**1. Introduction**

With the rapid development of China's tourism industry, the number of hotels has also increased rapidly. From 2016 to 2019, the number of hotel rooms in China increased to 17.62 million, with an annual growth rate of 7.71% [1]. Subsequently, user experience has become the focus of competition among hotels. With the increasing demand of consumers for hotels, hotels with different decoration styles are widely popular to meet the aesthetic needs of consumers. Customers' perception of the overall value of the hotel mainly comes from the indoor environmental conditions of the hotel. The physical environment is a key function of consumer psychology, which links consumers with tangible products and services [2]. The physical environment has a positive impact on the mood, satisfaction,

**Citation:** Xu, J.; Li, M.; Huang, D.; Wei, Y.; Zhong, S. A Comparative Study on the Influence of Different Decoration Styles on Subjective Evaluation of Hotel Indoor Environment. *Buildings* **2022**, *12*, 1777. https://doi.org/10.3390/ buildings12111777

Academic Editors: Yue Wu, Zheming Liu and Zhe Kong

Received: 14 August 2022 Accepted: 24 September 2022 Published: 24 October 2022

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and behavioral intentions of residents [3]. With the increasing demand for hotel characteristics in the tourism market, hotel rooms with various decoration styles came into being. Different decoration styles mean different decoration materials, furniture layouts, and so on. Therefore, we get inspiration on whether different decoration styles affect customers' subjective evaluation of the hotel. This research question can provide valuable suggestions for hotel interior environment design, which is beneficial to the development of China's tourism industry. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the United States has defined indoor environmental quality (IEQ), including the comprehensive psychological and physiological effects of five aspects of acoustic, thermal, light environment, air quality, and non-light visual factors on the residents [4]. Studies have shown that the values hotel customers care about most are seven dimensions, including thermal environment comfort, visual environment comfort, and indoor air quality [5,6]. Existing studies have preliminarily explored the impact of hotel aesthetic design on the subjective feelings of hotel consumers [7,8], but few scholars have paid attention to the impact of hotel decoration style on the subjective feelings of consumers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the residents' subjective evaluation of hotel rooms with the same physical environment but different decoration styles and to reveal the impact of different decoration styles on the subjective evaluation of various indoor environments (Table 1).

In terms of theoretical research on hotel indoor design, hotel decoration style, i.e., "atmosphere", is considered to be extremely important by hotel operators, hotel designers, and architects. Similarly, it also has a crucial impact on customer satisfaction [9]. Many studies have explored the research field of indoor landscape, including the hotel indoor environment transformation through different decoration materials, decoration environment, and plant configuration [10–12]. With the refined development of the hotel industry and people's continuous pursuit of experience, some scholars have provided ideas on the space layout, furniture and materials, theme styles, and green environmental protection of the hotel interior design from the perspective of subjective evaluation [13–16]. In terms of the indoor environment, there are many professional studies concerning the general architecture of the physical space, but the hotel indoor decoration style rarely becomes the objective of study [17–19] (Table 1).


**Table 1.** Literature review framework.


**Table 1.** *Cont.*

In the aspect of subjective evaluation of hotel rooms, many studies explore the influencing factors of customers' satisfaction with hotel IEQ through methods of analysis of online word-of-mouth. Shen et al. evaluated the IEQ of the five major chain economy hotels in China through online comment text mining and found that for economy hotels, indoor air quality and thermal environment have the greatest impact on the online rating of hotels [20]. Xu et al. explored the factors of hotel customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction and their importance ranking and found that location and accessibility, employee

