In the literature on consumer behavior, several theories based on differing standards, expectations, and perceived quality have been proposed to explain customer satisfaction. These theories include the expectancy disconfirmation paradigm (EDP) [67], contrast theory [68], equity theory [69,70], and attribution theory [71]. These theories can enable hotel service providers to gain insights into the behavior of consumers to improve their service delivery. This is important because customer satisfaction directly impacts customers’ or guests’ opinion formation (positive or negative) of the service quality, as often reflected in customer-generated online ratings of hotels.

The first theory is the expectancy disconfirmation paradigm (EDP). This theory is predicated on the idea that the degree of congruence between aspirations and the perceived reality of experiences determines customer satisfaction [67]. The model suggests that consumers make pre-purchase plans when they buy products and services. According to Kim et al. [72], these predictive expectations are created by manufacturers, service providers, company reports, or unspecified sources, and sometimes the consumer’s past experience with the anticipated performance. The customer sets a standard of measurement based on these expectations even before the consummation of the service or product. The level of expectation then serves as a benchmark for evaluating the quality of the service. Expectation and performance are the main features of this theory. Depending on whether service expectations and performance differ positively or negatively, a consumer is either satisfied or unsatisfied. Therefore, when service performance meets or exceeds the client’s initial expectations, there is positive confirmation, and the customer is satisfied. On the other hand, the customer is dissatisfied when performance falls below expectations of service quality. The implication of this theory for the hotel service industry is that most customers have a predetermined expectation of standard service quality and that these standards or expectations vary by destination. Therefore, commercial tourists’ expectations must be identified and differentiated from religious tourists and appropriately served.

The second is the contrast theory, which is related to the EDP regarding customers’ initial expectations. Contrast theory suggests that customers will react favorably or unfavorably to disconfirmation experiences depending on whether results differ from expectations [68]. However, according to contrast theory, consumers will exaggerate the difference when a product or service’s performance falls short of their expectations [72]. According to this theory, products that perform below expectations will be considered worse than they actually are [73,74]. For example, a negative disconfirmation is believed to result in a low product evaluation, whereas a positive disconfirmation is thought to lead to a high product appraisal [75]. The same implication as in the case of the EDP still holds for the contrast theory, but with greater intensity as the negative or positive impact is exaggerated. For consumer-generated OPRs, poor hotel ratings would exaggerate the customers’ perception of poor performance, while good hotel ratings would exaggerate the customers’ perception of good performance. The contrast theory also suggests that commercial and religious tourists with differing expectations should be identified and served appropriately; failing to do so may increase customer dissatisfaction.

The equity theory is another theory that explains customer satisfaction [69,70]. According to the equity theory, consumers are satisfied when they receive more value than they pay [76]. Multiple studies indicate that tourists will be satisfied with the service they receive if they perceive that the service quality exceeds the amount they paid [77,78,79]. In essence, perceived value has a direct impact on visitor satisfaction. In addition, equity theory asserts that people need consistency between what they expect and what they receive. Therefore, to give customers a satisfying experience, both sides of this equation (output/input ratio) must be consistent and fair [80].

Attribution theory is the last theory in this study. Attribution theory is more frequently employed to explain customer complaint/dissatisfaction models rather than customer satisfaction models [71]. Businesses must comprehend their consumers’ demands, wants, and pain areas to satisfy them. Only then can they ensure customers are satisfied with every interaction [35]. According to attribution theory, customers are logical information processors looking for explanations for why a purchase outcome, like dissatisfaction, occurred [81]. These reasons may include the product or service, the price, and even the person who sold it. Most often, these reasons for the dissatisfaction/complaining are always correlated (inter-correlated attributions). However, to the service provider (e.g., hotel), it is important to identify the cause of dissatisfaction, particularly those attributes that are within the control of hotel management, and to improve upon them.

