Customer Sentiment Intelligence: A Comprehensive Analysis of TripAdvisor Hotel Reviews for Strategic Business Optimization

Abstract

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of Customer Sentiment Intelligence (CSI) applied to hospitality management through a systematic examination of 20,491 TripAdvisor hotel reviews. The research addresses three critical business intelligence questions regarding the relationship between sentiment patterns and numerical ratings, operational aspects driving customer satisfaction, and strategic applications of text mining for competitive positioning. The methodology employed lexicon-based sentiment analysis calibrated for hospitality terminology, complemented by aspect-based performance evaluation across six strategic operational dimensions: Guest Experience Management, Location Advantage, Service Excellence, Room Quality Standards, Facilities Portfolio, and Value Proposition. Results demonstrate a strong correlation between sentiment language patterns and numerical customer ratings, validating sentiment analysis as a reliable complement to traditional satisfaction measurement approaches. The overall sentiment distribution reveals 86.4% positive sentiment, 7.8% neutral sentiment, and 5.8% negative sentiment across the dataset. Guest Experience Management emerged as the highest-performing operational aspect with 94.2% customer satisfaction rates, while Value Proposition represented the primary improvement opportunity at 78.9% satisfaction rates. The keyword frequency analysis identified service personnel, cleanliness standards, and location advantages as the most frequently discussed business elements, indicating customer evaluation priorities focus on fundamental service delivery components. The aspect-based performance analysis reveals substantial optimization potential, with a 15.3 percentage point performance difference between the highest and lowest performing operational dimensions. These findings provide hotel managers with data-driven frameworks for strategic resource allocation and operational improvement initiatives. The research establishes practical methodologies for implementing Customer Sentiment Intelligence as a strategic management tool that enables proactive customer satisfaction management and competitive advantage development through systematic analysis of unstructured customer feedback.