“Your Next Stay Will Be on Us”: Genre Analysis of Hotel Responses to Negative Reviews

The purpose of the present paper is to identify the typical moves, steps, and common expressions in hotels’ responses to negative reviews (RNRs) posted on TripAdvisor. A specialized corpus comprising authentic 29 responses, written by top seven 4and 5-star hotels in Malang was explored by following Swales’ notion of move analysis. Corpusassisted analysis was also applied to identify some frequent expressions typical to major moves. The findings revealed that the generic structure of RNRs written by top hotels in Malang contain six moves and 23 steps. Unique to this finding are four additional steps that were distinct from previous studies, but appeared in the corpus: appreciating the stay, promoting hotel’s facility, clarifying misunderstanding, and making amends. ‘Thank you for’ (appearing 30 times in 22 responses) were among the most frequent expressions in major moves such as appreciating the stay and expressing gratitude. Other common expressions were also identified from the corpus and used as the basis of proposing a brief guideline for composing RNRs, which can be useful for teaching business English, or English for Specific Purposes. Overall, these findings outline a generic pattern through which representatives of top hotels in Malang manage customers’ dissatisfactions and complaints. Since these findings were derived from naturaloccurring data, they can also be useful to classroom instructions, especially in providing authentic materials.


INTRODUCTION
How customers make purchasing decisions is greatly influenced by the emergence of online platforms and user-generated review features (Thumvichit & Gampper, 2019). The review sections containing customers' honest feedback are the "first stop" (ibid, 2019: 2) for planning their travel, helping them to choose where to stay on holiday or where to dine in a foreign city (Napolitano, 2018). Hence, the review sections in online platforms are helpful for customers, because other customers' past experiences may assist them in making decisions about their planning and itineraries.
Not only for customers, it is also imperative for business providers to "stop by" the review sections and give their responses, especially to the negative ones. This is because quality responses to online customer reviews may help increase sales. An empirical study on the relationship between responses and online customer reviews conducted by Liu et al (2020) revealed that seller responses to customer reviews, particularly the negative ones, has a significant positive effect on sales. RNRs directly address problems and hence customers can dispel their doubts, give their trust, and proceed to the next steps, such as purchasing products or booking a service.
In hotel industry, managing negative reviews, especially the ones that are posted online, is necessary for hotel management for maintaining the hotel image (Geetha, Singha, & Sinha, 2016). Thus, majority of top hotels appoint employees in senior positions to handle negative comments, because the spread of unfavourable reviews may harm hotel image and reputation (Panseeta & Todd, 2014). Having longer years of experience in dealing with customer complaints, it is expected that senior hotel staff can give a proper response to the negative comments. With electronic reviews spreading quickly, hotel image can be advantaged or harmed (Thumvichit, 2016). For example, prospective customers might avoid Cita Nuary Ishak "Your Next Stay Will Be on Us": Genre Analysis of Hotel Responses to Negative Reviews Englie: English Learning Innovation, 3(1), 1-15 3 booking a hotel because of several negative comments from past customers, and they might immediately book a hotel after reading some positive reviews.
The fact that hotels assign representatives to write RNRs "indicates that the hotels do pay attention to customers' satisfaction and quality of their services" (Thumvichit, 2016, p. 2). For such hospitality business, responses to complaints are critical to customer relationship management (Napolitano, 2018). Thumvichit (2016) and Napolitano's (2018) remarks reminds me of an online guest lecture I attended in December 13 rd , 2021. The keynote speaker was a director of a prestigious, five-star hotel in Jakarta, which belongs to one of the biggest hotel chains in Indonesia. In his talk, he highlighted the importance for making the time to, not only read, but reply to each comment written by their customers. He also mentioned that it is their routine to start the day by reading the comments about their hotel, and to focus on the areas that need improvement. From his talk, it can be inferred that online review also benefit hotel businesses. They offer comparative insights about customer satisfaction (Mauri & Minazzi, 2013). They are also the means through which customers express their dissatisfaction, inform business providers which aspects they lack of, and give honest reviews about services that they experience. Therefore, this particular section is of high importance not only for customers but also hotels because it informs hotel management team the areas that needs attention and improvement.
Being highly significant to business providers, RNRs have received much attention.
Several studies of RNRs that focused on genre analysis have been conducted by, among others, Zhang & Vásquez (2014), Panseeta & Todd (2014), and Thumvichit & Gampper (2019). One similarity among these studies is that they all follow Swales' notion of move analysis. As suggested by these studies, several generic structures of RNRs have been proposed. The study by Zhang & Vásquez (2014) aimed for an identification of the generic structure of responses written by hotels in four popular tourist destinations in China. Their study investigated 80 replies by the hotels in TripAdvisor and found that there are ten move types commonly found in the genre. The results suggest that online RNRs tend to be formulaic, with moves such as thanking and apologizing to be some of the most common moves identified. regions. Thus, it is possible that the generic structure of RNRs may have some regional differences. Following this suggestion, the present paper attempts to identify moves and steps of RNRs, along with most frequently used expressions, written and posted on TripAdvisor by top hotels in Malang. TripAdvisor is one of the most popular websites dedicated for travel community. Containing user-generated feedback, the website represents customers' voice and "can be considered a valuable tourist text type" (Fina, 2011: 59) because they mirror what are needed and valued by customers. TripAdvisor allows hotel management to respond to each customer review. Hotel management, however, cannot remove or edit existing customer reviews.
The primary focus of the present paper is to investigate the way top hotels in Malang handle customer dissatisfaction, disappointment, and complaints that are embodied in online negative reviews. Inspired by, and following the suggestion in Thumvichit & Gampper's (2019) study to examine hotel RNRs in different cultural setting, this paper attempts to answer two questions, First, what moves are typical to the RNRs authored by top hotels in Malang on TripAdvisor; second, what phrases and clauses are frequently used in the major moves and steps. By looking precisely at top hotels, it is expected that the findings can represent business professionalism. By focusing on one specific city, Malang, the findings can help students of business English who plan to take internships or work in hotels in the area. The generic structure of RNRs found in this study can, for example, be one of the guidelines that help them produce texts within this genre.

