data collection was done in an

automated manner, by processing the content of the pages publicly
offered by TripAdvisor.
The clients reviews of a hotel on TripAdvisor are in the range of
1 (terrible) to 5 (excellent). For each hotel, specic characteristics
(such as its star rating, services, TripAdvisor Traveller Rating and
destination ranking) were recorded. Additionally, the percentage
of each trip type (i.e., business, couples, family, friends getaway, or
solo travel) was also downloaded for every hotel. We must state
that in regards to services, TripAdvisor only offers information
about whether the hotel provides the service or not (i.e. allowing pets), but we did not count on any information relative to the
quality of these services.
In the 830 destinations there were 26,439 hotels. As we were
analysing the effect of tourism destinations and tourists perceptions and ratings, only hotels in which less than 40% of the
reservations were business stays (as dened by the customers in
the rating survey) were chosen. Out of them, only those with more
than 30 reviews were selected and only destinations with more
than 10 hotels were included. These selection processes resulted in
a sample quantied in Table 1.
In the case of destinations data, and given the large number
of destinations in the nal sample (133) it was quite difcult to nd common variables to all of them. Due to this, we
used two sources: EUROSTAT and the European Competitiveness
Index project from the Centre for International Competitiveness
(http://www.cforic.org/). Trying to determine which factors of a
tourism destination may affect the satisfaction of the clients, we
included and tested a vast number of contextual variables related
to economic activity, social environment, educational level, and
labour market; Ritchie and Crouch (2003) show that these factors have a signicant contribution to tourist satisfaction. Only
three of these contextual variables proved signicant in the process of explaining tourists ratings by showing consistent results
among models: percentage of academic tertiary students per 1000
employees (as a proxy of the population qualication), productivity of the service sector (in Euros per employee in the sector), the
length of motorway in kilometres divided by the number of vehicles
(as a proxy for the environmental quality of the destination).
We also tested the signicance of several hotel variables at an
ecological level; that is, we constructed destination variables by
combining the results for each of the hotels in a given destination.
TripAdvisor shows the type of trip for every review: business, couples, family, friend getaways, or solo travel. We constructed ve
variables that showed the percentage of each of these ve kinds of
trips in a given destination and used them as a proxy for the type of
destination; the fact that a destination shows a bigger percentage
of one or other of the variables will characterize the destination:
oriented to business travellers, to families, to groups of friends, etc.
Only one of these variables proved signicant, the one related to
the percentage of trips in which the traveller was with friends.

Multilevel models have been designed for data grouped in hierarchies or levels (Goldstein, 2003; Snijders and Bosker, 1999). Using
these models, we can evaluate how much of the variability of the
dependent variable (Y in the equations below) hotel ratings
can be attributed to individual circumstances, and the effect that
the group or the destination in which the hotel is located can have
on the ratings. Thus, in our case, we have conducted the analysis by placing hotels (individuals) at the rst level (subscript i in
equations) and tourist destination (population) at the second level
(subscript j in the equations).
We tted four models (see Table 2). Model 1 was the empty
model, it did not include any explanatory variables. Thus, it showed
the random effects of the clustering of hotels into destinations. In
model 2, we included hotel characteristics the stars it held and the
services it offered (i.e. restaurant, business centre, tness room and
free WiFi; these four services had two possible values, 0 if it was not
offered; 1 if it was offered) to adjust for star-related and servicerelated differences in the nal rating. In model 3, we included the
four mentioned variables for tourist destinations: percentage of
academic tertiary students per 1000 employees (students), productivity of the service sector (productivity), the length of motorway in
kilometres divided by the number of vehicles (motorway), and the
percentage of trips in which the traveller was with friends (destination type). Finally, in model 4, we combined models 2 and 3;
that is, we included hotel characteristics and tourist destination
characteristics. Calculations were made using STATA v11.
The equations used in each of the models are the following:
M1

