The Effect of the Hotel Attributes on Guest Satisfaction Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis: The Case of the Greek Tourism and Hospitality Sector

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic may be one of the most influential and unprecedented events of the global economy, affecting the performance and stability of the tourism and hospitality industry. Thus, given the significant positive impact of the tourism sector on the global economy, the negative implications on the sector of tourism industry and hospitality by the outbreak of COVID-19 are extremely important. The COVID-19 crisis has led to the emergence of new economic and social policies that has hastened a number of structural changes in the tourism and hospitality industry, which influence the guest satisfaction. In Greece, the tourism sector is one of the key factors of economic growth. In 2019, the tourism industry contributed 20,8% to the country’s GDP with more than 34 million international visitors. However, in 2020, the number of visitors decreased roughly over 78%, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This research attempts to reveal the change in the effect of the hotel attributes on guests’ satisfaction due to the COVID19 pandemic crisis. It builds upon the study of (Srivastava and Kumar, Tourism Management Perspectives 40, 2021) by extending the sample to include data from the Greek hospitality sector. Tripadvisor was used as a source to collect reviews of 5-star hotels in Athens, Greece. The findings revealed that the main topic of guests’ reviews was not the protocol and the social distancing measures in public areas but hotel, rooftop quality, restaurant, location and pool area condition.