Exploring the comparative importance of online hotel reviews’ heuristic attributes in review helpfulness: a conjoint analysis approach

Online travel reviews have become increasingly important as a result of the intangible and heterogeneous characteristics of the tourism industry as well as the recent diffusion of social media. This exploratory case study intends to examine the comparative importance of the six heuristic attributes (reviewer location, reviewer level, reviewer helpful vote, review rating, review length, and review photo) with respect to review helpfulness in the online hotel review context. Moreover, the salience of the individual levels within each review attribute and the importance of the attributes in positive and negative review-rating groups are compared. In total, 1,158 reviews of a hotel on TripAdvisor were collected and analyzed through conjoint analyses. This study found that the review rating and reviewer helpful vote attributes are the two most important factors. Finally, three major propositions are suggested based on findings of the study, and several theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Unravelling the effects of cultural differences in the online appraisal of hospitality and tourism services

International travelling has increased the likelihood of service interactions between customers and providers of different nationalities, frequently speaking various language, and repeatedly experiencing issues with intercultural communication. By examining more than 700,000 online reviews written by hotel guests of 101 different nationalities, using 84 different languages in their reviews, this study unravels cultural differences and examines through a direct measurement approach the simultaneous influence of national and linguistic differences between service customers and providers on online review valence. After controlling for reviewers’ demographics, behavioral features, trip related factors and location of service provider, the study findings reveal that while the influence of national cultural distance on online ratings is country- and destination- dependent, the usage of a common language is positively associated with online review valence irrespective of the destination/country where the service provider is located. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Infusing new insights: How do review novelty and inconsistency shape the usefulness of online travel reviews?

Review usefulness represents a vital indicator for evaluating the quality of online reviews in the tourism industry, and various heuristic cues have been recognized as determinants of this indicator. This study constructs a comprehensive conceptual framework based on the heuristic-systematic model to observe how two systematic cues, namely, review novelty and inconsistency, shape the perceived usefulness of reviews. Through an empirical analysis based on 1,744,693 reviews of 62,543 restaurants in the United States, we unveil a positive effect of review novelty on review usefulness but a negative effect of review inconsistency. We also underscore the moderating effects of several heuristic cues in the model, including review valence, reviewer expertise, and restaurant popularity. These results indicate that systematic and heuristic cues simultaneously and interactively determine review usefulness. The findings present theoretical implications to the literature and practical implications to hospitality professionals and designers/managers of review platforms.     

Mechanisms of consumers' trust development in reviewers' supplementary reviews: A reviewer-reader similarity perspective

The literature on online reviews tends to focus on initial consumer postings and reviews, but supplementary online reviews posted by the same reviewer remain an unexplored area in marketing in general and hospitality in particular. To address this gap in the research, this study offers a research model that examines the effects of reviewers' attributes on consumer trust and positive behavioral outcomes, using hotel attributes performance as a moderator. Using responses from 414 hospitality consumers in China, our findings reveal that reviewers whose supplementary reviews use similar identities to those of their initial review, review similar firms, and use similar websites gain consumers' trust. Hotel attributes performance has a strong positive moderating effect on the relationship between reviewers' attributes and consumers' trust, and the trust engendered in this way creates the psychological comfort that leads to positive behavioral outcomes. Implications for theory and practice are discussed along with suggestions for future research.     

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.     

Analysis of the perceived value of online tourism reviews: Influence of readability and reviewer characteristics

Online reviews provide additional product information to reduce uncertainty. Hence, consumers often rely on online reviews to form purchase decisions. However, an explosion of online reviews brings the problem of information overload to individuals. Identifying reviews containing valuable information from large numbers of reviews becomes increasingly important to both consumers and companies, especially for experience products, such as attractions. Several online review platforms provide a function for readers to rate a review as “helpful” when it contains valuable information. Different from consumers, companies want to detect potential valuable reviews before they are rated to avoid or promote their negative or positive influence, respectively. Using online attraction review data retrieved from TripAdvisor, we conduct a two-level empirical analysis to explore factors that affect the value of reviews. We introduc a negative binomial regression model at a review level to explore the effects of the actual reviews. Subsequently, we apply a Tobit regression model at the reviewer level to investigate the effects of reviewer characteristics inferred from properties of historical rating distribution. The empirical analysis results indicate that both text readability and reviewer characteristics affect the perceived value of reviews. These findings have direct implications for attraction managers in their improved identification of potential valuable reviews.     