Yij = 00 + uj + ij

M2

Yij = 00 +

5


k Skij + w Wij + uj + ij

k=2
4

M3

Yij = 00 +

h Zhj + uj + ij

h=1
5

M4

Yij = 00 +

k Skij + w Wij +

k=2

5


k=2

h Zhj + uj + ij

uj iiN(0, u2 ); ij iiN(0, 2 ); E(uj , ij ) = 0 for all j = 1, . . . , 133;

i = 1, . . . , nj

where S stands for the number of stars of the hotel, W is a dummy

variable that takes the value 1 if the hotel offers free WiFi and Z
includes the explanatory variables of the destination. Our parameter of main interest is  w .
3. Results and discussion
Table 2 shows the outcomes of the four models tested in the
multilevel analysis.
The empty model (model 1), which does not include any
explanatory variables, shows that there is considerable betweendestination variance in hotel ratings (14.03%). After adjusting for

46

J. Bulchand-Gidumal et al. / International Journal of Hospitality Management 35 (2013) 4447

Table 2
Results.
Model 1. No explanatory variables
Observations (hotels)
Groups (tourist zones)

7173
133

Constant
Group effecta
Chi2 b

3.7903 (.0204)
14.03%
724.57

Hotel variables
Stars
One star
Two stars
Three stars
Four stars
Five stars
Amenitiesc
Free WiFi
Business Centre
Room Service
Pets

Model 2. Hotel

Model 3. Destination

Model 4. Hotel and destination

3.3065 (.051)
14.23%
630.20

3.358 (.145)
11.29%
601.31

2.716(.140)
11.38%
540.12

Reference
0.1188 (0.050)e
0.3610 (0.048)
0.6120 (0.050)
0.8904 (0.055)

Reference
0.1186 (0.050)
0.3606 (0.048)
0.6086 (0.050)
0.8841 (0.055)

0.2788 (0.015)
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.

0.2792 (0.015)
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.

Destination variables
Students
Productivityd
Motorway
Destination type

0.0034 (0.001)
0.0056(0.003)
0.0003 (0.000)
10.3683 (0.395)

0.0025 (0.001)
0.0086 (0.002)
0.0004 (0.000)
0.7445 (0.354)

n.s. means non-signicant (at 5%).

a
Within-group correlation, dened as the percentage of the random group effects over the total variance.
b
Chi-square test of goodness of t against the null (empty) model.
c
The amenities are dichotomous variables (0 means that the hotel does not have a given service, 1 that it does), and the situation of not having the service is considered
the reference situation.
d
Productivity was divided by 1000 in order to make effects comparable to other variables.
e
Coefcient (standard deviation) which shows the increase (or decrease) of the rating with respect to the reference value due to the value of the variable considered.

different hotel characteristics (model 2), the group effect remained

signicant at 14.23%. Thus, evidence existed for a population effect
(that is, a tourism destination effect) in shaping a common individual rating.
Model 3 includes only destination characteristics. These are the
ones mentioned in the method section: students, productivity of
the service sector, motorways in relation to vehicles, and percentage of trips in the destination taken by groups of friends. This last
variable had a negative effect. As the percentage of friend trips
increases for each destination, the hotels in these destinations are
valued less than those in others (model 3). In this model the group
effect was 11.29%.
After controlling for hotel characteristics and tourism destination characteristics (model 4), there is still an 11.38% non-explained
variance that can be attributed to the destination; this relates to
the destination, its infrastructure, climate, and other factors. We
have not been able to identify other variables (at the destination
level) that could be responsible for these differences, but we have
been able to conrm that they exist. As stated previously, if would
have been good to have more precise destination variables in which
other issues were also measured: air pollution, public safety or others. These variables would have been included in models 3 and 4,
thus allowing for further explanation of the group effect in these
two models (11.29% and 11.38%).
As an additional result of this work, it appears that, as the number of stars increases, so does the satisfaction of clients (Table 2,
models 2 and 4). Amenities in the hotel have been found to have
different degrees of importance. While offering free WiFi is very
signicant and considerably increases the total score, three other
amenities (business centre, room service, and allowing pets) have
been found to be non-signicant.
4. Conclusions and implications
In this article, we explored how much of client satisfaction with
hotels, measured as the rating that hotels receive through social

