Weight of criteria in hotel selection: An empirical illustration based on TripAdvisor criteria

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show how to calculate the weight of criteria that influences the decision making process of potential hotel guests. By taking into consideration the growing importance of electronic word-of-mouth and the popularity of hotel reviews websites, this research note exposes the framework to calculate the weight of the 6 TripAdvisor criteria by using the Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) – Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. 250 tourists in Paris (France) have been interrogated in order to apply the AHP method and to illustrate how to determine the weight of 6 criteria: location, bed quality, comfort & equipment, service, value for money and, cleanliness. By doing so, this research note facilitates the understanding of AHP method and its application to the hotel sector. The empirical study proposes weight for each criterion by taking into consideration tourists’ point of view.