ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Hum. Dyn.
Sec. Digital Impacts
Uneven Adoption of Dialogic Communication on Hotel Websites: Evidence from Portuguese World Travel Award Nominees
Provisionally accepted
- 1Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administracao do Porto, Matosinhos, Portugal
- 2CEOS.PP, Porto, Portugal
- 3Douro Higher Institute of Educational Sciences, Porto, Portugal
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In the context of digital communication, organizations use websites to interact with their audiences, particularly between hotel establishments and the public. This dialogue can be achieved by adopting dialogic principles, allowing greater interactivity and promoting two-way communication. The aim of this article is to study the degree of adoption of the dialogic cycle, identifying the most frequently used indicators to establish communication with customers and to build and sustain relationships. To this end, the study analysed the websites of the Portuguese hotels nominated for the World Travel Awards 2023, both individually and by category: Best Hotel, Best Resort, and Best Boutique. The findings show that websites are a favoured means of communication between hotels and the public. However, a discrepancy was observed in the adoption of dialogic indicators: while means of contact and links to social networks registered 100 per cent adoption, indicators such as questionnaires (feedback) and customer experiences sharing registered almost zero adoption. Although the differences were not significant, the 'Best Hotel' category showed a higher level of adoption of the dialogue principle. This study contributes to the understanding of how dialogic cycle can enhance organizational-customer relationships, highlighting its potential to foster more meaningful and interactive communication in the hospitality sector.
Keywords: Dialogic communication, dialogic principles, Hotel establishment, customer engagement, Portugal
Received: 16 Sep 2025; Accepted: 02 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Oliveira, Oliveira, Giuliani and Estrada. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Helena Costa Oliveira
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