Purpose: This study explores US hotel guests’ privacy concerns with a twofoldaim: (a) investigating the privacy categories, themes and attributes mostcommonly discussed by US guests´ in their reviews and (b) examining the role ofcultural proximity on privacy concerns.

Design/methodology/approach: The study uses a mixed method approach combining automated text analyticswith content analysis. The database consists of 68,000 hotel reviews written byUS guests lodged in different type of hotels in five European cities. LIWC,Leximancer and SPSS were used for data analysis. Automated text analytics and avalidated privacy dictionary were used to investigate the reviews exploringcategories, themes and attributes of privacy concerns. Content analysis wasused to qualitatively explore the narratives and select representativesnippets.

Findings: The findings show categories, themes and concepts related to privacyconcerns. Results reveal two most commonly discussed categories of privacy Restrictionand Outcome State. The main themes discussed in association with privacyare room, hotel and breakfast, and several concepts within each are identified.Furthermore, U.S. guests show the lowest levels of privacy concerns whenstaying at American hotel chains compared to non-American chains andindependent hotels, thus highlighting the role of cultural proximity on privacy concerns.

Originality: This study contributes to the hospitality literature by investigatinga neglected issue: on-site privacy concerns of hotel guests. Using anunobtrusive method of data collection and a mixed approach to analyze onlinereviews, the study offers interesting insights on the categories of privacy,the most recurrent themes and the possible relationship between culturalproximity and privacy concerns. 

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