The influence of heritage designation on guest satisfaction in Spanish paradores: A text-mining analysis of online reviews

Abstract

This study examines the role of legal heritage protection in shaping the guest experience and overall satisfaction in heritage hotels, using the Spanish Paradores network as a reference. An empirical analysis is conducted in three phases: (1) identification of the main experiential attributes using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) applied to 37,741 online reviews; (2) assessment of guests’ perceptions through sentiment analysis; and (3) estimation of the effect of these attributes on overall satisfaction using binary logistic regression. The LDA model identifies that the guest experience is structured around five key attributes: room quality, staff service, building, location and accessibility, and food and beverage offerings. Building-related perceptions are significantly higher in BIC-designated paradores, whereas no significant differences are observed across parador types for the remaining attributes. Logistic regression results indicate that the building emerges as the primary determinant of satisfaction. Moreover, both BIC-designated and renovated paradores show a higher probability of receiving top ratings compared to modern establishments, with no significant differences between the former two. This finding challenges the assumption that higher levels of heritage protection necessarily lead to higher satisfaction. The study provides both theoretical and practical implications for the management of heritage accommodations according to their level of legal protection.