A Comparison of Hotel Guest Experience Before and During Pandemic: Evidence from Online Reviews

How negative factors influence youth hostel stay aftermath COVID-19 pandemic

The bookings and revenues of youth hostels have significantly decreased because of the multiple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is necessary to investigate young consumers' perceptions of visiting youth hostels aftermath this pandemic. The current study examines the relationship between multi-dimensions of perceived risk, three types of images, willingness to pay and visit intention. A convenience sampling was developed where 534 questionnaires were received, followed by subsequent empirical testing of the proposed hypotheses using SPSS and AMOS-SEM. Results showed that perceived risk negatively influenced cognitive and affective image, respectively. Cognitive and affective image positively influenced overall image and finally influenced willingness to pay and visit intention separately. In addition, cognitive image positively influenced affective image. The theoretical framework satisfactorily accounted for willingness to pay and intention, and our results help youth hostels practitioners invent efficient strategies to boost young consumers' willingness to pay and intention to visit youth hostels.

Once upon a time in quarantine: Exploring the memorable quarantine hotel experiences of Chinese student returnees during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the pandemic, many hotels convert into isolation centres for the purpose of quarantine. However, the memorable experience in the context of quarantine hotel (quarantel) remains unexplored. Thus, the purpose of this research was to explore the memorable quarantel experiences of Chinese student returnees during the COVID-19 outbreak. The research was qualitative in nature, involving 26 in-depth interviews conducted through snowballing. The data was then analysed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed six themes - (1) staff, (2) room, (3) hygiene and disinfection, (4) food, (5) healthcare and (6) location - with 20 underlying attributes pertaining their experiences. Some themes (e.g. hygiene and disinfection and healthcare) and attributes (e.g. ventilation and Chinese food therapy) were found to be unique experiences with significant functions that newly added in the context of quarantine hotels. Besides, differences existed between operational guidelines of quarantine hotels and actual guests' quarantine experience. The research allows hotel operators to better understand guests' concerns during the quarantine period and offers managerial implications to improve hotels' performance during and after the pandemic.

Revealing travellers’ satisfaction during COVID-19 outbreak: Moderating role of service quality

User-Generated-Content (UGC) has gained increasing attention as an important indicator of business success in the tourism and hospitality sectors. Previous literature has analyzed travelers' satisfaction through quantitative approaches using questionnaire surveys. Another direction of research has explored the dimensions of satisfaction based on online customers' reviews using the machine learning approach. This study aims to present a new method that combines machine learning and survey-based approaches for customers' satisfaction analysis during the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, we investigate the moderating role of service quality on the relationship between hotels' performance criteria and customers' satisfaction. To achieve this, the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) was used for textual data analysis, k-means was used for data segmentation, dimensionality reduction approach was used for the imputation of the missing values, and fuzzy rule-based was used for the prediction of satisfaction level. Following that, a survey-based approach was used to validate the research model by distributing the questionnaire and analyzing the collected data using the Structural Equation Modeling technique. The result of this research presents important contributions from the methodological and practical perspectives in the context of customers' satisfaction in tourism and hospitality during the COVID-19 outbreak. The outcomes of this research confirm the significant influence of the quality of services during the COVID-19 crisis on the relationship between hotel services and travellers’ satisfaction.

Experiences of Polish Tourists Traveling for Leisure Purposes during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The research presented in this paper examines the experiences of Poles traveling for leisure purposes in the summer season of 2020, taking into account the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study involved the analysis of source data, including statistical data, and a survey administered via the computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI) method. The survey questionnaire was created on the Google platform. The link to the questionnaire was provided via social media to participants of travel groups in the period from 30 November 2020 to 15 February 2021. The sampling was purposive (included only travelers) despite efforts to maintain the gender balance; the proportion of women was higher. Therefore, caution must be applied when interpreting the results which may not be transferable. The survey included questions regarding the respondents’ travel behavior and risk perceptions. 433 correctly completed questionnaires were collected. The dataset was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Descriptive statistics measures and correlation coefficients were used in the analysis of the results. The study shows that some respondents decided against traveling because of the pandemic situation, while those who decided to travel adjusted their behavior by avoiding crowded places and resigning from traveling abroad. Compliance with hygiene standards in the area of tourism services varied, and was the highest in the case of accommodation services. Women rated hygiene standards in chain cafes statistically higher than men and younger people rated hygiene on public transport, trains, air transport and in fast food services higher than older people. The higher the tourism expenditure, the lower the assessment of sanitary standards in tour guide services, air transport and chain cafes decreased.