Interview study of online travel reviews and their impact on a person’s decision making process

In the past people sought for information via libraries, travel magazines or were inspired by marketing the travel agency made in order to attract consumers. Before the Internet era one way communication was the right way to follow. Since Internet was developed two ways communication has evolved and people can talk to each other worldwide. The development of the two ways communication has created a travel website where people can share and spread their opinions. Today people search for the most satisficing travel choice which makes more than one destination alternative selectable. The online reviews may extend or reduce an alternatives lifetime in the decision process. The online reviews are important factors in a person’s decision therefore the aim with this thesis is to investigate and evaluate how and if these online reviews affect a person’s decision-making process. The issue is based on what people think about online reviews, why they use them, how strong impact electronic word of mouth have against word of mouth, to the extent to which online reviews are used in a potential customers decision making. To obtain a result of the study, interviews with a focus group and a number of semistructured interviews have been conducted. The result highlights the dominance online reviews have on a person's choice. The participants in the paper believe that online reviews are good to rely on to get broad information and that they affect one. Participants, however, say that online reviews do not affect the final outcome but can affect the details of the arranged trip

The role of language in the online evaluation of hospitality service encounters: an empirical study

In an increasingly global travel market, hospitality services encounters involve growing interactions between providers and customers often belonging to different nationalities and cultures and speaking different languages. Extant hospitality management literature has explored the influence of language on service evaluations mostly in offline settings. This study innovatively captures the effect of the language used in online hotel reviews on online consumer ratings in two distinctively different destinations located in culturally different countries: Italy and Russia. Based on almost half a million Booking.com online reviews written by hotel guests in Moscow and Rome, we illuminate if and to what extent domestic vs. foreign language use affects online customer satisfaction. We find that the use of domestic language exerts a positive impact on online ratings in both countries. Implications for hospitality practitioners and managers, developers and managers of online review platforms, and customers of hotel services are discussed

The Impact of Online Reviews on the Choice of Holiday Accommodations

The Impact of Online Reviews on the Choice of HolidayAccommodationsKatia Laura Sidali,Holger Schulze, andAchim SpillerUniversity of G\uf6ttingen{Katia-Laura.Sidali, H.Schulze, A.Spiller}@agr.uni-goettingen.deAbstractIn order to reduce information asymmetries in the tourist industry, consumers refer to multipleinformation sources. Among these, e-reviews are supposed to better reflect quality ofinformation because they are based on consumers\u2019 past experiences. The first purpose of thisstudy is therefore to test within an experimental design whether e-reviews have a predominantor a complementary role on consumer behaviour in comparison with other sources ofinformation (hotel rating system, travel guides and recommendations of travel agents). Asexpected, e-reviews are the most referential information source. We further use a causal modelin order to detect the determinants of trust in e-reviews, and we can show that perceivedexpertness of e-reviews, credibility of the e-platform and brand familiarity explain more than60% of trust in e-reviews. The final part of the analysis is dedicated to our third researchpurpose which is the measurement of the impact of trust in e-reviews on choice ofaccommodations. A significant and positive influence can be demonstrated. Hence, scientificand managerial implications are discussed

Consumer Behavior Choice in the Era of Shared Mobility: The Role of Proximity, Competition, and Quality

Shared mobility services, which allow users to make point-to-point trips on an as-needed basis, have drastically impacted people’s travel behavior in the last few years. In this study, we propose a decision choice model to examine the factors that influence the restaurant choice of individuals who use shared mobility services. Our model incorporates key elements from the spatial interaction model and the theory of the individual decision making from economics. We analyze individuals’ travel behavior using trip-level data, along with point of interest data, restaurant reviews and average prices, and travel route characteristics. We find that the effect of proximity of a restaurant depends on the total distance of the trip. For shorter trips, an individual is less likely to choose a restaurant that is further away. However, if an individual decides to travel a long distance to a restaurant, she is more likely to choose a restaurant that is further. Additionally, with increasing travel distance (or competition) there is a decreased preference for a restaurant with a higher price. The quality (online reviews) of a restaurant does not seem to have a significant impact on the choice of the restaurant. Implications of the study are discussed

The Influence of Online Platforms on Decision-Making Process and Behavioural Traits of International Travelers

Marketing communications in the international travel and hospitality industry greatly depend on online platforms. Various goals can be achieved by using digital technologies: advertising, PR, sales, branding, customer relationship management (CRM), data analytics, and online reputation management (ORM). At the same time, international travelers actively use online channels for various stages of behaviour and decision-making processes, for different purposes: pre-departure information search, evaluation of alternatives, booking and purchasing services, and post-travel actions. Besides, the peculiarities of Web 2.0 give customers wide opportunities to disseminate their reviews concerning a service. It may significantly impact potential travelers’ decisions as opinions of other customers are regarded as more reliable. Hence, digital platforms must be considered one of the central issues in tourism marketing. The importance of the issue has increased in the post-pandemic conditions when competition in the international tourism industry worldwide has moved to a new level. The paper provides a discussion and comprehensive analysis of various aspects of using online platforms for marketing purposes: opportunities, decision-making process under the influence of online platforms, behaviour peculiarities of international travelers, and strategies for using online channels to increase influence efficiency. Recommendations and solutions are presented for managing various online platforms. The conclusion briefly summarizes the issues discussed in the paper

