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Online consumer reviews have become increasingly important for consumer decision-making. One of the most prominent examples is the hotel industry where consumer reviews on websites, such as Bookings.com, TripAdvisor and Venere.com, play a critical role in consumers’ choice of a hotel. There have been a number of recent studies analyzing various aspects of online reviews. The purpose of this paper is to investigate their effects in terms of hotel occupancy rates.

This paper measures through regression analysis the impact of three dimensions of consumer reviews (i.e. review score, review variance and review volume) on the occupancy rates of 346 hotels located in Rome, isolating a number of other factors that might also affect demand.

Review score is the dimension with the highest impact. The results suggest that after controlling for other variables, a one-point increase in the review score is associated to an increase in the occupancy rate by 7.5 percentage points. Regardless the review score, the number of reviews has a positive effect, but with decreasing returns, implying that the higher the number of reviews, the lower the beneficial effect in terms of occupancy rates is.

The findings quantify the strong association of online reviews to occupancy rates suggesting the use of appropriate reputational management systems to increase hotel occupancy and therefore performance.

A major contribution of this paper is its comprehensiveness in analyzing the relation between online consumer reviews and occupancy across a heterogeneous sample of hotels.

This study aims to examine the impact of a mega-sporting event “2014 FIFA World Cup” on hotel pricing strategies and performance.

The present project examines the host regions’ response to the 2014 FIFA World Cup which was established by the variance in the main hotel key performance indexes: occupancy, average daily rate, revenue per available room (RevPAR) and supply. Using data gathered from STR, this research distinctly shows how the Brazilian host regions reacted to the World Cup.

Results suggest that the key performance indicators of Brazil’s lodging sector reacted differently to the World Cup. Although all hosting cities experienced significant RevPAR growth because of the increase in hotel room rates during the event, the supply and occupancy performed differed from each city.

Research is limited to the case of hotel performance at the country level for mega-events. The study focused on the reaction of revenue managers in the Latin America context. Other contexts may generate different results.

The study helps revenue managers to examine how the FIFA World Cup travel demand affected pricing strategies and revenue management practices in the Brazilian hotel sector in areas undergoing seasonal growths in overnight tourism. This study serves to inform hoteliers and practitioners about revenue management pricing strategies to improve hotel performance during mega-sporting events.

This study reveals that the benefits brought by a mega-event are not always translated into strong hotel revenue performance. This study highlights an important but understudied research area of revenue management pricing strategies and the effect of mega-sporting events in the hotel sector. This study contributes to the literature as one of the few investigations to benefit hotel pricing strategies and overall revenue performance.

This study is one of the few studies about exploring the reaction of revenue managers during the execution of a mega-sporting event. The value of the present study lies in the fact that the authors extend previous studies examining the impact of the most important sporting event in the hotel industry at the country-level perspective. This study serves to inform hoteliers and practitioners about revenue management pricing strategies to improve hotel performance during mega-sporting events.

Achieving a balance between occupancy and average room rate is now well recognised as a prime determinant of good rooms department performance. Yield management techniques are increasingly used to help maximise rooms department sales revenue. However, it can be argued that the complexity of making available different product offerings to different market segments requires not only consideration of the sales side of the profit equation but of the cost side as well. The nature of the variable costs of accommodation operations is examined and a case study approach is used to describe the contribution derived from different room types. These data are then used to construct a value engineering matrix which can identify successful and not so successful areas of operation and suggest ways of improving overall profit performance.

National tourism offices worldwide implement marketing strategies to influence tourists’ choices. However, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to choosing a city as a tourism destination. The purpose of this paper is to answer which are the characteristics that play a key role in room occupancy.

Diverse characteristics such as the city offer, demographics, natural amenities (e.g. number of beaches) and also politics (e.g. type of government) are combined into a decision tree model to unveil the relevance of each in determining room occupancy. The empirical experiments used data known in 2015 from 43 cities from Europe and the rest of the World to model room occupancy rate in 2016.

While the seasonality effect plays the most significant role, other less studied features such as the type of political party prior to current government were found to have an impact in room occupancy.

This study unveiled that center–right and right governments are generally more sensitive to promote its city as a tourism destination.

Time series analysis of daily room occupancy rates in 91 hotels in England from January 1992 to December 1994 is used to analyse within‐week occupancy performance in the English hotel industry. Two major temporal patterns are identified: one features a midweek peak and Saturday sub‐peak; the other features a broader weekend peak and midweek trough. Both are represented in the occupancy profiles of most hotels. They are used to define a two‐dimensional daily occupancy performance space. The positioning of hotels within this space is explained in terms of location, market and other characteristics of the hotels, in a stepwise regression analysis. The implications of the findings are discussed in a marketing context.

The objective of this exploratory study is to investigate the “flow-through” or relationship between top-line measures of hotel operating performance (occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room) and bottom-line measures of profitability (gross operating profit and net operating income), before and during the recent great recession.

This study uses data provided by PKF Hospitality Research for the period from 2007-2009. A total of 714 hotels were analyzed and various top-line and bottom-line profitability changes were computed using both absolute levels and percentages. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between top and bottom line measures, and to derive flow-through ratios.

