The influence of user generated content on hotel sales: an Indian perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Himanshu Sharma ◽  
Anu G. Aggarwal

Purpose Nowadays, various hotels and third party websites allow guests to express their stay experience in the form of textual content and ratings termed as user-generated content (UGC). This study aims to explore the influence of UGC along with the financial aspect on the sales of the hotel. This will help them in making efficient business decisions and revenue generation by realizing the requirements of the guests. The proposed model provides an insight into the theoretical and practical significance of the concerned explanatory variables to the hoteliers. Design/methodology/approach This paper considers the number of rooms, six aspect ratings (room, cleanliness, location, service, value and sleep quality), review length and readability as the independent variables. Revenue per available room is taken as the dependent variable. Log-linear regression analysis is performed on a data set of 78 hotels situated in Delhi National Capital Region to validate the relationships. Moreover, the differential impact of hotel type on these exploratory variables is studied. Findings Research findings show that along with the financial aspect, the UGC components also play a key role in generating sales for the hotels. It was further observed that the two hotel categories, i.e. luxury and budget have different natures and also the characteristics of luxury hotels overshadow those of budget. Originality/value This study uses the textual content of the reviews along with the numerical ratings. This is a unique combination for studying sales of hotels according to the knowledge of authors, where earlier studies focused only on the financial aspects.

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory N. Stock ◽  
Kathleen L. McFadden

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between patient safety culture and hospital performance using objective performance measures and secondary data on patient safety culture. Design/methodology/approach Patient safety culture is measured using data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture. Hospital performance is measured using objective patient safety and operational performance metrics collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Control variables were obtained from the CMS Provider of Service database. The merged data included 154 US hospitals, with an average of 848 respondents per hospital providing culture data. Hierarchical linear regression analysis is used to test the proposed relationships. Findings The findings indicate that patient safety culture is positively associated with patient safety, process quality and patient satisfaction. Practical implications Hospital managers should focus on building a stronger patient safety culture due to its positive relationship with hospital performance. Originality/value This is the first study to test these relationships using several objective performance measures and a comprehensive patient safety culture data set that includes a substantial number of respondents per hospital. The study contributes to the literature by explicitly mapping high-reliability organization (HRO) theory to patient safety culture, thereby illustrating how HRO theory can be applied to safety culture in the hospital operations context.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 369-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xia Liu

Purpose Social bots are prevalent on social media. Malicious bots can severely distort the true voices of customers. This paper aims to examine social bots in the context of big data of user-generated content. In particular, the author investigates the scope of information distortion for 24 brands across seven industries. Furthermore, the author studies the mechanisms that make social bots viral. Last, approaches to detecting and preventing malicious bots are recommended. Design/methodology/approach A Twitter data set of 29 million tweets was collected. Latent Dirichlet allocation and word cloud were used to visualize unstructured big data of textual content. Sentiment analysis was used to automatically classify 29 million tweets. A fixed-effects model was run on the final panel data. Findings The findings demonstrate that social bots significantly distort brand-related information across all industries and among all brands under study. Moreover, Twitter social bots are significantly more effective at spreading word of mouth. In addition, social bots use volumes and emotions as major effective mechanisms to influence and manipulate the spread of information about brands. Finally, the bot detection approaches are effective at identifying bots. Research limitations/implications As brand companies use social networks to monitor brand reputation and engage customers, it is critical for them to distinguish true consumer opinions from fake ones which are artificially created by social bots. Originality/value This is the first big data examination of social bots in the context of brand-related user-generated content.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 770-790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hemamali Tennakoon ◽  
George Saridakis ◽  
Anne-Marie Mohammed

PurposeToday’s world of digital and mobile media does not require actual physical contact, between the suitable target and the motivated offender, as with traditional crime. In fact, as Mesch (2009) contended that the internet is not merely an information channel but it creates a new space of activities for children, where they are exposed to motivated offenders and the actors of fourth party. Therefore, for the sake of children’s safety, the practice of parental mediation control is increasingly becoming more pertinent everyday. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine how parental mediation control in Sri Lanka is influenced by their internet self-efficacy, their experience as online victims and their trust in online users.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a unique data set of computer and internet users from Sir Lanka to examine parental intervention in their children’s online activities. Specifically, the data set contains 347 responses from computer and internet users. To analyze the data, the authors use a binary dependent (probit) model.FindingsThe results show that such factors alter the baseline probability of parental intervention. However, some differences are found between younger and older parents, with the latter group responding more to trust in online users and victimization experience while the former is mainly driven from computer self-efficacy. In particular, the older group is less likely to trust online internet users in terms of never adding unknown persons in the social media. Finally, being self-employed and an older parent has a positive effect on the likelihood of adopting parental controls, possibly because of the non-pecuniary attributes of self-employment.Originality/valueThis study adds to the emerging parental mediation control literature by looking at the likelihood of younger and older parents who were victims of cybercrimes, who have greater internet self-efficacy and lower online third-party trust to adopt parental mediation control behaviors. Also another contribution to the literature is the role of occupation type on parental monitoring behaviors.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-91
Author(s):  
Zhe Sun ◽  
Liang Zhao