The destination can be described as a fusion of the consumer’s space and tourist attractions that offer a comprehensive experience that is subjectively assessed based on the consumer’s travel plans, cultural background, the reason for the visit, etc. [82,83,84]. A destination can be defined as a person’s mental representation of their knowledge, feelings, and general viewpoint on a certain location [85]. Additionally, Tasci and Gartner [86] view the destination image as a dynamic system of ideas, attitudes, and purposes that are directed at the location. According to Jauhari and Sanjeev [87], religious tourism is viewed as travel with a purpose rather than a luxury and is largely resilient to economic slumps.

Prior research indicated that a trip’s destination or purpose significantly impacted tourist behavior [88,89]. Numerous researchers concur that destination image significantly influences visitor behavior, including destination selection, decision-making, and satisfaction [90,91,92,93]. Moreover, the destination goes beyond the physical place [94]. According to Rashid [95] and Villamediana-Pedrosa et al. [96], people can travel to the same destination for vastly diverse reasons, including religious pilgrimage for some and tourism (adventure or cultural) or pilgrimage (cultural or nostalgic) for others [47].

Every destination has an intention, an expectation, and a purpose, which determines customer/tourist behavior and, as a result, the overall degree of consumer satisfaction. Businesses need to acknowledge the diverse desires of tourists and visitors [83]. Commercial destinations are known for pursuing leisure activities, seeking pleasure, and spending vacations [47]. Religious tourism is a type of special-interest tourism driven primarily or completely by religious motivations, particularly the desire of the traveler to leave his place of permanent residence to visit a place considered holy [97]. Frequently, the visitor picks a precise moment to communicate with the divine to fulfill religious obligations, such as the completion of a vow, a request for divine favor, or an expression of appreciation [98]. However, it is widely known that tourist motivation is multifaceted; visitors go for various reasons, even within a single trip [99,100,101,102]. People may go to religious sites or engage in religious activities without having a religious drive or for various other reasons [59]. On the other hand, people may participate in non-religious activities with quasi-religious fervor [103]. Therefore, marketers need to recognize the diverse desires of tourists and visitors in their policy implementation, particularly regarding the weighting of elements that determine customer satisfaction [95].

Businesses have always been keen on commercial tourism and pursuing strategies to entice commercial tourists [104,105]. Businesses have taken an interest in religious tourism as a growing phenomenon because of the local community dynamics it generates [59]. Researchers are interested in religious tourism to investigate the interests, drives, and spiritual or cultural impulses that religious locations seem to arouse in visitors [106,107]. Businesses are interested in religious tourism opportunities due to additional revenue, and creating job opportunities [61,98,103,108,109].

Prior research has often examined commercial destinations and determined the motivations, expectations, and typical factors influencing customer satisfaction during hotel stays [53]. Few studies have been conducted on the motivations of consumers to stay at hotels in religious places, particularly in Makkah [31,33,52,53]. Tourists’ preference for a destination can help to identify critical factors impacting online hotel ratings [13,14,110] regarding religious and commercial destinations. It can help identify and prioritize utility-providing qualities in the hotel services that meet customers’ different needs. In this study, it is the difference in customers’ preference for commercial or religious destinations. Therefore, the fundamental objective of measuring and explaining customer satisfaction is to determine how successfully hotels at a given destination recognize and respond to the demands of visitors [83], as well as to determine which aspects of the commercial and religious destination’s offerings require improvement.

Appreciating and understanding customer behavior and satisfying customers’ needs are very important [111,112], especially in the service industry [113,114,115]. According to Chu and Choi [37], a company must first understand customers’ needs, wants, and pain points to satisfy them. Only then can it ensure that customers’ demands are met during every encounter.

