Service quality, customer sentiment and online ratings of beach hotels: an analysis of moderating factors

Purpose This study investigates the service quality dimensions of hotel resorts in renowned beach destinations of Thailand. It also explores the relationship between review text sentiment expressed in online platforms and the satisfaction ratings provided for those reviews. Design/methodology/approach The study employs a two-step analysis approach: first, supervised and unsupervised machine learning via support vector machine (SVM) and latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) are used to identify service quality dimensions, and second, SmartPLS with PROCESS macro is applied to analyze the moderating roles of quality signals and reviewer’s experience on the relationship between sentiment and satisfaction rating. The dataset comprises 102,179 online reviews from TripAdvisor, focusing on 187 selected hotels rated from 3 to 5 stars. Findings Eight service quality dimensions were identified, including leisure activities, tangibles and surroundings, reliability, responsiveness, service process, food, empathy and ambience. The study underscores that the service process stands as the sole dimension exhibiting negative sentiment. Furthermore, the analysis revealed a robust positive association between sentiment of review texts and satisfaction, and reviewers’ experience and brand affiliation influenced the relationship between customer sentiment and satisfaction. Practical implications Hotel managers should focus efforts on maintaining tangible aspects while enhancing existing service quality level of other dimensions, particularly those related to intangible elements. Independent hotels might implement quality audit to ensure that service quality gaps are monitored. Originality/value This study contributes an examination of the moderating roles of quality signals and reviewer’s experience on the relationship between review sentiment and satisfaction rating in online reviews.