Cita Nuary Ishak
"Your Next Stay Will Be on Us": Genre Analysis of Hotel Responses to Negative Reviews Englie: English Learning Innovation, 3(1), 1-15 5 The purpose of this paper is to analyze the moves and steps of RNRs generated by top ten hotels in Malang, East Java. By focusing the analysis on RNRs written by top hotels in Malang, it is expected that the patterns elicited can be a good model for learners of business English and ESP-related courses. All the RNRs were drawn from the review sections on TripAdvisor. The RNRs were retrieved from TripAdvisor from December 1 st to 6 th 2021, but the RNRs were written in different years prior to the date. Thus, the results of this study should be considered only a snapshot of the period of time before 2021. Out of 311 hotels in Malang, only the RNRs produced by the hotels with highest rankings (those rank from 1 st to 10 th ) that were selected. Each hotel's homepage was then browsed through to locate the review section.
In the review section, TripAdvisor sorts the reviews into excellent, good, poor, and terrible. To make sure that the reviews were negative, poor and terrible options were ticked and reviews under belonging to these categories were chosen. Through this initial scan it was found that there were some responses that were identical. Such reviews may indicate a template, or copy-paste approach. Consequently, they are excluded from the corpus and only reviews that were specifically addressed to negative reviews were added to the corpus. Out of top ten hotels in Malang, only seven hotels received poor and terrible reviews written in English. Hence, the other three hotels were excluded from the study. Collecting a total of 29 steps. While reading through the specialized corpus for several times, each expression in the RNRs was manually coded. New communicative function that emerged while coding was added to the structure, and moves or steps that are absent were excluded from the structure.
Reading was done multiple times to explore and ensure the communicative function of each unit of text. Examples of moves and steps as described in studies by Zhang & Vásquez (2014), Panseeta & Todd (2014), and Thumvichit & Gampper (2019) were constantly consulted and compared to the data in the specialized corpus to make sure that the labelling for moves and steps were not overlapped.
A colleague was also asked to cross-examine the coded data. The colleague has taught English in tertiary level for more than ten years, and is also familiar with Swales' notion of move analysis. Finally, the coded data were then loaded to AntConc 2.0.4, which is a software developed by Anthony (2021). This helped me elicit most frequent moves and steps, as well as the most frequent expressions that were used in the data. After several repetitive rounds of rechecking the coded data of RNRs, six move types and 23 steps were identified. There were also several frequent expressions that were typical to some moves and steps as discussed in the next section. In the following section, the examples of RNRs are written with their original spellings as they appeared in TripAdvisor. Due to ethical considerations, hotel and representatives' names are anonymized.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Typical moves of RNRs
This paper begins with the Swales' (1981) notion of "moves". A move is defined as a "discoursal or rhetorical unit that performs a coherent communicative function in a written or spoken discourse" (Swales, 2004: 288). Simply put, it is a section of a text that has a particular communicative function and goal. Texts, according to Biber & Conrad (2009: 15), have a sequence of moves, "where each move represents a stretch of text serving a particular communicative function." The findings of the present study revealed that the moves in RNRs written by top

