Impact of cultural differences on hotel ratings

Richie KaraburunFollow

Author Bios (50 Words for each Author)

Professor Richie Karaburun has over 25 years of tourism and hospitality industry experience. Also knows as Professor K, joined NYU as Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor at Johnathan M. Tisch center for Hospitality and Tourism. With over 25 years of experience in executive roles within the travel industry, Richie has successfully assisted in the growth and expansion of travel companies, providing them with his expertise and immense knowledge of sales, marketing and business development.

As a well-known travel industry veteran and mentor and recently a true entrepreneur, Richie brings unprecedented experience and familiarity of diverse international, cultural and business practices to companies. He was last as a Managing Director at Roomer overseeing Roomer’s overall sales and marketing strategy for North America, Karaburun worked closely with hotels and travel companies around the world to expand their customer bases and to solve critical customer service problems relating to guests with nonrefundable reservations.

Prior to Roomer, Richie was Vice President of Global Supplier Relations at RADIUS, President at Gulliver’s Travel Associates (GTA) North America – once owned by Blackstone Group -, and Vice President of Product Development and Contracting at American tours International, achieving high value revenue and profit gains, gaining large scale cost savings, improving organizational productivity and performance at each.

Richie is currently pursuing his doctoral degree in Marketing and earned his Bachelor of Arts in International Business at the Uludag University in Turkey, his MBA in International Business at Chapman University, The George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics in California and his CEO Series at the University of Pennsylvania – The Wharton School.

Abstract (150 Words)

Online reviews and ratings have become a major influence when selecting a hotel for consumers. The impact of different cultures (collectivistic vs individualistic etc.) on hotel ratings is crucial and hotels need to understand how distinct cultures can affect their online reviews. The cultural impact on hotel ratings has not been extensively studied, therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate how cultural differences have an impact on guest ratings and reviews on the hotels. The research focuses on five nationalities that is a bug source market for US Inbound Travel as well as a good representative of collectivistic and individualistic t cultures. Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, and Mexico. This research includes an analysis of 947 reviews and 3512 review comments from top rated hotels on the following sites: Expedia, TripAdvisor, Booking, and Ctrip. This analysis focus on four major US cities including Las Vegas, New York City, Los Angeles and Orlando to see if there is a relationship between culture and the nature of ratings and reviews.

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Impact of cultural differences on hotel ratings

Online reviews and ratings have become a major influence when selecting a hotel for consumers. The impact of different cultures (collectivistic vs individualistic etc.) on hotel ratings is crucial and hotels need to understand how distinct cultures can affect their online reviews. The cultural impact on hotel ratings has not been extensively studied, therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate how cultural differences have an impact on guest ratings and reviews on the hotels. The research focuses on five nationalities that is a bug source market for US Inbound Travel as well as a good representative of collectivistic and individualistic t cultures. Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, and Mexico. This research includes an analysis of 947 reviews and 3512 review comments from top rated hotels on the following sites: Expedia, TripAdvisor, Booking, and Ctrip. This analysis focus on four major US cities including Las Vegas, New York City, Los Angeles and Orlando to see if there is a relationship between culture and the nature of ratings and reviews.