A user-generated content analysis on the quality of restaurants using the TOURQUAL model

Abstract

The restaurant market is becoming more competitive, and businesses are challenged to differentiate themselves in this sector in terms of quality of services. This research aimed to identify the specific indicators for measuring the quality of restaurant service in Brazil. Based on a quantitative paradigm, we adopted a user-generated content analysis with a sample of 1,143,631 customer reviews from 35,611 restaurants in seven Brazilian cities available on the TripAdvisor platform. We collected and registered the data in text and analyzed the results with the support of T-LAB software. Moreover, we adopted TOURQUAL Protocol (Mondo, 2014) to identify the main requirements for quality. Also, we gathered the customers points of view through reviews made on a specialized website and organized them into groups. Findings: The results showed the leading categories identified as requirements for the customers were accessibility or location, service, opening hours, infrastructure, price, quality of food, and having a variety of food options. The finding provides managers with empirical evidence of the quality drivers for Brazilian clients and sheds light on opportunities to enhance quality service. This research demonstrated its originality as the first to adopt TOURQUAL quality indicators in a large country sample with continental geographical dimensions.