Sentiment analysis of hotel reviews by stage of the stay

Analysing a stay, not a score

Sentiment analysis of hotel reviews has to cope with long reviews covering many parts of a stay. A guest may praise the location and staff, criticise the room and say breakfast was fine. Measuring sentiment by stage is what turns that into something each department can use.

Stages and topics

• Before arrival: booking, communication.
• Arrival: check-in speed, room readiness, welcome.
• Room: cleanliness, comfort, maintenance, size.
• Stay: noise, Wi-Fi, requests, housekeeping.
• Food: breakfast, restaurant, room service.
• Facilities: pool, gym, spa, parking.
• Departure: checkout, billing.

What to measure

• Negative share for each stage and sub-topic, by property and month.
• Positive share for strengths such as staff and location.
• Mention counts beside every share.
• Change against the previous period and the same season last year.

Timing patterns

Hotel sentiment often follows the calendar. Tag days and occasions when guests mention them; room-readiness complaints that cluster on Fridays or noise on wedding nights point to specific operational fixes.

Comparing properties

Group properties by type, such as business, resort or budget, and by market. A resort and a city business hotel attract different expectations; compare each with its peers.

An example

A group of 15 hotels finds room cleanliness sentiment steady across most properties but sharply negative at two, both after a housekeeping contractor change. The reviews mention hair in bathrooms and dusty surfaces. Inspection checklists and contractor reviews follow; cleanliness sentiment at both recovers over two months.

Common mistakes

• One sentiment score per stay.
• Comparing resorts with business hotels.
• Ignoring seasonality.
• Leaving food and facilities out because they are "not core".

Common questions

Checklist

• Stage-based taxonomy.
• Sentiment per stage and sub-topic.
• Counts beside shares.
• Timing tagged.
• Peer-group comparisons.

In short

Measure hotel sentiment by stage of the stay, track it by property and month with counts, watch calendar patterns and compare properties with their peers.

Owners by stage

Front office owns arrival and departure, housekeeping owns cleanliness, engineering owns maintenance, food and beverage owns breakfast and restaurants, and facility managers own pools and gyms. Sending each owner their stage's sentiment by property and month, with quotes, turns one long review into work for the right teams.

Guests from many places

Hotels receive reviews in many languages. Include them all in the analysis, and check accuracy in each major language; international guests often comment on different things from domestic guests, such as transfers, Wi-Fi or breakfast variety.

Seasons and events

Resort and leisure properties see seasonal swings in both volume and topics. Compare each season with the same season last year, and note major events nearby, which change who stays and what they write about.

Doing this with Falcon

Falcon measures sentiment for every theme a review mentions rather than one score per review, keeps the exact words that support each label, and reports negative share by topic, store and month with small samples flagged and unclear texts kept visible. Every number opens the reviews behind it.