Investigating the impact of large-scale exhibitions on hotel room rates from a spatial-temporal perspective: a case of the Canton Fair in China

Purpose: While the economic benefits of the exhibition industry for the hotel sector have been addressed, the impact of exhibitions on individual hotels is unknown, especially when individual hotels’ star classification and locations are considered. This study aims to provide a better understanding of how room rates of different hotels change during different stages of the Canton Fair in China from a spatial-temporal perspective. Design/methodology/approach: Room rates of 681 star-hotels within the city of Guangzhou before, during and after the Fair were extracted from websites. Through spatial interpolation and autocorrelation analysis and geographical detector (GeoDetector) technique, spatial and temporal patterns of hotel room rates and the interdependence between the convention center and the hotels with different star classification and locations were examined. Findings: An inverse-U shape of room rate change was identified before, during and after the Fair, and the five-star hotels had the sharpest increase. Moreover, the distribution of hotel room rates followed the law of distance decay. The variation of hotel rates became larger when the distance to the convention center was larger. Spatial high-high clusters varied among hotels with different star classification. Originality/value: This study contributed to the hotel literature by providing empirical evidence regarding how hotels with different star classification and locations were affected by events. This study also advanced the event literature by introducing GeoDetector. The findings of this study offered insights into the hotel location selection, pricing strategies and hotel collaboration with events.