Clicks, comments, and concerns: Decoding sentiments and ratings in OTA reviews

Online travel agencies (OTAs) increasingly rely on user-generated reviews to shape consumer perceptions and influence booking decisions. This study analyses 5921 customer reviews collected from MouthShut.com, an independent review platform, to examine customer concerns and sentiments across multiple OTA platforms in India. Using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), key discussion themes were identified, followed by an aspect-level sentiment analysis to evaluate customer perceptions across critical service dimensions. The findings reveal notable variations in service performance across platforms, particularly in areas such as booking experience, pricing transparency, customer support, and refund processes. These variations highlight the role of expectation–performance alignment in shaping customer satisfaction within digital travel services. By integrating LDA topic modeling with sentiment analysis, this study contributes to the literature on online service experience. The findings offer actionable insights for OTAs to improve service reliability, enhance transparency, and reduce friction in the customer journey.