Insights into your advantages: Hotel competitiveness evaluation considering competitor identification

Abstract

With the current fierce competition in the hotel market, the key for a hotel to distinguish itself is to clarify and enhance its competitive advantages. However, insight into competitive advantage is predicated on accurately identifying competitors—an aspect that has received insufficient attention in existing literature. To this end, this paper proposes a hotel competitiveness evaluation method that considers competitor identification. First, the core competitors of a hotel regarding each service attribute are identified by synthesizing customer and business perspectives. Second, the interrelation between service attributes is analyzed by introducing the Decision Making Experiment and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) based on online reviews. Thereafter, the importance relation competitiveness analysis (IRCA) is presented to identify the hotel's competitive advantages and disadvantages and develop competitive strategies. The application to a five-star hotel in Beijing demonstrates the proposed method's effectiveness.