Examination of Online Comments Towards Accommodation Businesses Within Scope of Electronic Worth of Mouth Marketing by Sentiment Analysis Method: Alanya Sample

Abstract

Accommodation businesses operating in the tourism industry, which is a labor-intensive industry, are affected by the change and transformation brought by technology. In the tourism industry, the purchasing preferences of tourists differ according to the product experience they perceive in the virtual environment. Electronic word-of-mouth marketing is important for tourists as it includes independent opinions and evaluations based on tourists’ experiences. From this point of view, in this research, it is aimed to analyze the reviews of about 20 5-star hotels in Alanya, one of the important coastal tourism destinations of Turkey, and ranked according to the "best value" criteria on the Tripadvisor site, by using the "sentiment analysis" method. In this study, in which Turkish and English comments were evaluated, hotels; It has been examined according to features such as Employees, Rooms, Food and Beverage Services, Business Facilities, Transportation. According to the results of the research, it has been determined that the hotel evaluations of the tourists are classified as positive in all criteria. Among the evaluations, it was determined that the features with the most negative comments resulted from the features of Employees and Food and Beverage Services. In general, it’s possible to say that the satisfaction level of the tourists from the five-star hotels in Alanya is very positive and good, and the tourists mostly leave happily from the city.