First of all, we would like to thank you for choosing [A]. (Hotel A).
Thank you for staying with us, we hope our sincere service could meet your expectation.

Move 2: Acknowledging feedback
In this second move, the author of RNRs begin addressing the customers' complaints, by expressing gratitude (M2A), valuing feedback (M2B), or expressing regret/concern/apology (M2C). Almost all RNRs contain at least two steps out of the three.
When expressing gratitude (M2A), the authors of RNRs explicitly thank the customers for their reviews. This could imply a positive image of the hotels, as they are open to any feedback from customers. Some common expressions for this step are as below. addressing a specific problem. However, some other include a restatement of the problem.
Below are some examples.
Our <most sincerest> apology for the glitch regarding the welcome massage.

(Hotel G)
We apologize we did not meet your expectations on this occasion with your room arrangement. (Hotel B) The tendency to employ thanking and apologizing in the RNRs under study are in line with the findings from Zhang & Vásquez (2014) study. According to them, these frequent steps characterize RNRs as highly formulaic.

Move 3: Brand positioning
The third move, brand positioning, was present in Thumvichit & Gampper (2019) generic structure, but absent in Zhang & Vásquez (2014) and Panseeta & Todd (2014)  The third step within this move is promoting hotel's facility (M3C). This step is absent in the generic structure proposed by the abovementioned studies. As its name suggests, some authors of the RNRs embedded information about hotel's programs and events in their replies to the negative reviews with the aim to promote their hotels. This particular finding is explained by Liu et al. (2020): "From the perspective of social capital, if we regard the buyer's negative reviews are a crisis of the brand, the seller's response is a process of turning crisis into opportunity and solving the problem." The authors of the Cita Nuary Ishak "Your Next Stay Will Be on Us": Genre Analysis of Hotel Responses to Negative Reviews Englie: English Learning Innovation, 3(1), 1-15 10 following example of RNRs strategically turn crisis as caused by negative complaints into an opportunity to promote hotel interior and events.
For your reference, in fact each of our rooms has different kinds of ambiance.

(Hotel G)
Not <loosing> its heritage and colonial look, we are a boutique hotel … with a fresh modern interior uplift. (Hotel E) We are regularly present the food promotion with thematic theme along the days that we wish you have enjoyed during your visit. (Hotel G)

Move 4: Dealing with complaints
The fourth move is dealing with complaints, which "plays the leading role in image protection and service recovery" (Thumvichit & Gampper, 2019, p. 7). This move is the key part in RNRs, because this is where hotels actually tackle the issues pointed out by the customers in their reviews. This move consists of five steps: explaining causes of incident (M4A), reporting action taken (M4B), admitting mistakes (M4C), clarifying misunderstanding (M4D), and making amends (M4E). It is important to note that not all steps were present in each RNR. Rather, each RNR employs at least one of these steps in handling customer negative reviews. While the first three steps are in line with the abovementioned studies, the last two steps were added to the generic structure of RNRs in this study.
In explaining causes of incident (M4A), the authors of RNRs make attempt to explain what has been the source of problem. This function is apparent in the following example.
Indeed the check-in time was very challenging as we were running back to back with another group who checked out just before your group. (Hotel C).
While reporting action taken (M4B) functions to inform customers about the actions that hotels have taken to solve the issues, admitting mistakes (M4C) allows hotels to appear more genuine in their apologies. It is also different from expressing apology (M2C), because "only admitting mistakes is considered as the step that provides a genuine apology." Below are few examples of both steps.
This problem has been noted and we will try to improve (M4B, Hotel A) The fact that the step is immediately followed by soliciting direct contact (M5D) helps the RNR appear genuine and serious in their apology. Another example that is more obvious in making a compensation for customers is exemplified by the following sample.
…. your next stay will be on us. (Hotel D).

