1. Introduction
The competitiveness of lodgings depends on their strategic positioning in the market, which is defined by
Hooley et al. (
1998) as a combination of the company’s choice of its target market and the differential advantage that can be exploited to secure that market. In this context, positioning is determined on the basis of consumer ratings that assess companies competing in a market, focusing on certain variables (
Lovelock 1991). Currently, a large amount of quantitative and qualitative information can be obtained on the Internet that facilitates positioning studies on tourism companies, based on online customer opinions (
Rodríguez-Díaz et al. 2015). Quantitative data normally measure the service quality and perceived value of lodgings, whereas the price variable can be obtained from the lodgings’ own websites or specialized webs (
Yacouel and Fleischer 2012);
Rodríguez-Díaz and Espino-Rodríguez (
2017a,
2017b).
Quantitative and qualitative information available in specialized databases generates the online reputation of lodgings, influencing companies’ performance (
Noone et al. 2011;
Ye et al. 2009;
Varini and Sirsi 2012;
Anderson 2012). From this perspective,
Lee and Jang (
2013) differentiate lodgings in terms of quality, and rates are probably determined on the basis of their most direct competitors. These authors also point out that, whereas competition between lodgings has been the subject of various studies, price competition between lodgings, and its implications for commercial strategies, has not been addressed as much. Furthermore, according to
Masiero and Nicolau (
2012a), the identification of patterns in tourists based on their sensitivity to prices contributes to price fixing and to more clearly defining the target segments that lodgings and destinations attract.
In this new environment of Internet communications, tourist accommodation companies need to establish mechanisms to determine whether their pricing strategy agrees with the expectations created by customers at all times (
Abrate et al. 2012). They need to apply methods of analysis and pricing in an international competitive environment such as tourist destinations (
Crouch 1992). Insofar as online reputation directly influences customer decisions, it is essential to establish whether the strategy of creating value for customers matches the price level offered (
Martens and Hilbert 2011;
Conti 2013). According to
Hernández Estárico et al. (
2012), online reputation is based on the evaluations, comments, and images of a good or service that are transmitted on the Internet. In this regard, the value perceived by customers is directly related to quality of service and inversely to price (
Holbrook 1994;
Rust and Oliver 1994), and these factors are directly related to online reputation (
Ye et al. 2009;
Rodríguez-Díaz et al. 2015).
Jena and Jog (
2017, p. 1236) establish that “rapid changes can occur in pricing policies (as a reaction to a rival’s action) by making it a flexible tool and an influential competitive element”. Therefore, price is a tactical marketing variable that has high strategic value because it is essential in defining the competitive positioning of companies and the market segments on which they are going to focus (
Lovelock 1991;
Lockyer 2005;
Hung et al. 2010;
Masiero and Nicolau 2012a), due to the fact that room prices affect perceived service quality (
Oh 1999,
2000;
Oh and Kim 2017) and consumer satisfaction (
Mattila and O’Neill 2003;
Kim and Park 2017).
The purpose of this article is to determine the relationship between the price level of a lodging and its online reputation, measured by the scale used on the Booking.com website. To accomplish this objective, we have collected information about the opinions of lodging customers of three tourist destinations and the price levels of these destinations in different seasons (high season and low season): South of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain), South of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain), and Agadir (Morocco). In order to determine what relationship fits best, a different type of regression analysis was carried out. In order to achieve the objective established in this article, the study begins with a review of the academic literature and then describes the methodology applied in the research. The next section describes the results obtained, both jointly and individually for each destination. Finally, the article presents the main conclusions reached, limitations, and suggestions for future research.
2. Literature Review
One of the main problems faced by lodging managers is how to set prices based on the online reputation determined by customers (
Rodríguez-Díaz et al. 2018). From a practical point of view, this is an essential objective that requires technological tools to facilitate constant price updating (
Yacouel and Fleischer 2012). Therefore, there are two essential aspects of this research; an aspect associated with prices, on the one hand, and the determination of online reputation, on the other.
Cross et al. (
2009) explains how the concept and scope of revenue management in lodging has evolved. At first, it basically focused on the task of fixing room prices according to the expected occupancy level, in order to obtain the maximum amount of income. At present, this is a more dynamic task, taking on a more strategic role in tourism companies, including the definition of marketing, sales, and design, and the selection of sales channels. Thus, the responsibility of revenue management has been extended to include pricing and demand management (
Noone et al. 2011;
Li et al. 2013). This involves the implementation of a customer-focused approach to attract the necessary demand in terms of volume and specific target segments in a market dominated by Internet communication and mass media (
Abrate et al. 2012).
