Online Consumer Complaints About Southeast Asian Luxury Hotels

Companies who have delivered unexpected services or products will have problems because of the negative word-of-mouth diffusion arising from dissatisfied customers. With the aid of the Internet, every single negative experience can be distributed to millions around the world in just one second. This study focuses on the content analysis methodology and investigates the behaviors of hotel guests who stayed at hotels in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia; the guests made complaints on the TripAdvisor website. In this study, three main constructs are explored: inferior quality of hotel facilities, inadvertence towards the orders of guests, and inappropriate comportment of hotel staff. TripAdvisor was chosen for this study since it is the largest travel review website, and reviews for Kuala Lumpur luxury hotels were selected as this location is one of the most visited places in the world. Interestingly, dissatisfied guests who spread negative electronic word-of-mouth have been significant challenges for hotel management. Despite the significant importance, relatively little content has been written about how guests use the Internet to share their experiences. Thus, this study sheds light on the importance of online reviews by hotel guests to provide better hotel services.