performance and room quality are the most important factors of customer satisfaction [21]. Zhao et al. investigated the impact of online comments on customer satisfaction from the technical level of comments [22]. At the same time, some scholars have paid attention to the influence of various indicators of the hotel indoor environment on customer satisfaction or comfort degree. Zanni et al. tested the air quality of hotel rooms under the background of epidemic prevention and control, thus providing a new idea for the air quality management of the hotel [23]; Cociorva et al. monitored and regulated the indoor air quality of the hotel utilizing technical operation [24]; Nojima et al. measured the acoustic environment of Okura Hotel in Tokyo and explained the reasons for its reputation [25]; Han et al. concluded through experiments that the thermal environment and air quality level of the hotel have an impact on the hotel room satisfaction [26]. In the research of hotel indoor environment evaluation systems, many researchers have innovated and put forward new IEQ evaluation systems based on existing ones. Zhang proposed a hotel lighting quality evaluation system and a lighting technology system for controlling lighting effects through field research [27]. Wargocki et al. proposed a TAIL rating scheme to obtain the overall quality rating of IEQ according to the quality of four indicators [28]. Jin et al. put forward a "Feng Shui" evaluation system through experimental methods and verified that the evaluation system of "Feng Shui" in China is scientific [29]. Wei found that the average contribution of thermal, acoustic, lighting environment, and air quality parameters to the overall IEQ rating of buildings were 27%, 17%, 22%, and 34%, respectively, through the parameters of IEQ evaluation in the green building certification plan [30]. Although IEQ has been paid attention to as a whole in the research of hotel evaluation systems, its influence on the subjective evaluation of hotel consumers for decoration style still needs to be supplemented (Table 1).

According to the existing literature, IEQ mainly includes five factors: acoustic, light, thermal environment, air quality and non-light factors. This study explores the satisfaction of consumers with the above five factors through questionnaires. The acoustic environment comfort refers to the existence of a comfortable acoustic environment without any uncomfortable noise. The noise of the hotel is mainly affected by the noise of the external environment of the hotel, the noise generated by the occupants, and the noise generated by the operation of the hotel equipment. Therefore, the measurement of the acoustic environment mainly includes the road traffic noise, the noise of other occupants, and the noise generated by the operation of various equipment. The light environment comfort is related to illuminance uniformity, brightness distribution, and other factors. The natural lighting and lighting of the hotel mainly affect the light environment of the hotel. Therefore, the light environment mainly focuses on the natural lighting and lighting of the hotel [31]. The thermal environment comfort is expressed as "psychological conditions that are satisfied with the thermal environment", which is related to the physical factors in the natural ventilation and regulating environment. Therefore, the thermal environment is the measurement of the room temperature, indoor wind speed, humidity, and electrical heat dissipation of the hotel. The indoor air quality has a great impact on the health of the residents. It is directly related to the ventilation rate and the concentration of pollutants, and the supply of outdoor air can provide acceptable indoor air quality. The hotel occupants primarily judge the air quality of the hotel by the odor and ventilation of the hotel air. Therefore, the measurement of air quality mainly includes odor, air purification facilities, and indoor ventilation [32]. According to the analysis of the hotel review text, the non-light visual factors in this study refer to the visual factors that can affect the subjective evaluation of customers excluding the light environment in the hotel indoor environment, mainly including the internal color matching, plant layout, closeness to nature, decoration texture, space design, decoration atmosphere, and other factors.

Based on the above literature, it can be concluded that in the research on the hotel interior environment, many research objects focus on the hotel interior building materials, plant furnishings, furniture, etc. Additionally, some attach importance to "atmosphere", but few scholars quantify the difference in subjective feelings brought by the hotel decoration

style. In terms of the research on the subjective evaluation of customers, scholars mainly use the network text as the research data source to explore the factors that affect hotel satisfaction and do not give a detailed description of the index impact of each dimension. Therefore, the research on the relationship between hotel interior decoration style and customers' subjective feelings needs to be supplemented and improved.