Move 5: Concluding remarks
In this fifth move, the following steps were detected: expressing gratitude 2 (M5A), expressing regret/concern/apology 2(M5B), asking for a return visit (M5C), soliciting direct contact (M5D), and promising to improve service (M5E). According to Thumvichit & Gampper (2019), this move indicated the ending of the RNRs and authors strive to leave positive impression through this final move. One major step among these five steps is asking We are ever keen to welcome you again to our property. (Hotel D) We look forward to welcoming you back soon to experience [Hotel E]. (Hotel E)

Move 6: Closing
The ending of RNRs is indicated by this 6 th move. To some extent, RNRs has a similar style with a formal business correspondence (Thumvichit & Gampper, 2019), particularly in the opening and closing. The steps in this move include: sign off (M6A), signature (M6B), job title (M6C), and affiliation (M6D). Thumvisit & Gampper (2019) generic structure include one more step, that is, contact information, which cannot be found in the data of the present study. It is worth noting that signature is more frequent (N=18) compared to affiliation (N=7) in the RNRs written by top hotels in Malang. Zhang & Vásquez (2014) argued that the use of affiliation in closing pleasantries depicts a collective, corporate identity. As argued by Downing (2020), hotels have divergent communicative styles which reflect their social realities and images. The higher frequency of signature (M6B) in the present study may indicate that the authors are entirely responsible with their claims, but it can also be attributed to personal authorial style.

CONCLUSION
Responses to Negative Reviews (RNR) are not merely casual interaction between business and customers (Thumvichit & Gampper, 2019). For hotel businesses, RNRs play a major role in determining their image and show how serious and committed they are in handling customers' complaints. Since the quality of the responses written by hotel representatives reflect the degree of hotel's professionalism (Thumvichit, 2016), RNRs are an important genre to look at, to determine the extent to which top hotels' representatives address their customers' concerns and complaints.
This paper has looked into 29 RNRs produced by seven 4-and 5-star hotels in Malang. The findings reveal that there are some differences in the generic structure of the RNRs produced by the hotels in Malang compared to previous studies (e.g. Thumvichit & Gampper, 2019). The differences can be seen in the four additional steps: appreciating the stay in the opening move, promoting hotel's facility in brand positioning move, and clarifying misunderstanding as well as making amends in dealing with complaints move. Some expressions typical to major steps have also been identified (see Appendix). It is worth noting that these expressions could possibly be influenced by the authors' personal rhetorical choices, but the results have shown that some expressions are more frequent than others.
Altogether, these findings may characterize the generic structure of hotel RNRs, which is also specific to top hotels in Malang.

PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
Business interactions have grown rapidly in various online public platforms, and business English as well as business-related ESP courses should familiarize students with conventions in online professional communication (Thumvichit & Gampper, 2019). Being influential to sales and hotel image, hotel RNRs need to be familiarized to students, especially through hands-on trainings. Students of English for hospitality business, for instance, should be prepared for the role of responding to RNRs, because this has been one of the important duties of hotel staff. The generic structure found in this study may serve as an authentic source of learning material. Therefore, teachers of such courses can further develop classroom activities from this existing generic structure, which has been exemplified by Bathia's (1991) impressive study on business letters. In addition, in business English and business-related ESP courses, providing students with authentic material and preparing them to compose professional correspondences are essential (Thumvichit, 2016).
The generic structure proposed by the present paper may be used as an initial guideline for developing manuals that can assist students compose RNRs. Producing such manuals is worth doing because it enables learners to assume professional practice when producing similar text within the genre. (Panseeta & Todd, 2014). Such manuals are particularly helpful for students commencing their internship program at hotels.