Impact of Online Reviews on Consumer’s Hotel Booking Intentions: Does Brand Image Mediate?

Abstract

The recent trend suggests that people are more inclined to online hotel reviews to take online hotel booking decisions. The present study argues that when consumers are exposed to online hotel reviews, it draws an impression of the hotel brand in the mind of consumers, resulting in influence their hotel booking intentions. The current study determines the mediation effects of brand image between credible online hotel reviews and consumers’ hotel booking intentions. To ascertain the uni-dimensionality of the scales, the present study executes exploratory factor analysis. The ensure the internal consistency of the variable scales, the study determines Cronbach’s alpha. To measure the mediation effects, the present study performs structural equation modeling bootstrapping method. Data analysis reveals that marketers should look at hedonic brand image, which ultimately influences consumers’ hotel booking intentions. This is a unique study that ascertains the type of brand image that actually mediates between the impact of online hotel reviews and consumers’ hotel booking intentions. In addition, the paper furnishes theoretical background on how people interpret online hotel reviews and its effects.     

Antecedents of attitude towards online mediation

While the majority of studies so far have examined the effectiveness and benefits of electronic settlement applications, this study explores factors that affect the adoption and use of online mediation services. To this end, structural equation modeling analysis was applied to data obtained from users and mediators involved in an online mediated dispute. Subject perceptions regarding an overall mediation system including information technology and a human mediator were assessed. The findings suggest that while perceived usefulness of the information system explains the variance in attitude towards online mediation, the perceived usefulness of the mediator does not shape this attitude. Thus, mediators are being conceptualized as external to the service and their characteristics do not affect attitudes towards online mediation services, nor the intention to adopt it. This phenomenon is explained using biases in attribution.     

Introducing E-MARKPLAN: A practical methodology to plan e-marketing activities

Although e-marketing is highly prevalent, no template currently exists for managers who wish to use the Internet/Web and related information technologies to market their products and services. This paper provides managers with a comprehensive, actionable, and practical methodology (E-MARKPLAN) to plan, enact, and analyze e-marketing activities. Five case studies are used to illustrate the diversity of e-marketing actions. E-MARKPLAN consists of five parts: goals, actors (i.e., those who take e-marketing actions), spaces (i.e., theaters of engagement), actions, and outcomes. The E-MARKPLAN methodology is versatile, and is not limited to companies which have e-commerce operations.     

Exploring Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) in The Consumer Purchase Decision-Making Process: The Case of Online Holidays – Evidence from United Kingdom (UK) Consumers

This study explores the role of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in the consumer decision-making process when purchasing a holiday. Using an ethnographic approach, it explores the role of eWOM on consumers’ attitudes toward online reviews (eReviews) and their subsequent behavior. Across the consumer decision-making processes – information search, evaluation, and purchase – the study develops a conceptual framework with three eWOM dimensions: (1) motivation, (2) source, and (3) content. Findings explore the variations of eWOM’s influence across the decision-making stages with implications for theory and practice. The study further highlights implications for segmentation practices in the tourism industry.     

Online Price Search: Impact of Price Comparison Sites on Offline Price Evaluations

Consumers increasingly rely on Internet price comparison sites (PCS) to gain knowledge about the market. The prices generated by a PCS search can act as contextual reference prices and influence the attractiveness of prices encountered later as consumers shop offline at local stores. This paper demonstrates that both PCS retailer ratings and the shape of the PCS price distribution influence the impact of PCS search results on later price evaluations. A favorable PCS retailer rating increases the perceived validity of the price associated with that retailer, enhancing the impact of that PCS price on offline price evaluations (Study 1). The shape of the PCS price distribution can also influence later price evaluations, however this effect depends on the information provided by the PCS retailer ratings. When PCS retailer ratings are similar, implying similar validity for the associated prices, low PCS prices and those appearing more frequently in the PCS price distribution have more impact (Studies 2 and 3). When PCS retailer ratings are variable (some high and some low), the PCS price distribution effect occurs only when the PCS retailer ratings provide congruent information about price validity — that is, the most frequent price is offered by retailers with more favorable ratings. Study 3 shows that price validity inferences do mediate this result. Finally, we depart from the offline shopping context to show that when consumers choose a retailer directly from the PCS search results, the effect of PCS retailer ratings is stronger for high-priced retailers and for consumers who rely less on the retailer price as a heuristic to infer retailer service level. Based on our findings we offer insights for online and offline retailers when considering strategic responses, such as price matching guarantees.     

