Sustainable attitudes: Protecting tourism with inoculation messages

This study explored the potential of inoculation messages to protect the pro-destination attitudes of potential tourists. As this study argues, much research has focused on the promotion of destination images, sustainable tourism, and more recently the impact of Tourism 2.0 (i.e., hyper connected, multidimensional consumer knowledge sharing across social media platforms) on the industry. Yet, little attention has been given to communication strategies designed to pre-emptively protect tourist attitudes from negative online peer reviews. Therefore, via a three-phase experiment the current investigation explored the impact of different (i.e., no message, supportive, and inoculation) communication message strategies on tourist pro-destination attitudes when faced with a negative peer review of the destination on social media. Results indicate that for participants exposed to negative peer reviews presented via social media inoculation messages protected pro-destination attitudes better than other message types.     

How handwriting reduces negative online ratings

This research investigates whether handwriting during the tourism experience reduces subsequent negative and extreme online rating scores. We portray that handwriting, due to a more deeply rooted elaboration of information, activates emotional empathy. Study 1, a field experiment in the hospitality context, suggests that handwriting reduces the extremeness of subsequent online rating scores. Study 2 compares handwritten vs. typed comments and complements the initial findings by clarifying the mediating role of emotional empathy on this relationship. We discuss the boundary conditions for the effect and offer practical implications on how to nudge tourists to reduce negative online rating scores. Hotel operators should use their enhanced emotional bonding with tourists when competing with peer-to-peer operators.     

‘You will like it!’ using open data to predict tourists' response to a tourist attraction

The increasing amount of user-generated content spread via social networking services such as reviews, comments, and past experiences, has made a great deal of information available. Tourists can access this information to support their decision making process. This information is freely accessible online and generates so-called “open data”. While many studies have investigated the effect of online reviews on tourists' decisions, none have directly investigated the extent to which open data analyses might predict tourists' response to a certain destination. To this end, our study contributes to the process of predicting tourists' future preferences via Mathematica^TM, software that analyzes a large set of the open data (i.e. tourists’ reviews) that is freely available on tripadvisor. This is devised by generating the classification function and the best model for predicting the destination tourists would potentially select. The implications for the tourist industry are discussed in terms of research and practice.     

A comparative analysis of major online review platforms: Implications for social media analytics in hospitality and tourism

Online consumer reviews have been studied for various research problems in hospitality and tourism. However, existing studies using review data tend to rely on a single data source and data quality is largely anecdotal. This greatly limits the generalizability and contribution of social media analytics research. Through text analytics this study comparatively examines three major online review platforms, namely TripAdvisor, Expedia, and Yelp, in terms of information quality related to online reviews about the entire hotel population in Manhattan, New York City. The findings show that there are huge discrepancies in the representation of the hotel industry on these platforms. Particularly, online reviews vary considerably in terms of their linguistic characteristics, semantic features, sentiment, rating, usefulness as well as the relationships between these features. This study offers a basis for understanding the methodological challenges and identifies several research directions for social media analytics in hospitality and tourism.     

强关系网络移动社交平台旅游分享行为研究——基于微信与QQ用户的资料分析

在移动社交媒体时代,旅游分享已成为当下旅游者的行为偏好,越来越多的旅游者选择微信、QQ这类强关系移动社交平台进行分享。国内学界对移动社交平台旅游分享行为的研究随之日增,但少有文章从理论上系统地揭示旅游分享行为的过程与动因。文章采用扎根理论研究方法,构建反映强关系网络移动社交平台的旅游分享动态过程理论模型。将旅游分享行为动态过程划分为分享前因、分享实现与分享结果3个阶段,总结每个阶段的行为特征、表现方式及阶段之间的演替规律,并探讨这类旅游分享行为的特点与动因。研究发现,在旅游分享动机上,强关系移动社交平台强调情感联结与互动,从而旅游者受到与个体相关动机的影响更为显著;分享内容上,平台的强关系特性与熟人社交促使旅游者尽量避免分享负面信息;分享结果上,强关系移动社交平台的旅游分享能调节旅游者行中、行后的体验水平,并形成兼具网络时空拓展性与熟人圈规模局限性的口碑传播。     