The innovations of this study are as follows: 1 although the literature has explored the influencing factors of customer satisfaction, decoration style is rarely paid attention to as an influencing factor. Therefore, the innovation of this study is to link the decoration style with the subjective evaluation of customers, collect the customer evaluation data using the questionnaire method, and explore the impact of decoration style on the subjective evaluation of customers. 2 To date, many studies have focused on the indicators of the indoor environment, such as air quality and acoustic environment. However, these studies only focus on the individual indicators of the indoor environment. This study takes the five indicators of the indoor environment as a whole to explore the overall evaluation of the indoor environment by customers under different decoration styles. This research is very lucky to find a popular multi-style hotel in Guangzhou that has just been renovated, which fully meets our research needs to explore the impact of different decoration styles on the subjective feelings of occupants in the same physical environment. The research first obtains the online evaluation text of the hotel through the website and uses KH coder software to conduct word frequency analysis and semantic network analysis on the online evaluation text, puts forward hypotheses, and designs online questionnaires. A questionnaire survey on the subjective evaluation of 856 guests who have stayed in the hotel was conducted. SPSS quantitative analysis software was used for empirical analysis to reveal the impact and difference of different decoration styles on the subjective evaluation of the guests.

The problem definitions of this study are: firstly, whether the hotel indoor environment (including acoustic environment, thermal environment, light environment, air quality, and non-light visual factors) will have a positive impact on the subjective evaluation of customers; second, whether there are differences in customers' evaluation of IEQ factors under different decoration styles; thirdly, in the hotel environment with different decoration styles, what is the most influential factor in the subjective evaluation of customers.

Our research contributions have three points: 1 exploring the relationship between different decoration styles and customers' subjective evaluation, which to a certain extent makes up for the research gap on the impact of decoration styles on customer satisfaction. 2 Starting from the IEQ factors, we explore the subjective evaluation of customers on five factors, namely, acoustic environment, thermal environment, light environment, air quality, and non-light visual factors, under the environment of different decoration styles, and then explore whether there are differences in the subjective evaluation of customers under different decoration styles. 3 Through the questionnaire survey, the most important factors for customers in each decoration style of hotel rooms are obtained, which provides theoretical guidance for hotels to improve service quality and customer satisfaction.

#### **2. Methodology**

#### *2.1. Method Design*

To make the results of this study more objective and specific, the study used the online survey data to conduct text analysis to prepare for the questionnaire design. First, to make the final questionnaire more suitable for the hotel in Guangzhou, we adopted an online text analysis method. A questionnaire was designed in combination with a literature review. At the same time, combined with on-the-spot research, use the Questionnaire Star to conduct a questionnaire survey (the research framework of this paper is shown in Figure 1).

**Figure 1.** The technical route framework for research.

To highlight the influence of decoration style on guest room evaluation and reduce the influence of other physical factors on the subjective evaluation of the indoor environment of hotels with different decoration styles, the Shiyu Hotel in Guangzhou was selected as the main body of the investigation through network search and field inspection. Project case is located in the city center of China's first-tier cities. It has 278 rooms and possesses a superior geographical environment and a large passenger flow. The renovation time of the hotel is one year, and the complaint rate of management and equipment services is low (Figure 2). Hotel room decoration styles include three mainstream decoration styles: modern simple, British pastoral style, and modern Japanese style (Figure 2). Modern simple style is one of the simple styles. In addition, simple styles include Chinese simple style, Mediterranean simple style, American simple style, European simple style, and Japanese simple style. Pastoral styles include British pastoral style, American pastoral style, Chinese pastoral style, French pastoral style, South Asian pastoral style, and Korean pastoral style. We chose a British pastoral style to differentiate it from the sample's modern simple and modern Japanese styles. Japanese style is roughly divided into three types, simple Japanese style, modern Japanese style, and traditional Japanese style. At the same time, the three styles are relatively close. Then, define the hotel's three styles in terms of color, material, lighting, etc. (Table 2). Selecting standard rooms with the same area (21.24 m3), layout, lighting, orientation, and decoration cost, the purpose is to control the only variable to conduct a subjective evaluation and comparison study for the decoration. At the same time, the outdoor sunny and cloudy weather is selected for indoor sampling, and the sampling time is from 12:00 noon to 4:00 p.m. When the curtains are drawn, the sampled temperature is basically 26.1–26.3 ◦C (average 26.2 ◦C), the noise level is 42–44 decibels (average 43 decibels), and the indoor wind speed is 2.5–2.7 m/s (average 2.6 m/s), the indoor light intensity is 70–75 xl (the light intensity of different decoration styles is different).