Profiling the Emotional Peaks and Valleys in Stories of Cross-border Shopping

The stories that travellers tell provide valuable insight to tourism managers responsible for shaping travel experiences. Access to consumer stories has never been greater due to the rise of online forums, reviews, and blogs (Gretzel, Fesenmaier, Lee, & Tussyadiah, 2010). Yet, researchers’ ability to make sense of these stories is limited by current theoretical and methodological approaches. We contend that there is an opportunity to develop new approaches to measure customer experience using advanced text analysis and sentiment indices. Specifically, we use narrative theory to explain the importance of emotional peaks and valleys in stories and propose a natural language processing (NLP) approach to identify and profile the issues that greatly impact on travellers’ experiences. Our narrative text-analytic approach is demonstrated using interview data describing 428 cross-border shopping experiences

Factors Affecting Consumers’ Decision for E-Hotel Booking

With more accessibility to the Internet and modernization of e-payment systems, the approach to address the travel requirements has dramatically changed over the years. The service offered by the Online Travel Agents (OTAs) has a huge impact on a very competitive online marketplace. The purpose of this research is to observe, examine, and analyze key factors which a consumers’ decision to use a particular travel agent website for e-hotel booking can be predicted. The data are compiled using IBM SPSS. The key methods are applied for data analysis in addition to other statistical methods including factor analysis and multinomial logistic regression analysis. The analysis of data reveals a positive association of website quality factors, product related factors, and consumer relationship factors with consumers’ decision to book from a certain travel agent website. Viewing the big picture, consumer relationship factors are found to be more influential as compared to website quality and product related factors. Moreover, the researchers reveal product price as the most influential variable, but it indicates no statistical significance with consumers’ decision. There are many different price products which are available across different travel agent websites. The convenience of payment method is found to be a significant attribute associated with the consumers’ decision to book from a travel website. In addition, attributes of travel products variety and online reviews provided by the travel websites are observed to be statistically significant. This research indicates the trends of consumer decision-making for e-hotel booking in Indonesia

Word of Mouth, the Importance of Reviews and Ratings in Tourism Marketing

The Internet and social media have given place to what is commonly known as the democratization of content and this phenomenon is changing the way that consumers and companies interact. Business strategies are shifting from influencing consumers directly and induce sales to mediating the influence that Internet users have on each other. A consumer review is “a mixture of fact and opinion, impression and sentiment, found and unfound tidbits, experiences, and even rumor” (Blackshaw & Nazarro, 2006). Consumers' comments are seen as honest and transparent, but it is their subjective perception what shapes the behavior of other potential consumers. With the emergence of the Internet, tourists search for information and reviews of destinations, hotels or services. Several studies have highlighted the great influence of online reputation through reviews and ratings and how it affects purchasing decisions by others (Schuckert, Liu, & Law, 2015). These reviews are seen as unbiased and trustworthy, and considered to reduce uncertainty and perceived risks (Gretzel & Yoo, 2008; Park & Nicolau, 2015). Before choosing a destination, tourists are likely to spend a significant amount of time searching for information including reviews of other tourists posted on the Internet. The average traveler browses 38 websites prior to purchasing vacation packages (Schaal, 2013), which may include tourism forums, online reviews in booking sites and other generic social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Please, talk about it! When hotel popularity boosts preferences

Many consumers post on-line reviews, affecting the average evaluation of products and services. Yet, little is known about the importance of the number of reviews for consumer decision making. We conducted an on-line experiment (n= 168) to assess the joint impact of the average evaluation, a measure of quality, and the number of reviews, a measure of popularity, on hotel preference. The results show that consumers' preference increases with the number of reviews, independently of the average evaluation being high or low. This is not what one would expect from an informational point of view, and review websites fail to take this pattern into account. This novel result is mediated by demographics: young people, and in particular young males, are less affected by popularity, relying more on quality. We suggest the adoption of appropriate ranking mechanisms to fit consumer preferences. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

The evaluation of thermal hotels' online reviews

Th e main objective of this study was to evaluate the perceptions related to the online user reviews of thermal hotels. Specifi cally, it was investigated whether perceptions towards value (V), location (L), sleep quality (SQ), rooms (R), cleanliness (C), service (S) and factors infl uencing general evaluation depend on the star numbers of hotels, the location of the hotels and the nationalities of participants. In order to obtain data on perceptions of consumers towards thermal hotels in Turkey, the web site Trip Advisor (TA) was used. In total, 2,895 user reviews about thermal accommodations on TA were assessed by content analysis method. According to the study results, it was determined that the most important factor was the cleanliness of the hotels. It was followed by the location, sleep quality, rooms and service. Th e value factor was the last important. To analyse the eff ect of the nationality of the participants, domestic and foreign visitors, stars and the location of the accommodation on the perceptions towards value, location, sleep quality, rooms, cleanliness and service, t test and one-way ANOVA method were performed. It was found that the perceptions towards value, location, sleep quality, rooms, cleanliness and service diff ered between domestic and foreign visitors, nationalities, location and 4 or 5-star