Rethinking Hospitality Performance Through Transformative Experience: A Narrative-Based DEA Framework for Experiential Evaluation in a Climate-Constrained Context

This study critically examines hospitality performance evaluation practices by proposing a narrative-based quantitative framework grounded in online reviews. While tourism experiences, particularly in transformative contexts, are understood as subjective and meaning-oriented, empirical evaluation remains reliant on standardized, growth-oriented indicators such as star ratings and satisfaction scores. To address this disconnect, online reviews are conceptualized not as post hoc satisfaction measures but as narrative expressions of evaluation. Drawing on sentiment analysis of narratives from eleven hotels, evaluations are operationalized through indicators and incorporated into a DEA framework. Efficiency is reframed as experiential conversion capacity—the ability of hospitality providers to transform material and organizational conditions into experiences perceived as meaningful by guests. Two aggregation configurations and a super-efficiency extension are applied to examine robustness and differentiation. The findings reveal divergence between narrative-based evaluations and star classifications, suggesting that rating systems fail to capture dimensions of meaning and affective resonance. Notably, a lower-category hotel emerges as the strongest in experiential positioning, challenging assumptions linking quality, classification, and value. From a sustainability perspective, the study contributes to critiques of tourism evaluation and supports post-growth, sufficiency-oriented approaches. Methodologically, it demonstrates how techniques can be repurposed as interpretive tools when grounded in narrative data.