The Voice of the Guests: Analysing Airbnb Reviews as a Representative Source for Tourism Studies

Abstract

User-generated content on social media has led to a new form of communication known as electronic word of mouth, which generates millions of comments about goods and services on the internet every day. This openly accessible content is crucial for prospective consumers as it helps in decision-making, but it is also valuable for product or service providers, as it allows them to improve their businesses based on user reviews, some of which are highly detailed. Another interest group that benefits from these comments are researchers and academics, as it allows them to obtain and analyse information for their studies at a relatively low cost in terms of time and money. The present study aims to perform a sentiment analysis of comments posted by guests staying at a property offered by Airbnb to determine whether their opinions about their experience are positive or negative. However, before doing so, it is necessary to find out the percentage of people who write a review about the service received on Airbnb to verify the representativeness of the reviews on this platform. To achieve this, thousands of comments posted in one year on Airbnb for the four most touristic cities in Spain are analysed: Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, and Valencia. The results show that opinions on Airbnb are much more representative compared to other platforms, as a very high participation rate is calculated. Furthermore, these opinions are predominantly positive, indicating a high level of satisfaction with the service provided.