Has COVID-19 Changed Consumers’ Satisfiers and Dissatisfiers? Evidence from Online Reviews of 5-Star Hotels in Shanghai and Beijing

Abstract

ABSTRACT Many studies have analyzed the asymmetric relationship between hotel service quality attributes and satisfaction, and tried to find consumers’ satisfiers and dissatisfiers, aiming at enhancing satisfaction more efficiently. However, the impact of COVID-19 has led to changes in consumers’ expectations for hotel services, and the above findings might face invalidation. To date, we are still unknown whether consumers’ satisfiers/dissatisfiers changed. This study fills this research gap by mining online reviews of five-star hotels from Shanghai and Beijing before and during the pandemic. The results found that the asymmetric categories of Sleep quality and Internet/Wi-Fi attributes have changed. Specifically, Sleep quality and Internet/Wi-Fi became dissatisfiers from hybrids, indicating that hoteliers only need to maintain their normal performance, and do not invest too many resources because they bring no satisfaction; attributes like Room, decoration, etc. remain hybrids. Additionally, we performed opinion extraction for the dissatisfier attributes to further understand what causes consumer dissatisfaction. The results contribute to the literature by shedding light on the pandemic’s impacts on the asymmetric effects of service quality attributes. The cause analysis can help hoteliers develop specific measures to mitigate the adverse effects of COVID-19.