The customer’s or guest’s expectations play a critical role in satisfaction resulting in opinion formation (positive or negative). Fen and Lian [116] consider customer satisfaction as an outcome of comparing the supplier’s perceived performance of the product or service in relation to the customer’s expectation. According to Albayrak and Caber [35], service quality is a relativistic and cognitive mismatch between experience-based standards and performance related to the benefits of the product/service. The gap between a tourist’s expectations and perceived value is tourist satisfaction [117]. When expectations are far higher than the product’s performance, and they are not met, it might backfire because little differences may be overlooked entirely, but major differences may lead to bad results [72]. Given these issues, improving service performance might be the best action [118].

In the current marketplace, hotels must give customer-pleasing, high-quality, cutting-edge services to improve service performance and satisfy customers. According to Kandampully [112], a hotel manager must measure visitor satisfaction and comprehend their behavior to meet guests’ expectations and identify their requirements, wants, and preferences. This notion is that to be successful and profitable and survive in today’s vibrant and fiercely competitive tourism market, hotels must deliver great services at a reasonable price and better than the competition [119]. In addition, hotels should adopt sustainable practices because they may affect customer satisfaction and online review ratings [120,121]. Hotels that effectively convey their sustainability practices to customers via their websites, booking platforms, and on-site materials obtain higher online review ratings [122,123]. Customers’ perceptions of a hotel’s commitment to sustainability impact their overall satisfaction with their stay [124,125]. Generally, hotels promoting and implementing sustainability practices obtain higher customer ratings and more positive feedback [32]. Therefore, hotels must handle customer satisfaction effectively to be profitable and sustainable.

To improve customer satisfaction and identify opportunities for service recovery, researchers and practitioners in the hotel sector emphasize analyzing online ratings data. This is because Internet-savvy customers are more likely than ever to post their honest opinions about service experiences online [126]. Online ratings are important sources of ideas for service enhancements and innovations. Understanding and recognizing the customer-generated online hotel ratings directly impacts customers’ or guests’ opinion creation (positive or negative) of the service quality and can improve service delivery. Online ratings serve as a source of marketing strategy to understand consumer behavior [127,128,129] and assist hotels in determining client contentment and displeasure [36,130,131]. Online ratings also help managers make better decisions to increase client satisfaction [54,115]. In addition, online ratings play a vital part in successful destination marketing since they impact the selection of a location, the consumption of goods and services, and the decision of customers to return [117,118].

Previous studies have identified several hotel service attributes that influence customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction based on consumer-generated OPRs [53,132,133,134,135]. The current research identified hotel attributes (comfort, staff attitude, cleanliness, facilities, location, value for money, breakfast, and Wi-Fi) and their specific effects on OCS. Earlier studies have grouped these attributes in their analysis. Soliman et al. [136], Maddox [137], Li et al. [36], and Singh and Alhamad [33] adopted the Herzberg et al. [138] two-factor theory to inform two sets of factors: satisfiers and dissatisfiers. Singh and Alhamad [53] adopted Cadotte and Turgeon’s [139] four-factor theory to inform four sets of factors: satisfiers, dissatisfiers, criticals, and neutrals.

The customer’s comfort is considered a key attribute for choosing a hotel. Li et al. [36], using online review ratings covering 774 hotels of various classifications, revealed that customers’ comfort is an imperative factor for tourists to stay in hotels. Hua et al. [39] and Öğüta and Cezara [44], using customers’ data from Chinese budget hotels and online review data of Paris hotels from Booking.com, respectively, confirmed comfort as an essential factor for customers’ satisfaction that may result in repeat booking. According to Singh and Alhamad’s [53] analysis of Makkah hotels, comfort is a critical factor in determining customer satisfaction.

Staff attitude is another hotel attribute that influences customer satisfaction. The personal relationship with customers, attending to their needs, courtesy, a warm welcome, etc., will encourage customers to stay in a hotel and return. The studies of Kim et al. [41], which used online review ratings from TripAdvisor of 100 New York City hotels, and O’Connor et al. [140], which utilized comments from TripAdvisor, concluded that staff attitudes influence customer satisfaction. Similarly, Öğüta and Cezara [44], Becerra et al. [141], and Raguseo and Vitari [25] also confirmed the importance of hotel staff attitude in improving customer satisfaction. The Makkah hotel studies of Alhamad and Singh [31] and Singh and Alhamad [53] revealed staff attitude as a significant factor and satisfier, respectively.

