International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

Frequency: 12

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 Volume 13, Issue 5 (May 2026), Pages: 120-132

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 Original Research Paper

Determinants of online hotel ratings: Evidence from consumer reviews in Hail City, Saudi Arabia

 Author(s): 

Abdulaziz Alharbi *

 Affiliation(s):

Department of Management and Information Systems, College of Business Administration, University of Ha'il, Hail, Saudi Arabia

 Full text

    Full Text - PDF

 * Corresponding Author. 

   Corresponding author's ORCID profile:  https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4978-2601

 Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

 
https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2026.05.012

 Abstract

The hospitality and tourism sector is a major source of revenue and employment worldwide. Saudi Arabia has significant potential to develop its tourism industry, which supports economic diversification and the expansion of non-oil revenues in line with the goals of Vision 2030. In the current digital environment, travelers increasingly depend on online platforms to evaluate hotel services and make booking decisions. Therefore, hotels’ ability to attract and retain customers is strongly associated with customer satisfaction and positive online ratings. This study aims to identify the main factors influencing hotels’ online rating performance in Hail City, Saudi Arabia. Hotels in developing countries such as Saudi Arabia can improve these factors to enhance their online ratings, attract more customers, increase revenue, and contribute to achieving the objectives of Vision 2030. The study analyzes online consumer reviews collected from major hotel booking platforms, including Booking.com and Agoda, focusing on hotels located in Hail City. The findings indicate that comfort, location, facilities, and value for money significantly influence hotels’ online ratings. Comfort, location, and facilities are associated with the satisfier dimension of the two-factor theory, whereas value for money is identified as a dissatisfier factor.

 © 2026 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords

Hotel online ratings, Customer satisfaction, Tourism development, Value for money, Saudi Vision 2030

 Article history

Received 5 January 2025, Received in revised form 3 May 2026, Accepted 10 May 2026

 Acknowledgment

No Acknowledgment. 

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Ethical considerations

This study utilized publicly available, anonymized aggregate online review ratings from Booking.com and Agoda. No primary data were collected from human participants, and no questionnaires or interviews were administered. Therefore, ethical approval for human subjects research was not required. 

 Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

 Citation:

Alharbi A  (2026). Determinants of online hotel ratings: Evidence from consumer reviews in Hail City, Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 13(5): 120-132

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