Yacouel and Fleischer (
2012, p. 225) studied online travel agencies and their impact on lodging prices, concluding that “since the information on hotels’ past quality is revealed to the guests, the guests are willing to pay higher price to hotels with a good record (hotels that they expect to keep on providing high service quality). This price premium for a good reputation motivates the hoteliers to actually invest in providing high standards of service quality”.
Ye et al. (
2009) also established the direct relationship between users’ online reviews and hotel sales levels. Furthermore,
Kim and Park (
2017) demonstrated that the social media rating has greater predictive power of hotel performance than the measure of traditional consumer satisfaction. They point out that it is a more effective procedure for managers to use to determine the performance of the accommodation. Likewise,
Xie et al. (
2014) concluded in their study that ratings of the hotel’s purchase value, location, and cleanliness are the three important attributes that can influence hotel performance.
Therefore, the relationship between online reputation and price level has been observed by several authors (
Varini and Sirsi 2012;
Ye et al. 2009;
Noone et al. 2011;
Yacouel and Fleischer 2012;
Mauri and Minazzi 2013;
Xie et al. 2014;
Kim and Park 2017). However, there has not been much research on the relationship between prices and the online reputation of accommodations, measured in different ways (e.g., quality of service, value, and added value). The research on prices in tourism has focused on analyzing different aspects, such as price asymmetry (
Lee and Jang 2013), the identification of factors influencing price evolution (
Lee 2011), the effect of discounts (
Croes and Semrad 2012;
Blal and Graf 2013), dynamic pricing strategies (
Abrate et al. 2012), the impact of oil prices on tourism (
Lennox 2012), the relationship between hotel room prices and location (
Zhang et al. 2011), the impact of advertising on pricing and profit in the tourism supply chain (
Jena and Jog 2017), the relationships with the category of lodgings (
Israeli 2012;
Tanford et al. 2012), price elasticity of the lodging demand depending on advertising (
Chen et al. 2015), customers’ price perceptions (
Kleinsasser and Wagner 2011;
Masiero and Nicolau 2012b), pricing determinants in hotels (
Hung et al. 2010;
Espinet et al. 2003), the competitive positioning of lodgings (
Rodríguez-Díaz et al. 2015,
2018), the importance of price in hotel selection (
Lockyer 2005), and the relationship between the room rate and lodging performance (
Qu et al. 2002;
Enz et al. 2009;
Ye et al. 2009;
Chen et al. 2011;
Noone et al. 2011;
Chen and Chang 2012;
Xie et al. 2014).
Jena and Jog (
2017) regard the seasonality of tourist markets as a decisive factor in the price variable. Prices tend to be altered depending on the occupancy level and the decisions of competitors (
Espinet et al. 2003).
Hung et al. (
2010, p. 378) find tourism demand to be uncertain and fluctuating. In this context, tourism is an unmodifiable service and causes problems due to cancellations or overbooking.
Rodríguez-Díaz et al. (
2018) show the differences between the prices of lodgings in high season and low season, considering price alterations within each season. All of this means that managers have to make dynamic and constant decisions in order to achieve the desired results. (
Abrate et al. 2012). Hence, it can be deduced that the pricing strategy for lodgings can be adapted according to the period of time when substantial changes in demand are detected, either by segment type or total demand.
Because online reputation has a direct influence on prices, the content and scope of this concept should be determined. Online reputation is the idea that is generated from the image, positioning, or assessment of a particular company, brand, or product/service, through the opinions shared by customers through the Internet. This is an activity of shared communication between customers, and/or the company produces a mental image that influences customers’ purchasing behavior. Therefore, it is an interactive process where users share and exchange information through different online communication channels and mass media (
Einwiller 2003;
Mudambi and Schuff 2010). From this perspective, companies largely lose control of communication about their goods and services, forcing them to develop new marketing strategies adapted to the digital era (
Vermeulen and Seegers 2009;
Pantelidis 2010;
Ryu and Han 2010;
Zhang et al. 2010;
Gössling et al. 2016).