Purpose Building trust is critical in reverse mergers and acquisitions (M&As), attributed to the divergence of governance and culture between the East and the West. This paper aims to explore the barriers and trust-building practices of Chinese managers in reverse M&As in developed countries. Design/methodology/approach The primary data set of this research contains case studies of two Chinese M&A deals and in-depth interviews with managers and advisories in the Netherlands. Findings This research finds that the divergences of decision-making structure, communication style and trust orientation generate barriers to the trust building in Chinese reverse M&As. The third-party advisory participation helps to build cognition-based trust of acquired company managers on Chinese acquiring company managers through providing information and explanation, fitting Chinese buyers in the Western M&A procedure and offering communication. It also helps to build affect-based trust through bridging the divergence of trust orientation and filling the cultural voids. Meanwhile, the invisible integration helps to build cognition-based trust through maintaining the core business, offering great help to acquired companies for their business expansion and selecting the business collaboration areas in the long term. It also helps to build affect-based trust through granting a high degree of governance independence and enabling a balanced status in acquired companies. Originality/value This research unveils the “black box” of Chinese reverse M&As from an inter-personal trust perspective and advances the nuanced understanding of trust and trust-building practices in Chinese reverse M&As. It also provides practical tools for both Chinese companies and acquired companies in developed countries.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Efthimia Mavridou ◽  
Konstantinos M. Giannoutakis ◽  
Dionysios Kehagias ◽  
Dimitrios Tzovaras ◽  
George Hassapis

Purpose Semantic categorization of Web services comprises a fundamental requirement for enabling more efficient and accurate search and discovery of services in the semantic Web era. However, to efficiently deal with the growing presence of Web services, more automated mechanisms are required. This paper aims to introduce an automatic Web service categorization mechanism, by exploiting various techniques that aim to increase the overall prediction accuracy. Design/methodology/approach The paper proposes the use of Error Correcting Output Codes on top of a Logistic Model Trees-based classifier, in conjunction with a data pre-processing technique that reduces the original feature-space dimension without affecting data integrity. The proposed technique is generalized so as to adhere to all Web services with a description file. A semantic matchmaking scheme is also proposed for enabling the semantic annotation of the input and output parameters of each operation. Findings The proposed Web service categorization framework was tested with the OWLS-TC v4.0, as well as a synthetic data set with a systematic evaluation procedure that enables comparison with well-known approaches. After conducting exhaustive evaluation experiments, categorization efficiency in terms of accuracy, precision, recall and F-measure was measured. The presented Web service categorization framework outperformed the other benchmark techniques, which comprise different variations of it and also third-party implementations. Originality/value The proposed three-level categorization approach is a significant contribution to the Web service community, as it allows the automatic semantic categorization of all functional elements of Web services that are equipped with a service description file.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maren Parnas Gulnes ◽  
Ahmet Soylu ◽  
Dumitru Roman

PurposeNeuroscience data are spread across a variety of sources, typically provisioned through ad-hoc and non-standard approaches and formats and often have no connection to the related data sources. These make it difficult for researchers to understand, integrate and reuse brain-related data. The aim of this study is to show that a graph-based approach offers an effective mean for representing, analysing and accessing brain-related data, which is highly interconnected, evolving over time and often needed in combination.Design/methodology/approachThe authors present an approach for organising brain-related data in a graph model. The approach is exemplified in the case of a unique data set of quantitative neuroanatomical data about the murine basal ganglia––a group of nuclei in the brain essential for processing information related to movement. Specifically, the murine basal ganglia data set is modelled as a graph, integrated with relevant data from third-party repositories, published through a Web-based user interface and API, analysed from exploratory and confirmatory perspectives using popular graph algorithms to extract new insights.FindingsThe evaluation of the graph model and the results of the graph data analysis and usability study of the user interface suggest that graph-based data management in the neuroscience domain is a promising approach, since it enables integration of various disparate data sources and improves understanding and usability of data.Originality/valueThe study provides a practical and generic approach for representing, integrating, analysing and provisioning brain-related data and a set of software tools to support the proposed approach.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Huseyin Arasli ◽  
Mehmet Bahri Saydam ◽  
Tugrul Gunay ◽  
Kaveh Jafari

