Abstract
Tourism recovery in Malaysia is accelerating ahead of a national tourism campaign, but destination managers and hotels have limited capacity to monitor where arrival frictions translate into reputational risk. This study tests whether objectively measured accessibility is associated with low-rating risk and whether the association differs by travel purpose, with the goal of deriving an operational monitoring threshold. We analyzed 346,988 Ctrip hotel reviews for Malaysia (October 2022–December 2025) linked to 792 hotels. Proximity descriptors were parsed to estimate minutes to the nearest transport node and to classify the nearest node as an airport or transit hub. Low ratings (rating < 3) were modeled using mixed-effects logistic regression with hotel random intercepts, controlling for review length and hotel attributes, complemented by nonlinear minutes specifications and probability-scale predictions. Relative to 0–10 minutes, low-rating odds were lower at 10–20 minutes (OR 0.80, 95% CI 0.71–0.89) and 20–40 minutes (0.73, 0.64–0.82), while >40 minutes was not distinguishable from baseline after adjustment. Business stays showed a higher baseline risk and a widening probability gap as friction increased. Overall, results suggest a practical monitoring trigger around 40 minutes, supporting targeted arrival information, transfer coordination, and reliability buffers where accessibility frictions and business demand coincide.