Online Traveler Ratings: Impact on Determining the Top 25 Hotels

The hospitality industry has changed the way the traveler makes a decision to stay in a hotel. Travelers use the social media and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) to search and evaluate different places. Traveler reviews and ratings have had an influence on the decisions of prospective new guests. TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel site for travelers. TripAdvisor displays the Top 25 hotels in the United States based on traveler reviews. This research proposal is to identify the relationship between travelers’ ratings and the top hotels. The purpose of this study is to provide hospitality management an opportunity to understand which attributes hotels might possess to be considered a top hotel for travelers. The theoretical framework presents an overview based upon the hospitality industry. The study is realized by 22,993 reviews of top hotels based on the TripAdvisor website. The research proposes the quantitative method using traveler ratings overall, and variables such as room, services, quality sleep, location and cleanliness for all top hotel winners. The analysis uses a Likert-type scale. The results will be displayed by percent and averages for overall ratings, and the ratings on the six attributes for hotels. The study will employ a standard alpha α = .05 for testing the hypothesis and to acquire statistical validation. The research proposal provides methods for managers to improve processes, procedures, and skills to become a top hotel based upon travelers’ ratings

The impact of emotionally negative online reviews on consumer purchase intentions

Online reviews are an important factor influencing consumers\u27 purchasing decisions. However, there is no literature to explore the mechanism of emotional negative online reviews on consumer purchasing behavior. The research results enrich the theory of user information behavior, and have practical significance for merchants\u27 precision marketing and customer relationship management. Based on ELM theory and regulation focus theory, using the method of situational experiment, from the two paths of peripheral situation perception and core cognitive processing, explore the influence of regulation focus on consumer purchase intention under the stimulation of emotional negative online reviews effect. The research results show that: under the stimulus of negative emotional online reviews, prevention of targeted consumers is mainly affected by the emotional arousal of the edge path, and positively affects purchase intention through emotional response; promotion of targeted consumers is mainly affected by the perception of the central path The influence of effort positively affects purchase intention through cognitive response; among them, emotional response has a greater leading role in purchase intention

The influence of online review adoption on the profitability of capacitated supply chains

The paper explores the influence of online review adoption on supply chain profitability under the presence of a capacity constraint. Nowadays, customers increasingly rely on online reviews for decision making, and online retailers regard reviews as a norm. Although online reviews have been extensively examined in marketing disciplines, little research has been conducted to investigate their influence from a supply chain perspective. In addition, previous research has largely focused on how online review information can influence customer purchase behaviours, but ignores the more basic decision: whether and when companies should adopt reviews. This paper examines the online review adoption decision from a capacitated supply chain perspective through mathematical modelling and simulation. The simulation considers the influence of variables including online review adoption decision, capacity constraint level, lost sales penalty level, and product quality estimation on supply chain profitability. Generally, we find that online reviews can bring more profit to the supply chain than without online reviews, although such influence is moderated by the other three variables. The findings reveal the complexity of the contextual variable impacts on online review adoption, and demonstrate that decisions concerning the adoption of online reviews should take all supply-chain-related variables into consideration rather than only aiming for increasing customer orders

Valence or Volume? Maximizing Online Review Influence Across Consumers, Products, and Marketing

Evidence shows that products with online reviews have a higher chance to stay in the consideration set of consumers than products with no online reviews do. Online reviews, as consumer-generated content, affect consumers’ purchase decision-making process. Most of the studies in this area have looked at valence and volume of online reviews. Generally, valence and volume of online reviews are considered to positively influence sales; however, the findings in the literature are inconclusive. While some studies have reported a positive relationship between valence/volume and sales, others have failed to find any significant relationship. Using both lab experiments and real-world data, this dissertation addresses the conflicting findings from previous studies by introducing the role of the individual, the product, and firm-generated promotional message. In the first essay of the dissertation, I attempt to explain the inconsistencies in the literature by examining the moderating effect of regulatory focus on the relative role of valence versus volume of online reviews in consumer purchase decisions. Regulatory focus theory suggests that people tend to have either a promotion or a prevention orientation in approaching their desired goals. The current research argues that depending on consumers’ regulatory orientation, the effect of either review valence or review volume on consumers’ likelihood to purchase the product will become more salient. Moreover, specific products also activate a certain regulatory orientation. Therefore, depending on the products’ regulatory orientation, valence or volume of online reviews (i.e. valence and volume) will become more or less influential across different product categories. The second essay of the dissertation investigates the use of firm-generated promotional message to maximize online review volume versus valence effects. Specifically, it examines how a common online retail-marketing tactic, scarcity appeal, can be used to accentuate the effect of online review volume and valence on consumers’ purchase decisions. I argue that the mere presence of a scarcity appeal and the specific type of scarcity appeal used can influence the extent to which consumers weigh valence versus volume information. The integrative approach developed in this research advocates the simultaneous consideration of firm marketing tactics and consumer-generated content. It argues that firm-level actions can interact with online review components (i.e. volume and valence) to affect sales

When online reviews meet virtual reality: Effects on consumer hotel booking

This study examines the direct and interaction effects of online reviews (quality and quantity) and virtual reality on consumer hotel booking. Data were collected from two 2 x 2 experimental studies. The results show a direct effect of both online review and virtual reality's application on behavioral intention, and the influence of online reviews on behavioral intention was weakened when virtual reality was applied. Moreover, online reviews and virtual reality had a significant combined effect on behavioral intention, with greater strength than that of online reviews alone. The findings provide insights for travel and tourism managers to enhance marketing communication effects by proper use of virtual reality to complement online reviews

Evaluating the Quality of Online Reviews based on Feature-richness

Given the massive online reviews from online travel agencies, it is difficult for users to find high-quality reviews. Evaluating online reviews’ quality has been an important matter of concern. In this study, a review quality assessment model based on feature richness was proposed by combining grounded theory and semantic similarity. The proposed model can properly evaluate the quality of online reviews from the perspective of feature richness, and the more comprehensive the review content, the higher the quality is. Based on the online review from ctrip.com, experimental results showed that the proposed model can accurately identify the reviews that contain rich information with a high reference value for other users