Regarding the added value of lodgings (
Jeong 2002),
Rodríguez-Díaz et al. (
2015) proposed an approach to measure it based on online customer ratings, by subtracting the perceived quality of service from the perceived value by customers. The results obtained showed that higher-category lodgings tended to have a lower added value because of higher prices. These results agree with those obtained by
López Fernández and Serrano Bedia (
2004) and
O’Connor (
2010), showing that the more stars an accommodation has, the more demanding the customers are. This study will analyze the relationships between the price variable and online reputation, measured through perceived value, perceived quality of service, and added value, based on the quantitative information available on Booking.com for lodgings in three tourist destinations. The aim is to establish what type of function and construct obtains a better fit between the analyzed variables.
3. Research Methodology
The empirical study of the relationship between price and the dimensions of perceived value, perceived service quality, and added value was carried out using a database of 403 lodgings. These tourism companies are located in three tourist destinations specialized in sun and beach tourism that compete with each other: South of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain), South of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain), and Agadir (Morocco). The Canary Islands receive more than 12 million tourists per year, making it one of the main destinations in Europe (
ISTAC 2015), whereas Agadir is located in the Moroccan region of Souss Massa Drâa, which receives 4 million tourists a year (
ICEX 2011).
The data were collected from the Booking.com website. There were a total of 69,024 customer ratings of the lodgings. Of them, 38,096 were from the destination of Gran Canaria, where 272 accommodations were analyzed. In Tenerife, 82 lodgings with 20,950 comments were studied, whereas in Agadir 49 lodgings were considered, with 9,978 customer evaluations. The information gathered on Booking.com has a strong guarantee of reliability because it corresponds to real customers (
Rodríguez-Díaz et al. 2015). The scale used by Booking.com has seven variables measured with 10 points (1 = very low rating; 10 = very high rating). However, this score is not the same as the one given in the customer survey because, according to
Mellinas et al. (
2015), only four response alternatives are offered to customers, later transformed into a 10-point scale. Despite the bias of Booking.com,
Rodríguez-Díaz and Espino-Rodríguez (
2017a,
2017b) show that it is one of the most reliable and valid tools available on the Internet.
The quantitative variables used by web portals to evaluate customer opinions usually measure the quality of service perceived and the perceived value (
Rodríguez-Díaz and Espino-Rodríguez 2017b). Booking.com uses a scale that currently consists of seven variables, one that measures perceived value (value for money V) and six that measure quality of service: personnel (S), service/installations (F), cleaning (Cl), comfort (Cl), location (L), and wifi (W) (see
Table 1). On this basis, Booking.com also calculates an average score for these variables in order to give a global hotel score (HAS). Furthermore, information on lodging categories and their prices is also available on this website. According to authors such as
Espinet et al. (
2003),
Hung et al. (
2010), and
Jena and Jog (
2017), tourism prices change throughout the year depending on fluctuations in demand, the level of competitiveness at any given time, and the market segments to which they are oriented in each period of time.
In the destinations studied, a distinction is made between high season (winter) and low season (summer) because their greatest demand occurs when other competitive destinations are closed in winter. There are also periods of higher demand and prices within each season and vice versa. Therefore, this study differentiates between the highest and lowest common prices in each season. In winter, the highest common prices are usually offered in the months of November, February, and March, whereas the lowest prices are usually offered in the first 20 days of December and April. It should be noted that the highest prices are those paid at Christmas, but it is only one week, and so it is not considered the most common price in winter. On the other hand, the highest prices in the summer season are found in the last ten days of July, August, and October, whereas the lowest are found in the months of May, June, and the first twenty days of July. This information was obtained from interviews with lodging and tour operation managers, and subsequently compared to the prices obtained on the Booking.com website.
The study carried out consists of determining the relationship between prices and the variables of perceived value (V), perceived service quality (Q), and added value (AV). The variable value for money included in the Booking.com scale is used to measure the price variable. In order to quantify the average of the perceived quality of service (Q), the average of the personnel (S), service/facilities (F), cleaning (Cl), comfort (Co), and location (L) variables were calculated. The wifi variable was not included, because it depends to a large extent on public infrastructure and telecommunications companies external to lodgings. Finally, the value-added variable was established following the procedure proposed by
Rodríguez-Díaz et al. (
2015), and is the result of subtracting the average quality of service (Q) from the value (V). This variable can have positive, negative, or zero scores. When the added value of a lodging is zero, it is offering a quality of service in accordance with the price it establishes. If the added value has a positive score, it means that customers think the price to be paid for the lodging is lower than the quality of the service they receive. By contrast, a negative added value indicates that customers think they pay extra for the quality of the service received. The latter is usually the case for higher category lodgings.
