This study conducts a post‑occupancy evaluation (POE) of nine national‑level former residences of celebrities in Yangzhou by comparing two primary data sources: online review data and traditional questionnaire data. The core aims were to (1) explore how the strengths of each data type can compensate for the other’s limitations and (2) determine whether integrating both sources yields insights beyond either method alone.
Nine national‑level former residences of celebrities in Yangzhou were selected as cases to ensure sufficient tourism popularity and abundant online review data. The sample included nationally recognized sites such as Heyuan Garden, Geyuan Garden, and Wang’s Residence, among others. Selection criteria considered tourism popularity, data availability, and coverage across different planning functional zones. One other national‑level residence was excluded due to a short reopening period and insufficient data.
Online reviews were manually collected from four mainstream Chinese travel and consumer platforms: Mafengwo, Qunar, Ctrip, and Dianping. The review collection window spanned May 1, 2021 (the start of the local all‑for‑one tourism policy) through October 1, 2025. Data extraction targeted publicly accessible review pages and complied with platform terms of service and robots.txt; only non‑personal, publicly available content was collected and no automated tools were used.
On‑site questionnaires were administered at exits of the nine former residences from December 30, 2025 to February 25, 2026 using a systematic random sampling approach (selecting 1 departing visitor every 5). The field protocol aimed for a minimum of 50 valid questionnaires per survey day per site across four rounds, though actual flows varied and some targets were not reached. In total, 1,724 questionnaires were retrieved; after excluding incomplete, contradictory, or implausibly fast responses, 1,643 valid samples remained, yielding a 95.3% valid rate.
A sequential mixed‑methods design structured the study in two stages. Stage one applied content analysis and thematic coding to online reviews to extract core negative dimensions and specific manifestations of visitor dissatisfaction. The coding output informed development of an indicator system. Stage two translated those indicators into a structured questionnaire and collected offline responses. Quantitative analysis used an AHP‑FCE (Analytic Hierarchy Process–Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation) approach to assess prevalence, weight, and severity of issues identified from online data.
The content analysis of online reviews produced five major categories of negative evaluations (the article reports five categories but does not list all category labels verbatim in the provided excerpt). Coding supplied detailed situational descriptions and emotional tones, including frequent mentions of operational and experiential complaints. Notably, service attitude complaints appeared frequently in review narratives, often reflecting emotionally charged individual cases.
Questionnaire indicators derived from online review coding were quantified through AHP‑FCE to determine relative weights and severity of identified problems. The questionnaire data emphasized which issues had greater aggregate weight and impact on visitor satisfaction, enabling prioritization for management interventions. In comparison with online narratives, the questionnaire results sometimes rated items differently in aggregate severity.
Overall, the two data sources demonstrated partial correspondence in diagnosing core shortcomings. Both datasets jointly identified four particularly weak dimensions: cultural expression, interactive experience, accessibility, and signage facilities. However, discrepancies also emerged. For example, although complaints about service attitude were frequent in online reviews, the same item scored relatively well in questionnaire responses, indicating a divergence between highly visible individual complaints and general visitor perceptions captured by structured surveys.
Online reviews showed strengths in capturing granular situational detail and users’ emotional perceptions, which can reveal systematic defects and specific incidents. Questionnaire data contributed quantified weighting and severity measures that reflect the broader distribution of visitor experience and enable focused prioritization.
The study advocates an integrated management and diagnosis framework that combines online review analysis with traditional questionnaire surveys. In this dual‑track approach, the granularity of online reviews complements the severity weighting from questionnaires, together providing more actionable and timely decision support for targeted optimization of cultural heritage sites. This combined paradigm can guide interventions to improve cultural expression, enhance interactive experiences, and address accessibility and signage shortcomings at former residences of celebrities.
The article highlights inherent limitations of each data source. Online review data are characterized by large volume but suffer from incompleteness, algorithmic interference, dirty data, sensitivity, and potential accessibility constraints; quality and reliability can vary and false information may exist. Questionnaire surveys, while more controlled, incur higher time and economic costs and typically yield smaller sample sizes.
Ethical and data‑sharing constraints were noted: the complete minimal dataset contains demographic details that could enable indirect identification in a relatively small sample. Aggregated data necessary for replication are reported as being available within the paper and Supporting Information, while access to more sensitive data requires approval from the relevant ethics committee.
By systematically comparing online review data and questionnaire data in a sequential mixed‑methods POE, this study demonstrates complementary strengths: online reviews reveal specific situational problems and emotional perceptions, while questionnaires quantify severity and relative weighting. The combined method provided targeted insights for improving former residences of celebrities in Yangzhou and is offered as a replicable dual‑track approach for cultural heritage revitalization and management in similar historic cities.