Citation: Peres, C.K.; Paladini, E.P.
Quality Attributes of Hotel Services
in Brazil and the Impacts of
COVID-19 on Users’ Perception.
Sustainability 2022, 14, 3454. https://
doi.org/10.3390/su14063454
Academic Editor: Dimitrios Buhalis
Received: 20 January 2022
Accepted: 11 March 2022
Published: 15 March 2022
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Article
Quality Attributes of Hotel Services in Brazil and the Impacts
of COVID-19 on Users’ Perception
Clérito Kaveski Peres * and Edson Pacheco Paladini
Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, Federal University of Santa Catarina,
Florianópolis 88040-900, Brazil; edson.paladini@ufsc.br
* Correspondence: cleritokp@gmail.com
Abstract:
The unprecedented crisis faced by the hotel industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic has
brought about changes in guests’ perceptions of service quality attributes. In view of the need to
monitor this environment, this study is dedicated to identifying the main negative topics related
to the quality of hotel services in Brazil and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on guests’
perception of these topics. For this purpose, a set of 866,048 online hotel reviews were collected
from the Booking.com platform. Initially, data were analyzed through topic modeling to identify the
attributes addressed by guests in their evaluations. Subsequently, an average comparison method
was used to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on the evaluation scores of each attribute. A total
of 13 topics related to five attributes of hotel service quality were identified. The topics related to
room cleaning and check-in were the most negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the
largest drops in average evaluation scores.
Keywords: hotels; quality service; COVID-19
1. Introduction
Recent technological advances in the tourism industry have transformed the way
individuals consume tourism products. This transformation process is driven by the
development of information technologies, which encompass recommendation systems,
online reservations, dynamic prices, and interactive service review platforms [1].
Online platforms for the sale of tourist products have become the main customer
relationship channels nowadays. As a by-product of this interaction, a growing volume
of data related to the service experience are generated by users and made available on
these platforms.
User-generated content (UGC) has a direct influence on users’ purchasing decisions.
Around 35% of travelers change their hotel decisions after browsing social media, 53% say
they will not reserve a hotel that does not have reviews, and 87% say reviews help with
confidence when making a lodging purchase decision [2].
Thus, the sustainability of hotel businesses depends on online reputation, since this
content directly affects the billing of these organizations, with the aggravating factor that
these businesses do not have control over what is published on online platforms.
In this context, the quality of services, more than ever, is a key factor in maintain-
ing a business, since customers with a high level of satisfaction regarding the lodging
experience, besides expressing their positive perceptions online, are more likely to make
recommendations, pay more for the lodging, and make new reservations [3].
Maintaining the quality of services requires the correct identification of attributes
that lead to customer satisfaction and loyalty. Nevertheless, reliably identifying the main
determinants of satisfaction is a challenge due to the inherent heterogeneity of the de-
mand for lodging according to the traveler’s profile and the environmental and cultural
aspects involved.
Sustainability 2022, 14, 3454. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063454 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
