The evolution of consumers’ demand for hotels under the public health crisis: opinion mining from online reviews

This research aims to grasp the evolution of consumer demand and improve the resilience of the hotel industry under the public health crisis (COVID-19). Online reviews of 7,679 hotels in 10 cities were collected from Ctrip, China’s major online hotel platform. Then, we applied opinion mining and time evolution to mine the change in consumer demand before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings show that some consumer demands (e.g. epidemic safety) will change during the outbreak period. However, during the nonoutbreak period, users were more concerned about their own check-in experience (e.g. hotel facilities, front desk services). This article provides new ideas for identifying the dynamic value of online reviews. We suggest that businesses focus on ensuring hotel safety during the crisis period. The results contribute essential theoretical and practical significance to the hotel industry’s crisis management during public health crises.