Ctrip, as the No. 1 hotel customer review website in China, is highly authoritative and representative. The online text research collected Chinese reviews of the hotel on Ctrip during the Spring Festival from 1 January to 1 March 2022. This research is based on network text materials, using the word frequency analysis and semantic network analysis functions of KH Coder, the analysis conclusions are used as the main basis for designing the questionnaire, and the SPSS results are used for auxiliary verification.

**Figure 2.** Location, room type map and plans of the case area. Source: bzdt.ch.mnr.gov.cn (accessed on 25 April 2022).




**Table 2.** *Cont.*

#### *2.2. Text Analysis*

KH Coder is an unstructured text analysis and data mining software. The main functions of the software include word frequency, cluster analysis, etc. Restricted by statistical laws, a few reviews cannot objectively and truly reflect hotel customer satisfaction. Therefore, decoration styles below 200 are not involved in hotel customer satisfaction rankings or analysis. By eliminating invalid reviews and choosing the hotel's three decoration styles: modern simple, British pastoral, and modern Japanese, a total of 604 physiological and psychological review data were obtained. Through KH Coder, word frequency analysis and semantic network analysis are carried out on the obtained reviews, then the environmental factors that may affect the subjective evaluation of residents are extracted, and subjective evaluation analysis is carried out from the aspects of the overall evaluation and cognitive evaluation.

 1 Overall subjective evaluation analysis

KH Coder extracts the text and finds that the total distribution of all high-frequency words evaluated by customers is shown in Table 3. By setting stop words and eliminating invalid prepositions and pronouns, high-frequency words are mostly nouns and adjectives, and nouns are room, hotel, environment, clean, service, etc., adjectives mainly reflect the indoor environment and hotel services. In addition, the hotel appeared the most frequently, appearing 417 times in 604 comments. Regarding the decoration style of the hotel, there are adjectives Japanese (51), pastoral (33), idyllic (18), rustic (9), modern simple (36), and the noun style (105), which confirms the customer's attention and inclination to the decoration style.

**Table 3.** Total distribution table of all high-frequency words for customer reviews.



**Table 3.** *Cont.*

 2 Cognitive subjective evaluation analysis

Through the cluster analysis of the co-occurrence network of the high-frequency words, modular processing is selected, and a total of fourteen groups of relational networks are obtained (Figure 3). Comparing and analyzing the co-occurrence network graph and word frequency, it can be seen that the influencing factors of subjective evaluation are mainly manifested in the indoor environment of the destination, travel companions, and the environment and services provided by the hotel:

**Figure 3.** Co-existing semantic network distribution map.

The 24 groups of rings were sorted into three groups: First, cognitive evaluation of the indoor environment. With the hotel as the core, the words such as room and homestay are expanded as a circle. The above vocabulary is a group, including facilities, location, sound insulation, air conditioning, taste, comfort, etc., which reflects the influence of the indoor environment on subjective evaluation. Second, traveler's cognitive evaluation of

fellow travelers. Most tourists travel together, and the related high-frequency words are children, family members, friends, etc. Third, cognitive evaluation of the hotel environment atmosphere. Most people think that the hotel's service is friendly, and the overall accommodation is comfortable. The most frequent texts include comfort, caring, completeness, thoughtfulness, and details. The above three points combined with the relevant literature provide the design direction for the questionnaire design.

