Why do guests avoid my hotel? Understanding hotel avoidance

Abstract

This research builds on the anti-consumption paradigm to investigate why consumers reject certain hotels. This dark side of hotel selection reflects a new phenomenon: hotel avoidance. Using a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews, this inquiry explores rationales behind consumers distancing themselves from specific accommodation properties or brands. The findings inform a typology for hotel avoidance, delineating five aggregate dimensions that drive consumers to avoid specific hotels: experiential avoidance, identity avoidance, moral avoidance, deficit-value avoidance, and brand image-induced avoidance. Building on these aggregate dimensions, the study further reveals corresponding themes. By extending prior brand avoidance logic into the hospitality service domain, this inquiry adds two key avoidance dimensions—deficit-value avoidance and brand message-induced avoidance—contributing to the anti-consumption scholarship. This study represents the first attempt in the hospitality literature to uncover the underlying reasons for consumers’ avoidance of certain accommodations, while improvising a typology that unifies the dark side of hotel selection decisions. This approach differentiates the present study from the existing literature, which primarily has centered on hotel preferences, selection, and recommendations. It further unlocks insights for operators into reasons behind consumers’ avoidance behaviors, with managerial implications that may mitigate them.