The statistical analysis carried out was the regression of curve estimation models using the SPSS statistical program. The regressions were bivariate; prices were the independent variables, and the perceived value (V), the average of the perceived quality of service (Q), and the added value (AV) were dependent variables. The aim of the study was to determine the function with the best fit of the relationships in the different types of prices. To this end, the regression was carried out in the linear, logarithmic, inverse, quadratic, and cubic functions, as described below:
Linear: Model with the equation y = b0 + b1*t.
Logarithmic: Model with the equation y = b0 + b1*ln(t).
Inverse: Model with the equation y = b0 + (b1/t).
Quadratic: Model with the equation y = b0 + b1*t + b2*t2.
Cubic: Model with the equation y = b0 + b1*t + b2*t2 + b3*t3.
5. Conclusions
The study presents a method for determining which online reputation variables are most closely related to lodging prices. This is a critical factor in the pricing process in the highly dynamic and competitive environment of the digital age. Online reputation has a direct influence on consumers’ buying behavior and, therefore, on the demand for each lodging. At the same time, a price that does not match the quality of service level offered can have an impact on the creation of customer expectations, which, when frustrated, will reinforce the devaluation of online reputation.
Price is a variable that is inversely related to perceived value (
Holbrook 1994) and, consequently, to added value, which is calculated by subtracting the average service quality perceived from the perceived value (
Rodríguez-Díaz et al. 2015). However, price is also directly related to average quality of the service perceived because an increase in quality offered by a lodging normally involves a higher cost, which affects prices. This is the starting point for the study carried out in this article, to try to determine which online reputation variable is most related to price. In the tourism sector, demand tends to fluctuate over different periods of time, which is the reason for obtaining information about maximum and minimum prices in high season and low season.
The results demonstrate that added value is the variable with the best fit in the different statistical analyses carried out. The only exception was in the destination of Tenerife, where the average quality of service showed the best fit in three of the four types of prices studied, possibly because the lodgings analyzed in Tenerife may be more focused on similar competitive characteristics. However, this is a hypothesis that should be studied in future research. Another result that must be highlighted is that in the Agadir destination, the added value variable obtained a much higher adjusted R2 than the other variables. The finding that the perceived value variable did not maintain a relationship with price was unexpected. Moreover, all adjustments were close to zero, whereas added value, which is calculated on the basis of perceived value minus perceived service quality, was not only related to price but was also higher than average quality of service. Future research should contrast these results, because perceived value should also be related to lodging prices.
The functions that obtained the best results are cubic and quadratic. However, the results of logarithmic and inverse functions also achieved significant adjustments. The linear function obtained disparate results, whereas in all destinations and Gran Canaria it did not obtain satisfactory results, and in the destinations of Tenerife and Agadir it achieved high fits for the variables of average perceived quality of service and added value. Therefore, it can be concluded that the added value variable is the one most closely related to the different types of prices and tourist destinations, with cubic and quadratic functions being the most suitable. However, logarithmic and inverse functions can also be used to determine the relationship between prices and value added and average quality of service of lodgings in the tourist destinations analyzed.
This study makes a contribution from the competitive perspective of lodging, trying to determine the relationship and possible functions that best represent the relationships between prices and online reputation. In this context, it is of great interest the results obtained insofar as the methodology can be used in order to develop an artificial intelligence that determines the competitive prices at every moment of the accommodations. However, it has limitations that should be taken into account in future research. First, four types of prices were considered, differentiating between the high season and low season. However, prices may have more modifications than those studied, and so future research could analyze this aspect in more detail. Second, three competing tourist destinations in the sun and beach segment were examined. In this context, it would be interesting to carry out investigations in destinations with other characteristics, in order to determine whether there are significant relationships between price and online reputation. Third, the study did not differentiate the lodgings by category, which is also a highly price-related variable. It is possible that differentiating lodgings by category would produce different results where the average perceived service quality achieved the best fit, as occurred in the destination of Tenerife. Finally, value added is a new variable that has shown a strong relationship with price. It would be very interesting if this close relationship could be verified in other destinations and price levels.