Analysis of the names of accommodation establishments in Bulgaria

ABSTRACT

This paper identifies the categories of accommodation establishments’ names in Bulgaria and determines the role of a property’s characteristics (category, location, type, and size/capacity) on the chosen name using a quantitative approach. The findings indicate that male, female, and family names, and names indicating geographic toponyms, represent nearly half of all names. Plants, emotions, and quality-related words are also widely used. Furthermore, results reveal that category, location, size, and type of establishment influence the naming of establishments. In addition, the findings illustrate that Bulgarian names prevail in the naming of establishments. Binary logistic regression reveals that urban, higher category, and larger properties are more likely to have foreign names. The theoretical and destination marketing implications are discussed as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Hotel names
• branding
• linguistics
• destination marketing
• Bulgaria

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stanislav Ivanov

Dr. Stanislav Ivanov is Professor and Vice-Rector (Research) at Varna University of Management, Bulgaria. Prof. Ivanov is the Founder and Editor-in-chief of two academic journals: European Journal of Tourism Research (http://ejtr.vumk.eu) and ROBONOMICS: The Journal of the Automated Economy (https://journal.robonomics.science). His research interests include robonomics, robots in tourism/hospitality, the economics of technology, revenue management, etc. For more information about Prof. Ivanov visit his personal website: http://www.stanislavivanov.com

Faruk Seyitoğlu

Faruk Seyitoğlu (Ph.D.) is currently a postdoc researcher in the research group of Tourism Development at the University of Aveiro under the research unit of Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (GOVCOPP). He also works as an Assistant Professor at Mardin Artuklu University Faculty of Tourism. His research interests are tourist motivations and experiences, destination management, destination marketing, gastronomy and food studies, tourism and gastronomy education, robots in tourism/hospitality services.

Fani Dimitrova

Fani Dimitrova graduated from the BA (Hons) International Hospitality Management double degree programme of Varna University of Management, Bulgaria, and Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK. She is currently working in London, UK as a Meetings and Events Coordinator for Intercontinental Hotel Group.