What consumer complaints should hoteliers prioritize? Analysis of online reviews under different market segments

ABSTRACT Due to rising competition and resource constraints, hoteliers need to understand which consumer complaints are more important and severe to prioritize, an issue receiving less attention in existing online review-based complaint studies. This study introduced sentiment analysis to assess the extent of complaints; the complaint topic importance was also considered; by modeling these two indicators, Complaint IPA was constructed to determine complaint severity, and thus assist with prioritization issues. The framework was applied to 99,560 online reviews to demonstrate its effectiveness. Further, we analyzed the complaint characteristics in different market segments, including hotel types and consumer types (business vs. leisure). Results show that business consumers have a higher complaint index; compared to midscale and luxury hotels, economy hotels’ consumers have more severe complaints about the Service and Room. This study extends consumer complaint research by proposing a method of complaint severity assessment and revealing complaint characteristics of different market segments.