Purpose On a global scale, the Muslim-friendly hospitality business has intensified hotel competition. Given the paucity of research on the important service quality characteristics of Muslim-friendly hotels, this study aims to identify the major themes encountered by tourists at Muslim-friendly hotels. Design/methodology/approach The research used content analyzes (qualitative) to examine 1,250 reviews using Leximancer software. Data were gathered from the online travel website booking.com. The top 10 Islamic hotels according to Crescent ranking were taken into a data set. Findings Qualitative (narratives) analysis showcased nine key themes, namely, “hotel,” “staff,” “food,” “room,” “location,” “pool,” “facilities,” “cleanliness” and “Wi-Fi.” Furthermore, the findings of this study contribute to filling research voids in the literature by distinguishing themes linked with halal hotel “satisfaction” from those associated with “dissatisfaction.” Originality/value The findings of this research offer valuable visions into halal-hotel travelers’ overall experiences based on user-generated content and facilitate the identification of the dominant themes linked with a different value for money ratings.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (10) ◽  
pp. 1750-1783 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivekanand Venkataraman ◽  
Syed Usmanulla ◽  
Appaiah Sonnappa ◽  
Pratiksha Sadashiv ◽  
Suhaib Soofi Mohammed ◽  
...  

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify significant factors of environmental variables and pollutants that have an effect on PM2.5 through wavelet and regression analysis. Design/methodology/approach In order to provide stable data set for regression analysis, multiresolution analysis using wavelets is conducted. For the sampled data, multicollinearity among the independent variables is removed by using principal component analysis and multiple linear regression analysis is conducted using PM2.5 as a dependent variable. Findings It is found that few pollutants such as NO2, NOx, SO2, benzene and environmental factors such as ambient temperature, solar radiation and wind direction affect PM2.5. The regression model developed has high R2 value of 91.9 percent, and the residues are stationary and not correlated indicating a sound model. Research limitations/implications The research provides a framework for extracting stationary data and other important features such as change points in mean and variance, using the sample data for regression analysis. The work needs to be extended across all areas in India and for various other stationary data sets there can be different factors affecting PM2.5. Practical implications Control measures such as control charts can be implemented for significant factors. Social implications Rules and regulations can be made more stringent on the factors. Originality/value The originality of this paper lies in the integration of wavelets with regression analysis for air pollution data.


2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1395-1416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Asjad ◽  
Makarand S Kulkarni ◽  
O P Gandhi

Purpose – Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) start providing support to products that helped them in sustaining their business worldwide. The customers are entering into contracts with the OEM, to get the required level of performance but at minimum possible cost. It required the work distribution between OEM/service provider and the client, and may formalize through contract. The contract structure depends upon the number of player involved (customer, OEM and third party) and the support activity. The different contract alternatives can be formulated and the best one may be selected on the basis of minimum Life cycle cost. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In this work, mathematical models are developed; which are implemented on a real life problem. The developed models are optimized in context to preventive maintenance schedule. Findings – In this research, important issues are listed; research steps and mathematical models are presented. The problem has been identified from the literature perspective for mechanical systems. A methodology for formulating and selecting the optimal contract structure is also proposed. The model has been implemented on a real life problem, in which the OEMs provide support to their make installed at Compressed Natural Gas workstation in National Capital Region, India. Originality/value – The research results of this paper will contribute both academic and empirical value.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Albertoni ◽  
Monica De Martino ◽  
Paola Podestà

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on the quality of the connections (linkset) among thesauri published as Linked Data on the Web. It extends the cross-walking measures with two new measures able to evaluate the enrichment brought by the information reached through the linkset (lexical enrichment, browsing space enrichment). It fosters the adoption of cross-walking linkset quality measures besides the well-known and deployed cardinality-based measures (linkset cardinality and linkset coverage). Design/methodology/approach The paper applies the linkset measures to the Linked Thesaurus fRamework for Environment (LusTRE). LusTRE is selected as testbed as it is encoded using a Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS) published as Linked Data, and it explicitly exploits the cross-walking measures on its validated linksets. Findings The application on LusTRE offers an insight of the complementarities among the considered linkset measures. In particular, it shows that the cross-walking measures deepen the cardinality-based measures analysing quality facets that were not previously considered. The actual value of LusTRE’s linksets regarding the improvement of multilingualism and concept spaces is assessed. Research limitations/implications The paper considers skos:exactMatch linksets, which belong to a rather specific but a quite common kind of linkset. The cross-walking measures explicitly assume correctness and completeness of linksets. Third party approaches and tools can help to meet the above assumptions. Originality/value This paper fulfils an identified need to study the quality of linksets. Several approaches formalise and evaluate Linked Data quality focusing on data set quality but disregarding the other essential component: the connection among data.


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