What have hosts overlooked for improving stay experience in accommodation-sharing? Empirical evidence from Airbnb customer reviews

Abstract

Purpose

In accommodation-sharing, hosts must provide satisfactory stay experiences for guests, who will then express intentions to revisit (behavioral loyalty) and/or recommend the experiences to others (attitudinal loyalty) in their reviews. Through the lens of expectation-confirmation theory, this study aims to investigate the service dimensions customers focus on in their reviews and their relationships with customer-loyalty manifestations in accommodation-sharing.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses topic modeling to discover distinctive dimensions from Airbnb reviews from a micro perspective and map them onto overarching themes from a macro perspective, and further examine the relationships among topics using cluster analysis.

Findings

This study reveals “information” as an important theme rarely mentioned in the literature. Besides, “homeliness” is a unique dimension associated with behavioral and attitudinal loyalty toward accommodation-sharing.

Practical implications

The findings help accommodation-sharing platforms and hosts identify customer concerns and the drivers of customer loyalty in accommodation-sharing.

Originality/value

In the existing literature, customer perceptions and loyalty are largely determined through surveys, and the findings are not univocal due to the inconsistencies of measurement items used, the potential response bias and limited sample sizes. This study capitalizes on the wealth of user-generated content and extracts service dimensions and customer loyalty directly from textual reviews, overcoming previous research limitations.

Citation

Lee, C.K.H., Tse, Y.K., Zhang, M. and Wang, Y. (2023), "What have hosts overlooked for improving stay experience in accommodation-sharing? Empirical evidence from Airbnb customer reviews", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 765-784. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-12-2021-1544