How Social Media Influencers Affect Consumers' Restaurant Selection: Statistical and Sentiment Analysis

Social media influencers can have a deep impact on people's lives; one area on which they have most impact is restaurant choices. There are various aspects to the restaurant experience, the most significant being, in order of importance, food, service, ambiance, price, menu, and décor. In this paper, we aim to define the impact of the influencer on people's choice of restaurant, through statistical analysis of a sample of 1,435 restaurant-goers in Riyadh, demonstrating the impact of Snapchat influencers on their restaurant choices. Moreover, we examine a dataset of 26,000 restaurant reviews from Google Maps and apply sentiment analysis to the Arabic reviews, using a lexicon-based approach and machine learning to identify the main factors that are most important to people when visiting a restaurant.