Another attribute that previous studies have considered as an antecedent to hotel customers’ satisfaction is cleanliness. This factor sometimes extends beyond the physical surroundings to include environmental conditions such as climate, air quality, and feelings toward the destination [142,143]. Using TripAdvisor and CTrip.com data on hotels in China’s major cities, Au et al. [40] reported that cleanliness is a significant factor among other variables. The works of Kim et al. [41], Liu et al. [45], and Alhamad and Singh [31] also revealed similar results. According to Singh and Alhamad’s [33,53] studies of Makkah hotels, cleanliness is a satisfier in determining customer satisfaction.

Facilities in a hotel also influence customer satisfaction [25,142]. Li et al.’s [36] study on various hotel classifications (luxury and budget) also discovered that hotel facilities are imperative factors that influence customer satisfaction. Kim et al.’s [41] New York City hotel study revealed that hotel facilities influence customer satisfaction. Alhamad and Singh’s [31] study using Booking.com data from 172 hotels in Makkah city classified attributes of hotels into significant and trivial factors that impact online consumer ratings and opined that hotel facilities, among other variables, affect customer satisfaction. Singh and Alhamad’s [53] Makkah hotel study revealed hotel facilities as a critical factor in influencing customer satisfaction.

Previous studies identified the location of the hotel as a factor contributing to customer satisfaction [40,53]. For example, Hua et al. [39] and Au et al. [40], using consumer- generated OPRs from CTrip.com, confirmed that location is a key determinant of hotel customer satisfaction. Furthermore, in their respective studies, Barsky and Labagh [144] and Gu and Ryan [145] classified location as a satisfier, meaning it increases customer satisfaction. Finally, a recent study by Singh and Alhamad [53], using online consumer review data from Booking.com for hotel ratings for Makkah, concluded that the location is a satisfier and an important antecedent to customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, cost (the expenses considered by tourists while staying in a hotel), which most authors also consider as value for money, is another important factor [142,146]. This factor is linked to the equity theory [69,70]. Equity theory states that consumer satisfaction occurs when more value is received than is paid for. Several researchers have discovered that visitors will be satisfied with the services they receive if they consider that the services’ quality exceeds the cost [77,78,79,147]. According to Li et al. [36], high-end and low-end hotel guests must prioritize the value they receive relative to their expenditures. Raguseo and Vitari [25] and Phillips et al. [43], using online customer reviews of French and Swiss hotels, respectively, concluded that value for money is crucial for customers’ satisfaction. But separate studies conducted by Alhamad and Singh [31] and Singh and Alhamad [53] using Booking.com consumer-generated OPRs for hotels in Makkah confirmed value for money spent as a factor influencing customer satisfaction but considered it a trivial factor and neutral factor, respectively.

Finally, the breakfast and Wi-Fi factors influence consumer satisfaction [31,33,35,53,148,149]. Albayrak and Caber’s [35] research on multinational tour operators confirmed breakfast availability as an essential factor for customers’ satisfaction. Buhalis and Foerste [148], Neirotti et al. [15], and Singh and Alhamad [33] also considered the quality of breakfast as an important factor in customer satisfaction. In addition, providing free Wi-Fi service is considered an essential attribute of hotels. According to studies conducted in Europe by Bulchand-Gidumal et al. [149], Wi-Fi increased hotel ratings by up to 8%, demonstrating customers’ satisfaction. However, Alhamad and Singh [31] and Singh and Alhamad [53], using online customer review data for hotels in Makkah, reported breakfast and free Wi-Fi as trivial factors and breakfast as a neutral factor, respectively.