An empathy lens into peer service providers: Personal versus commercial hosts

The focus of the peer-to-peer in tourism (Airbnb) has shifted recently from personal peer providers (i.e., individuals that rent a room) to commercial peer providers (i.e., companies that manage several Airbnb lodgings). While prior research encourages peer service providers (Airbnb hosts) to focus on social interactions, there is scant research on how consumers respond to the social dimension across the two peer provider types (personal vs. commercial provider). Two experimental studies (N = 600) reveal that consumers exhibit higher loyalty towards personal (vs. commercial) providers when they focus on communal norms, and this effect is driven via empathy. Study 2 examines the moderating effect of perceived warmth and demonstrates that low perceived warmth has a detrimental effect on loyalty among personal (vs. commercial) peer providers.     

What moderates the influence of extremely negative ratings? The role of review and reviewer characteristics

Online customer reviews are increasingly used by travelers to inform their purchase decisions. However, the vast amount of reviews available nowadays may increase travellers’ effort in information processing. In order to facilitate traveller’s decisions, social commerce organizations must help travellers rapidly identify the most helpful reviews to reduce their cognitive effort. Academic literature has often documented that negative reviews are judged as helpful by consumers. However, extremely negative reviews are not always perceived as such. This study is the first that unveils what factors moderate the influence of extremely negative reviews on review helpfulness. The study has adopted a sample of 7455 online customer reviews of hotels to test hypotheses. Findings show that reviews with extremely negative ratings are more likely to be helpful when the review is long and easy to read and when the reviewer is an expert or discloses his identity (i.e. geographical origin).     

The effect of algorithmic management and workers’ coping behavior: An exploratory qualitative research of Chinese food-delivery platform

While algorithmic management provides new options for organizing service work, it is underexplored in tourism and hospitality research. From food-delivery platforms in China, this qualitative study sources interviews and online reviews to explore the impact of algorithmic management on workers' service behavior and how they cope in response. Our study uncovers an algorithm-human hybrid approach for managing workers, where algorithms and humans function distinctly but complement each other. Algorithmic management influences deliverers’ work either positively, by improving service efficiency, reliability and customer-orientated behavior; or negatively by causing impersonal service behavior, frequent service recovery and extra-role workload. Deliverers employ both problem-focused (i.e., compliance, flexible response and resistance) and emotion-focused (i.e., relief) coping strategies in algorithmic management. In addition to individual resistance, we firstly revealed that deliverers collude with other parties to resist the algorithms. We proposed a conceptual framework that contributes to understanding the dynamic, mutual relationship between algorithms and workers.     

Examining the direct and interaction effects of picture color cues and textual cues related to color on accommodation-sharing platform rental purchase

Given the increasing popularity of peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation-sharing platforms (i.e., Airbnb), this paper aims to explore the effects of both picture color cues and textual cues related to color (TCC) on rental decisions made on these platforms in China. Based on cue utilization theory, this paper distinguishes picture color cues signaled from photos listed by hosts and TCC signaled from online guest reviews. The paper conducts an empirical study using data crawled from Xiaozhu.com. The research model is tested with poisson regression using 2520 valid listings collected in Guangzhou and is verified with additional data collected in Shanghai. Results show that both picture color cues and TCC affect rental transactions. Properties displayed with warm-colored pictures are more likely to be rented than those with cold-colored pictures. In addition, the consistency of picture color cues and TCC is found to have a significant impact on rental decisions. Interestingly, we also found an invert-U effect of brightness on rental purchase.     

Grouping tourist complaints: what are inbound visitors’ problems with Chinese destinations?

This study aims to examine inbound tourists’ complaints when visiting China and how these complaints differ in terms of tourist demographics. Tourists’ spontaneous reviews on TripAdvisor were analysed through manual coding and online automated software. Seven categories of complaint attributes with seventy-eight specific items were identified. The results showed different relationships between tourists’ demographic characteristics (age, gender, origins and travel pattern) and complaint items. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed with regard to Chinese tourism management as well as future research.     