#### *2.3. Questionnaire Design*

By combing the results of online texts and analyzing the evaluation dimensions of existing research [36], the questionnaire has 8 dimensions, 29 attributes, and 52 questions. The research mainly adopts Choi, K.'s indoor environmental quality (IEQ) evaluation system to establish the subjective evaluation dimension.

In addition to the hotel's factor variables required for this research, there are also differences between individual tourists. Appendix A summarizes the measurement properties of the relevant variables. In the questionnaire, the satisfaction selection was used to evaluate the indoor environmental quality, including the overall environment, heat, air quality, light, sound, and non-light visual factors. The overall customer satisfaction with the comprehensive evaluation of the hotel was also investigated. In each choice, a score scale or option is provided, through specific questions and their corresponding scale notes, the chosen option expresses the guest's subjective feelings.

The importance and satisfaction of subjective evaluations of different types of hotels were assessed using the Likert scale, ranging from extremely unimportant/unsatisfactory (1) to extremely important and extremely satisfactory (5). To ensure the validity and scientific nature of the questionnaire, this study set up a pre-investigation, randomly selecting 30 people among consumers and giving incentives in the form of gift certificates. Then, combined with expert consultation, the questions were supplemented with revisions and explanations to determine the questionnaire.

The questionnaire consists of 4 parts (as shown in Figure 4): (1) screening the respondents' questions, only the respondents who have stayed in the case hotel can continue the investigation, otherwise, they will be guided to an ending. (2) Personal information, such as the respondent's gender, age, occupation, and monthly income. (3) Other relevant information of the respondent, such as the hotel room type, decoration style, traveler, departure place, and reasons for choosing the hotel. (4) Respondents' subjective evaluation of hotel rooms, based on the results of IEQ theory and text analysis, and then the overall, and refinement of satisfaction assessments.

**Figure 4.** Questionnaire design framework.

To ensure the quality of the questionnaire and prevent invalid questionnaires, options unrelated to the research topic were set in the topic selection. This filters out respondents who did not answer the question. At the same time, the questionnaire is set to answer more than 3 min to be effective.

To avoid order effects [37], different sections of the questionnaire will be randomly adjusted in order.

#### *2.4. Investigation Method*

To avoid the limitations and differences between online research and offline research [38], the research adopts online random and offline fixed-point methods for sampling and obtains samples scattered in hotels with different decoration styles. The study selects the Canton Fair in April 2022 (China Import and Export Fair, held in Guangzhou in the spring and autumn every year, a comprehensive international trade fair with the longest history, the highest level, the largest scale, the largest number of buyers and the widest distribution in China) to investigate. The study selects the Canton Fair in April 2022 (China Import and Export Commodities Fair, held in Guangzhou every spring and autumn, as the comprehensive international trade fair with the longest history, highest level, largest scale, and most buyers) and the most widely distributed in China) to investigate. Conduct offline surveys during trade events (peak hotel occupancy). This can not only ensure the richness of customers, but also ensure the diversity of regions and ages of customer samples. Tourists who have stayed in a hotel at least once in the past 12 months and are currently living to constitute the main body of this sample and were selected and invited to participate in the survey. The online survey tool is Questionnaire Star (China's most professional online questionnaire, examination, evaluation, and voting platform, focusing on providing users with services such as online questionnaires, data research, and result analysis), and then the questionnaires are randomly distributed in the hotel private domain fan official account and We Chat (the most popular social software in China) group; offline research, after obtaining the assistance of hotel management personnel, will conduct rewarded interviews for guests who are checking out and who have already checked in. Finally, a total of 856 questionnaires were recovered, including 710 valid questionnaires (620 online and 90 offline), and the questionnaire response rate was 83%.

#### **3. Result**

#### *3.1. Assumption Analysis*

Based on IEQ theory, and also using KH Coder software to perform text analysis and network visualization analysis on network evaluation texts, the following hypothesis analysis model was proposed (Figure 5):

**Figure 5.** Analysis model.