media, is due to the hotel itself and how much is due to the destination in which the hotel is located. Our results show 14.03% of
the rating is due to the destination; after adjusting for identiable factors that contribute to predicting the effect of the context,
there remains an 11.38% of the rating caused by other aspects of
the destination that we have not been able to identify specically.
From these results, we can derive some implications for hoteliers and managers of DMOs, since our work empirically shows the
degree of interdependence between hotels and DMOs.
We have found three destination variables that explain client
satisfaction with the hotels: the population qualication, the productivity of the service sector, and the environmental quality. This
is in line with previous comprehensive and known models (e.g.
Ritchie and Crouch, 2003) that address the importance of such
aspects. At the same time, empirical results can be found (e.g.
Rigall-I-Torrent and Fluvia, 2011) which account for similar contextual factors when explaining a particular hotel characteristic,
such as its price. Thus, DMO managers should not only pay attention to distribution and promotion issues (Bornhorst et al., 2010),
but also take into consideration contextual factors that can inuence tourists experience. In this sense, Richie and Crouchs model
is quite instructive. In relation to the variables we have found, their
model promotes high-quality education systems, since they are a
fundamental element of the destinations core resources and attractors, and develop the skills required by employers in tourism and
hospitality. Richie and Crouchs model also proposes to make efforts
to enhance the quality of service provided to visitors in a way that
accounts for the total travel experience, paying attention to all the
elements that intervene in the tourists stay. Finally, Ritchie and
Crouch (2003) include the resource stewardship referred to adopting a caring attitude to the resources that make up the destination,
protecting them from any damage that may be caused by tourism.
Thus, in this known model, the destination managers can orient
themselves to improve the destinations competitiveness.
We have also found that one of the variables we constructed at
the ecological level was signicant, the percentage of trips in the

J. Bulchand-Gidumal et al. / International Journal of Hospitality Management 35 (2013) 4447

destination taken by groups of friends, with a negative effect. We

believe this is due to the fact that destinations with a high percentage of trips taken by groups of friends may present some of the
dissatisers found in the hospitality and tourism industries such as
noise (Alegre and Garau, 2010).
Furthermore, it is important to be aware of which of a destinations core resources tourists appreciate, since each of these
resources may generate a different value for the destination. In
this sense, there are signicant results, such as those reported by
Rigall-I-Torrent and Fluvia (2011) who found, for example, that
the presence of a marina increased the hotel prices by 6.7%, while
increasing the number of restaurants per 1000 inhabitants pushed
up prices by 0.94%
In the case of hoteliers, they must think in terms of the total
tourist experience and not only the hotel stay. Rigall-I-Torrent and
Fluvia (2011, p. 244) state that A four-star hotel needs a four-star
environment. By thinking in terms of the total tourist experience,
they can canalize their claims about destination improvements
through their business representatives. It is usual that these representatives are on the DMOs boards of directors and can opine
about the goals and/or strategies that the destination must adopt.
Thus, this opportunity to inuence destination policy and planning
must be supported by previous analysis of what the destinations
needs are. In this way, hoteliers can nd out what tourists think
of the environment that surrounds the hotel and what they would
like to change or improve. Also, at the same time that hotels managers measure client satisfaction with their particular services, they
can also ask questions about aspects of the destination. There are
basic and ubiquitous dimensions involved in destination competitiveness, including public safety, degree of preservation of the
environment, public infrastructure, street cleanliness, or complementary products and services. Furthermore, it is necessary to
obtain clients opinions of the specic core resources and attractors
of destinations, because these are the key motivators for visitation
to a destination (Ritchie and Crouch, 2003, p. 68).

47

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