PurposeGrowing health concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic have led guests to focus on various aspects of hotel cleanliness. This study aims to investigate whether customers’ perceived importance of hotel cleanliness during their stay depends on local pandemic severity and moderators of the pandemic-cleanliness relationship. Design/methodology/approachBased on TripAdvisor data from 26,519 reviews in 2020 for 2,024 hotels across the USA, this study evaluated the importance of hotel cleanliness using the estimated coefficient of the cleanliness score in a regression of overall hotel rating scores. FindingsResults of a multilevel ordered logit model confirmed that a more difficult local pandemic situation rendered cleanliness more important during hotel stays. Additionally, the effect of the pandemic was more pronounced among specific groups: men and travelers with more expertise, and guests staying in hotels without COVID-19 protocols for linen cleaning, with a lower average rating, with a larger size and in a more urbanized location. Originality/valueThis study represents a pioneering effort to assess how pandemics shape people’s (perceived) importance of cleanliness during hotel stays based on revealed data. Despite potential managerial relevance, a number of the moderating variables included in this study, such as traveler expertise and hotel location, have never been studied within the context of cleanliness perceptions during a pandemic.