Predicting Key Factors Impacting Online Hotel Ratings Using Data Mining Approach: A Case Study of the Makkah City of Saudi Arabia

In the digital era, hotels' online reviews shape consumer behavior and satisfaction, consequently influencing hotel bookings and revenue stream. Previous research investigated the factors impacting hotels' online ratings in commercial cities; however, this study analyses the hotels' online ratings in Saudi Arabia's key religious city Makkah by data mining popular Booking.com website using classification approach. The present study employs consideration set theory as the theoretical lens and finds seven hotel attributes as the awareness set (in the priority order), viz. facilities, comfort, cleanliness, staff, location, value for money, and free WiFi. Except for value for money and free WiFi, the rest of the five hotel attributes constitute the consideration set. Hotel facilities being the most important factor, form the choice set. The study results indicate that value for money is less important in religious destinations than commercial destinations. Further, free WiFi is less critical to influence consumer ratings these days as almost all hotels provide it, and consumers have alternatives like mobile Internet plans. As religious tourism is expected to drive future economic growth of nations, this study's findings would empower the hospitality an' tourism industry (specifically hotels) in tourism destinations, especiall Saudi Arabia, in line with its Vision 2030. (C) 2021 INT TRANS J ENG MANAG SCI TECH.