Identifying emerging hotel preferences using Emerging Pattern Mining technique

Hotel managers continue to find ways to understand traveler preferences, with the aim of improving their strategic planning, marketing, and product development. Traveler preference is unpredictable; for example, hotel guests used to prefer having a telephone in the room, but now favor fast Internet connection. Changes in preference influence the performance of hotel businesses, thus creating the need to identify and address the demands of their guests. Most existing studies focus on current demand attributes and not on emerging ones. Thus, hotel managers may find it difficult to make appropriate decisions in response to changes in travelers' concerns. To address these challenges, this paper adopts Emerging Pattern Mining technique to identify emergent hotel features of interest to international travelers. Data are derived from 118,000 records of online reviews. The methods and findings can help hotel managers gain insights into travelers' interests, enabling the former to gain a better understanding of the rapid changes in tourist preferences. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.