A Bayesian statistics approach to hospitality research

Abstract

Bayesian statistics approach contraposes inferential statistics by the fact that it introduces experts’ opinion in the quantitative analysis. While this approach has played an increasingly important role in various fields of research, its application to hospitality research has been limited. Bayesian statistics helps resolve the issue of the shortage of observations, which is a frequent problem in certain areas of the hospitality industry. Secondly, the Bayesian approach is particularly well suited when the variables used are already subjective or abstract. Therefore, this study aims to explain how a Bayesian statistics approach contributes to the advancement of hospitality management and demonstrates how this approach can be applied to analyse guests’ online reviews for a hotel.