How was your homestay experience? A sentiment and emotion analysis

Abstract

With the growing urge among travellers for deep experiences, meaningful travel, and experiential travel, there is a global surge in preference for homestays in rural and offbeat settings around the globe. Despite this growing popularity, there is a limited understanding of the complexity and nuances of homestay experiences, and the role of specific factors in such scenarios remains unattended. This study employs text mining to understand homestay consumption and examine how travellers report their experience. The analysis of online reviews of the homestays located in the Indian Himalayas was undertaken to get insights. The analysis was done using sentiment and emotion classification packages of the R software. These findings indicate that the specific sentiment scores and emotions which guests express in their homestay consumption feedback. The study unveiled the multifaceted nature of homestay experiences, highlighting the interplay between different emotions ranging from joy to anger. The findings offer proper guidance for hosts to tailor experiences to guest preferences and aid understanding of emotion-driven consumption in rural homestays.