A within-level analysis of the effect of customer-focused perspective-taking on deep acting and customer helping behaviors: The mediating roles of negative affect and empathy

Service employees can face customer mistreatment on a daily basis, which can negatively influence their affect and subsequent service performance. Despite this reality, little research has examined theoretically based interventions to change employees’ affective reactions to customer mistreatment. Using an experience sampling method, the current study examined customer-focused perspective-taking through a longitudinal design consisting of five days of baseline measurements, followed by five days of intervention measurements. Frontline service employees completed daily measures of affective reactions (i.e., negative affect and empathy) and employee performance (i.e., deep acting and customer helping behaviors). The results showed that customer-focused perspective-taking decreased negative affect and increased empathy toward customers, which led to more deep acting and customer helping behaviors. Regardless of fluctuations in daily difficult customer interactions, the positive effect of customer-focused perspective-taking on the outcomes remained consistent at the within-person level.     

Why do you use Yelp? Analysis of factors influencing customers’ website adoption and dining behavior

The number of review websites has increased within the past years since more people rely on online reviews to help their decision-making process. Previous studies have either focused on the attributes of the content posted on review websites (i.e., reviews) or customers’ behavior concerning their selection of review website on which to post reviews. This study, however, extends the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to investigate the factors that influence individuals’ restaurant review website adoption behaviors to read reviews and make dining decisions. In addition, this study will look at the differences in individuals’ perceptions of various restaurant review websites (i.e., Yelp vs. others). The findings revealed the role of influential factors on individuals’ review website adoption and dining decisions as well as the differences in proposed structural relationships among various restaurant review websites.     

The role of explanations and metadiscourse in management responses to anger-reviews versus anxiety-reviews: The mediation of sense-making

Management response (MR) has become a popular intervention for hotels to manage customer reviews on social media platforms. This article introduces two important linguistic features of MR content—metadiscourse and explanation—and investigates their effectiveness in addressing negative reviews. It also examines how hotels customize MRs using different linguistic features according to different emotions in reviews. Based on a field investigation of large-scale TripAdvisor data and an experimental study, we demonstrate that explanations outperform metadiscourse for anxiety-reviews, whereas metadiscourse is more effective than explanations for anger-reviews. Moreover, their relative effectiveness is mediated by consumers’ sense-making process. Using explanations for anxiety-reviews and metadiscourse for anger-reviews facilitates sense-making, whereas using explanations for anger-reviews and metadiscourse for anxiety-reviews impedes it. This research enriches current understanding of MR effects and provides the hospitality industry with important guidelines for formulating effective MRs and social media marketing practices.     

Thanks for the memories: Exploring city tourism experiences via social media reviews

This study uses online reviews to explore memorable tourism experiences of tourists visiting different city attractions. Seeking to identify a collection of themes and concepts reflecting tourists' memorable experiences during their attraction visits, this study reveals the most shared tourism memories in cognitive-emotive-behavioral themes. By developing a matrix that categorizes tourist city attractions based on an ideographic approach, the study also argues that there are different types of tourist memorable experiences at different types of attractions (i.e., human-marker, nature-sight and human-sight tourist attractions). The findings extend previous understanding of the research in tourism experience and attractions by analyzing 156,986 TripAdvisor tourist reviews of the top ten most popular tourist attractions in London. This study also provides recommendations for destination management organizations and various city tourism stakeholders to plan, market and manage city tourism products and services.     

It makes me feel vulnerable! The impact of public self-disclosure on online complaint behavior

Genuine reviews are essential for financial performance and for customer trust. In the case of a negative experience, withholding negative reviews may lead to biased online information. This paper aims to investigate two factors that may prompt customers to withhold their complaints (i.e., identity disclosure and locus of control). The study adopts a sequential exploratory mixed-method approach. An exploratory interview phase compares public vs anonymous online environments, and explores the reasons why dissatisfied customers might decide not to complain. An experiment then shows that vulnerability is a key mechanism preventing negative reviews. This effect is exaggerated when customers perceive that they do not have control over the events happening in their lives (i.e., external locus of control). Our work uncovers an important determinant of online complaint behavior, vulnerability. It also offers practical suggestions, such as improving confidentiality, to increase a customer's willingness to complain following a negative experience.     

