Selecting the Optimum Hotel from the Perspective of Digital Marketing Managers: Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and PROMETHEE Approach

Abstract

The widespread use of the Internet has enabled the rapid development of e-commerce in tourism. Online experience sharing platforms, which have become important by providing various opportunities for tourists to make their holiday decisions, have become one of the most visited websites in the world. In addition, online travel agencies offer opportunities to their potential guests during the holiday decision process by sharing their guest experiences regarding reservations made on their websites. The positive and negative opinions of the tourists about their experiences enable certain ranking lists to be formed in both experience sharing platforms and online travel agencies. During the process of making their holiday decisions, potential guests create the highest visitor and booking traffic in businesses that rank high in the relevant ranking lists. In this study, it is aimed to answer the decision problem of tourists in choosing a hotel by using multi-criteria decision-making methods. For this, criteria weight values were calculated using AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) method over seven criteria determined for the first seven alternative hotels among the top-ranked
hotels in the list of Istanbul hotels on the Booking.com website and with the PROMETHEE method, the order of preference was determined at a very good decision level with 89 % measurement quality. As a result of the expert opinion among the criteria determined in the research, it was determined that the criterion with the highest weight value was the "cleaning" criterion. Among the seven alternatives determined, Hotel5 was determined to be the most suitable choice. In the light of the information obtained in the study, it was concluded that the reason for the emergence of the differences regarding the rankings of alternative hotels was due to the dynamic factors applied by Booking.com online travel agency in hotel rankings.