Discovering the hotel selection preferences of Hong Kong inbound travelers using the Choquet Integral

Modeling MCDM requires the simultaneous consideration of multiple criteria but traditional statistical techniques can only evaluate these factors independently. As such, it is vital for managers to have a clear picture of customers' preferences in order to design more focused marketing strategies; whereas the existing body of work is unable to meet such a requirement. To tackle these challenges, we introduce a new technique based on deploying an aggregation function, the Choquet Integral (CI), in the tourism context. Focusing on a case study of the Hong Kong hotel industry, we demonstrate how this technique can be used to discover the preferences among travelers that affect their hotel selections. A set of criteria based on these preference profiles is then constructed. The findings are expected to benefit tourism managers worldwide.

► The Choquet Integral is introduced to model the multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) process for travelers.
► A dataset comprising about 10,000 records giving ratings of Hong Kong hotels is collected from the Web site TripAdvisor.
► Each record contains ratings for hotel features (such as value for money, location, and service) and overall.
► It demonstrates the approach can model hotel selection process and exploring travelers' hotel preferences.