Tourists Perceptions of Cultural Experiences in Heritage Hotels in Queretaro City

Summary In this case study, we identify themes related to cultural tourism experience in boutique and non-boutique heritage hotels in Queretaro City, Mexico to determine whether there are differentiating elements that could be useful as a competitive strategy. We did a content analysis using web scraping and supervised text mining techniques, allowing us to statistically analyze 1040 guest reviews collected on TripAdvisor from January 2016 to December 2019. We made and validated a codebook to identify and characterize cultural tourism experiences in Mexican heritage hotels. We found that the experience of escapism, the perceived quality, and authenticity are significant differentiating elements between boutique heritage hotels and non-boutique heritage hotels.