Strategic and tactical price decisions in hotel revenue management

Dynamic pricing techniques allow using a number of variables in a tactical way compared to standard catalogue prices. This study merges in a conceptual model the relevance of the tactical and the strategic dimension of these variables, classified according to their tangible, reputational or contextual nature.To empirically validate the hypotheses, a database of 21.596 price observations was retrieved from booking.com. The study presents a hedonic price function, using the Shapley-Owen decomposition of the R-squared to elicit the importance of each group of factors. Further, a hierarchical cluster analysis measures the presence of heterogeneity across operators.The results show that online reputation is gaining importance over the traditional star rating. Despite the tangible variables remain of paramount importance, the findings suggest the relevant role of contextual variables in short-run price variations. The players operating in the tourism and hospitality industries should integrate these findings when designing pricing strategies.     

The influence of consumer decision‐making styles on online apparel consumption by college students

Apparel purchases now constitute one of the fastest‐growing segments of e‐commerce. Thus, there are strong theoretical and managerial reasons to better understand consumer characteristics associated with buying apparel online. This paper investigates motivations for online apparel consumption using the Consumer Styles Inventory. Data from a sample of 357 US college students showed that quality consciousness, brand consciousness, fashion consciousness, hedonistic shopping, impulsiveness and brand loyalty were positively correlated with online apparel shopping. Price sensitivity was negatively correlated with online spending.     

Teaching International Business Across Multiple Modes of Delivery: How to Maintain Equivalence in Learning Outcomes

The drivers of globalization are changing how, where, and when international business (IB) is being taught, and increasing student diversity. Concomitantly, education is becoming an important contributor to GDP in developed economies. Today, the same course may be taught at home to domestic and in-bound international students, in host countries, online, and through blended learning techniques. The increasing variety of modes of delivery raises an important question, however—how to deliver the same material in different contexts and achieve the same learning outcomes. This article examines the changing face of IB education and presents a case study on how this question has been answered at one Australian university.     

Online loyalty and its interaction with switching barriers

The results of empirical research on online retail switching tendencies is quite mixed and only a few have specifically examined the presence, frequency or impact of switching barriers and switching inducements in the context of online services. Empirical evidence shows that there is “stickiness to certain sites” experienced by online customers and that they do less comparative shopping than might be expected. This paper conceptualises online switching behaviour as the interaction of barriers and inducements (both real and perceived) using Oliver׳s four-stage loyalty model. It also highlights the need to re-examine the concept of online loyalty and its interaction with switching barriers and inducements in the online context.     

How Online Product Reviews Affect Retail Sales: A Meta-analysis

A growing body of research has emerged on online product reviews and their ability to elicit performance outcomes desired by retailers; yet, a common understanding of the performance implications of online product reviews has eluded us. Scholars continue to navigate an array of studies assessing different design elements of online product reviews, and various research settings and data sources. We undertake a meta-analysis of 26 empirical studies yielding 443 sales elasticities to examine how these variables relate to retail sales. Building on well-established meta-analytical methods, we address the following questions: How does review valence influence the elasticity of retailer sales? What about review volume? For which product types and usage situations do online product reviews have a greater impact on retailer sales elasticity? Which types of online reviewers and websites exert the greatest influence on retailer sales elasticity? Our study answers these important questions and provides a much needed quantitative synthesis of this burgeoning stream of research.