The results show that average daily rate (ADR) and occupancy are significantly and positively related to gross operating profit per available room (GOPPAR) and net operating income per available room (NOIPAR). The evidence indicates that ADR, rather than occupancy, appears to be the stronger predictor and better measure of RevPAR growth and bottom-line profitability. The correlations and explained variances are also higher than those reported in prior research. Flow-through ratios range between 1.83 and 1.91 for NOIPAR, and between 1.55 and 1.65 for GOPPAR, across all chain-scales.

Limitations of this study include the limited number of years in the study period, limited number of hotels in a competitive set, and self-selection of hotels by the researchers.

While ADR and occupancy work in combination to drive profitability, the authors' study shows that ADR is the stronger predictor of profitability. Hotel managers can use flow-through ratios to make financial forecasts, or use them as inputs in valuation models, to forecast future profitability.

This paper extends prior research on the relationship between top-line measures and bottom-line profitability and serves to inform lodging owners, operators and asset managers about flow-through ratios, and how these ratios impact hotel profitability.

Across the world, many universities are dealing with a pressure on resources, caused by both organisational developments and ageing campuses. Space utilization studies have a strategic role, providing information on how space is being used, thereby informing decisions about the type and scale of facilities that are needed.

This study reports on the space use measurements conducted at TU Delft over the past five years, complemented by their use to make decisions about the university's real estate portfolio.

The education spaces of the university are found to perform well in terms of frequency rates and can be improved in terms of occupancy rates. The information helped to support short- and long-term decision-making. The study places of the university have a satisfactory occupancy in some types of study places, while in others there is room for improvement. More research is needed here to understand the relationship between space norms and space use.

The space utilization studies have supported discussions with the student council and decision makers on which interventions are required and which current facilities meet students' needs best.

Not much space utilisation studies are reported in the academic literature, and those that do have several limitations. This study may serve as a best practice for benchmarking by other universities and as evidence in other research for the planned and actual use of university facilities.

Homeownership is considered both economically and socially beneficial for homeowners. However, in the collective living arrangement, reaching a consensus with regard to the residential environment is difficult. The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that can reduce the conflict among the stakeholders in multi‐owner low‐cost housing in Malaysia.

This study tested three hypotheses examining whether the demographic and socio‐economic characteristics of owner‐occupants and occupancy rates affect owner‐occupants' satisfaction with stakeholders' relationships. Data were collected through questionnaires from owner‐occupants of multi‐owner low‐cost settlements in Selangor state. Data on housing characteristics were collected from chairpersons of the respective owners' organisations. The data were treated as parametric, and analysis of variance was conducted.

Four factors – number of children in the family, duration of residency, participation in social activities and participation in meetings – were found to affect owners‐occupants' satisfaction with the stakeholders' relationships. The significant effect of occupancy rates was also indicated.

The Management Corporations (MCs) should encourage social relationships among residents. To avoid conflict, the costs and benefits of participation must be balanced. Policy makers should take two key aspects seriously: owner‐managed strategy practices by the MCs and high rates of tenant‐residents. A mechanism should be identified for assisting the MCs in housing management and for protecting the benefits of homeownership for owner‐occupants.

Past studies on low‐income household settlements examined public housing or low‐income homeowners of single detached dwellings. This study adds to the existing body of knowledge by examining low‐income homeowners in multi‐owner low‐cost settlements.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of health-care governance and ownership structure on the performance of hospitals in Ghana.

The study uses multiple regression models based on a sample of 132 hospitals in Ghana.

The results of the study indicate that hospitals with a governing board perform better than those without a governing board. The results of this study also suggest that board characteristics and ownership structure are important in explaining the performance of hospitals in Ghana. The results further indicate that mission-based and private hospitals with effective board governance structures exhibit better performance than public hospitals.

This study makes a number of new and meaningful contributions to the extant literature and the findings support managerialism, stakeholder and resource dependency theories. The findings also have important implications for the effective governance of hospitals.

This paper aims to explore the international marina industry, encompassing both marina customers and managers. It also aims to put forth the argument that marinas as business entities can create and sustain competitive advantage by maximizing the advantages that stem from their superior resources and core competences.

To ensure proper representation for the marina managers worldwide, questionnaires were sent to 200 managers of various marinas on five continents, in order to receive a representative sample. The questionnaires were distributed for the most part via e‐mail (where an address was available), some by fax and additional questionnaires were distributed at the international ICOMIA conference for marina managers held in Sydney, Australia. Overall, 138 marina managers replied. The statistical analysis applied in the study is a structural equations analysis, which is known in the literature as covariance structure modeling and structural equations modeling (SEM).

The correlation between government intervention and occupancy is a negative correlation, meaning that the greater government intervention, the lower occupancy rate. The correlation between crowding and occupancy is a positive one. The remaining correlations are not significant. This shows that it is not possible to claim a relationship between the occupancy index and the other variables examined: view, services, level of security/safety, environmental protection, distance from competitors, proximity to customer/city and local community.

The study offers a method of classifying variables according to which marinas can be characterized. Second, these criteria are placed in clusters viewed by the marina managers as being related to one another, adding structure to the process of classification, which is similar to the “conceptual map” that exists in the minds of the marina managers.

This research provides corroborative empirical evidence to the hypothesis that occupancy can be used as a proxy for marina's profitability. Finally, the model provides tools for strategic planning and ongoing management of an existing marina and/or for the establishing of a new marina.