Designing a memorable dining experience lexicon based on theory and text mining

Greater focus on the customer experience has resulted in the emergence of memorability as a viable measure of a customer’s perception of experience. In the restaurant industry , this has manifested as a memorable dining experience. Prior researchers have examined the conceptual underpinnings of memorable dining experiences and have empirically validated their dimensions–sensory, affective, behavioral, social, and intellectual–by using structured data derived from closed-ended surveys, which was followed by scale development and validation. This study builds on these findings, but with unstructured data from online consumer reviews. It also offers a dictionary of 324 words that are examined in conjunction with sentiment extraction and the Certainty Lexicon and then evaluated against overall customer ratings. The findings herein complement previous empirical work but also provide unique insights that are distinctive and ready for practical application. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed. • A method to identify memorable dining experiences (MDE) using online reviews. • Developed a lexicon to tag MDE by using machine learning. • The 5 MDE dimensions are strong predictor of star rating. • Affective dimension is the most important predictor of dining memorability. • Minimum 3 dimensions (out of 5) are needed for high star rating.