The complexity of consumer experience formulation in the sharing economy

The study examines the complexity of the factors that influence overall perception among tourists who use peer-to-peer accommodation during their vacations. More specifically, it employs fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to analyse data from a sample of 712 peer-to-peer holidaymakers visiting Athens, Greece, and examines the socio-demographics of age and income along with the simple attributes of perceived risks, marketing and advertising, social aspects, and price and quality issues. The findings reveal three sufficient configurations that are able to influence the overall experience: (i) the price-quality nexus, (ii) risk perspective, and (iii) social interaction. The research also compares nonlinear analysis with the dominant parametric methods in tourism and hospitality research (regression; Cramer’s V), highlighting the suitability of the former for complexity examination. It further progresses from fit to predictive validity for the examined models, and contributes to both theoretical and methodological domains.     

Effect of crowd wisdom on pricing in the asset-based sharing platform: An attribute substitution perspective

Technological advancement has led to the emergence of online platforms fueled by the sharing economy across various industries. This study focuses on Airbnb - a specific asset-based sharing platform in the hospitality industry. Applying the theory of attribute substitution, we explore the wisdom of the crowd manifested in online reviews, in impacting pricing. We found that online review valence and volume have a positive association with room price. Depending on the crowdedness of the location this association is stronger or weaker. Customers care more about room popularity (volume) in a certain area when the fast system of decision-making is triggered. When, however, the slow system is triggered, customers consider the crime rate of a location (valence). Findings show how environmental stimuli and customer reviews decide room price - a variable that was decided traditionally by companies (e.g., hotels). The research furthers our understanding on asset-based platforms in the sharing economy.     

Unveiling the cloak of deviance: Linguistic cues for psychological processes in fake online reviews

Although fake online reviews have been gaining more attention from both academics and practitioners, little effort has been made to explore the linguistic characteristics of the psychological processes related to fake reviews. This research proposes four linguistic cues (i.e., affective, cognitive, social, and perceptual) related to a reviewer’s psychological processes and explores their relationships with fake reviews while examining the influence of time distance and reviewer location on these reviews. The results of logistic regression analysis of 43,496 reviews from Yelp.com suggest that affective, social, and perceptual cues are significantly related to fake reviews with the presence of the significant effects of time distance and reviewer location. Further, the results of post-hoc analysis confirm that the effect of photos on fake reviews is limited. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on online reviews and interpersonal deception theory, providing valuable implications for practitioners in the hospitality and tourism industry.     

The effects of consumer experience and disconfirmation on the timing of online review: Field evidence from the restaurant business

This study investigated the effects of consumer experience and disconfirmation on the timing of online reviews. Based on a unique dataset of restaurant reservations and online reviews, the empirical results indicate that (1) there is a reverse U-shaped relationship between consumer experience and online review posting timing, i.e., consumers who have strongly dissatisfying or satisfying experiences tend to post online reviews earlier than consumers who have moderate experience; (2) the disconfirmation between a customer’s experience and the average rating of prior reviews has a negative effect on his or her online review posting speed; and (3) the effect of disconfirmation on review posting speed is substantial for consumers who have strongly dissatisfying or satisfying experiences, while it is weaker for consumers who have moderate experience.     

网络点评对民宿顾客住宿意愿的影响——信任的中介作用探讨

网络点评是影响民宿顾客住宿意愿的重要因素。本研究以信任理论为基础,从顾客需求视角探讨民宿顾客对网络平台的信任和对民宿主人的信任在网络点评和民宿顾客住宿意愿之间的作用。研究发现:(1)网络点评对民宿顾客住宿意愿的直接影响效应显著;(2)顾客信任的二维度(对网络平台的信任和对民宿主人的信任)在网络点评和民宿顾客住宿意愿之间起串联中介作用,但是顾客信任的两个维度不能单独在网络点评和民宿顾客住宿意愿之间起中介作用。本研究揭示了网络点评对民宿顾客住宿意愿的作用路径,为民宿营销提供了新视角。