A look into Covid-19 spreading through the lodging sector

Abstract

This thesis integrates spatial analysis and text mining techniques to explore the experience of Airbnb users in the light of the health crisis of COVID-19. The main findings did not provide enough evidence to claim that after the outbreak of covid there was a significant change in the experience of Airbnb users in Rio de Janeiro and New York. On the one hand, the decrease of positive reviews was not significatively high, as the decrease was only 1% in Rio de Janeiro and 2% in New York. On the other hand, positive reviews containing covid terms accounted 87% of the covid reviews in Rio de Janeiro and 89% of the covid reviews in New York. Nevertheless, the analysis of reviews containing covid terms revealed topics related with the health crisis, such as the use of mask and hand sanitizer, cancellation of reservation and flight, and travel ban. Further analyses are required to prove if those situations had an influence in the experience of Airbnb users. The overall findings show how semantic and spatial analysis can contribute to the understanding of customer behaviour in the lodging sector, and furthermore during health crisis events.