Finding the reviews on yelp that actually matter to me: Innovative approach of improving recommender systems

As many readers struggle with massive textual information on review websites, developing optimized recommender systems that assist readers in identifying relevant reviews is critical. The present study aims to explore and predict the relationship between a reviewer’s evaluation of distinct attributes (i.e., importance and sentiment of a restaurant aspect)² and overall satisfaction (i.e., generic numerical rating of a restaurant). Latent Aspect Rating Analysis is modified to achieve the goal. The study identifies five restaurant attributes: food & drinks, customer service, dining atmosphere, restaurant value, and location. Restaurant value contributes most from the importance perspective and food & drinks contributes most from the sentiment perspective. Restaurant value ranks the first as the overall satisfaction of attributes (i.e., combination of importance and sentiment). Accordingly, the present study suggests a supplement of the “dynamic” recommender systems. This study offers scholars and practitioners a refined approach to analyze wealthy review content.     

Extra-Role Customer Service: The Roles of Leader–Member Exchange (LMX), Affective Commitment,and Psychological Empowerment

ABSTRACT

Based on the social exchange and job characteristic theories, this study advances a moderated-mediation model that tries to explain the social-psychological processes connecting the leader–member exchange (LMX) and extra-role customer service, and examined it by collecting data from employees and managers employed in tourist hotels operating in Uttarakhand, India. A hierarchical regression analysis determined that LMX was positively related to extra-role customer service where affective commitment mediated this relationship. Further, an analysis of a moderated-mediation path revealed that psychological empowerment strengthened the direct influences of LMX on affective commitment and its indirect influence on extra-role customer service. Based on these findings, important theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

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).     

Online persuasion of review emotional intensity: A text mining analysis of restaurant reviews

Consumer-generated restaurant reviews are important sources in consumers’ purchase decisions. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of emotional intensity on perceived review usefulness as well as the moderating effects of review length and reviewer expertise. Data from 600,686 reviews of 300 popular restaurants in the US were obtained from Yelp. Using a text mining approach and econometric analysis, empirical results show that (1) positive emotional intensity has a negative impact on perceived review usefulness, whereas negative emotional intensity has a positive impact on perceived review usefulness; (2) among the two most prevalent discrete negative emotions in online reviews (i.e., anger and anxiety), reviews expressing anger are more useful than those expressing anxiety; and (3) review length and reviewer expertise can moderate the effect of emotional intensity on perceived review usefulness.     

Dark personalities and online reviews: A textual content analysis of review generation,consumption and distribution.

This research examined the relationship of dark personality traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy with online review generation, consumption, and distribution. Using TripAdvisor.com as a primary platform of data collection, we collected online reviews of 670 hotels located in New York City posted between 2003 and 2020. Reviews posted after March 2020 were excluded from consideration owing to the circumstantial effects of COVID-19 impacting data differently. Using Pennebaker, Francis & Booth's (2001) closed vocabulary lexical definitions of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, we studied linguistic styles of review posters as a correlate of DT traits. Our results evidenced that individuals with dark personality traits are naturally more predisposed towards being dissatisfied and prone to negative online reviews but differences in the three dark personality traits were determined in terms of review consumption and distribution. This study opens avenues for scholarly debate on how personality theories can inform tourist behavior and furnish important insights for practitioners in the tourism and hospitality industry.     

Insights into Suspicious Online Ratings: Direct Evidence from TripAdvisor

Online ratings and online reputation management are becoming increasingly popular and important. With this increasing importance, attempts to manipulate online reviews through fake reviews have become more prevalent. Suspicious online reviews (ratings) exist on many e-commerce platforms, but these reviews have rarely been observed and reported as manipulation in academic studies using different test methods. In our research, we examine empirical evidence of suspicious online ratings based on 41,572 ratings on TripAdvisor. Applying quantitative analytics, we find three important results: (1) the gap between overall rating and individual ratings does exist and is significant, especially among the lower class hotels; (2) the proportion of suspicious ratings is about 20% at a standard of 0.5; and (3) reviewers who tend to post excellent ratings are less likely to generate big gaps when posting ratings. We offer specific managerial implications for hotel managers on online reputation management and selected suggestions for future research based on the empirical findings.     

The impact of language style on consumers′ reactions to online reviews

The current research examines the novel impact of an online review's language style (figurative vs. literal) on consumers' attitudes towards a hotel and their reservation intention. Previous marketing research advocated for the use of figurative language to advertise hedonic consumptions. Yet, we found that, in the context of online hotel reviews, figurative language doesn't offer significant advantages in terms of persuasive power. Specifically, our findings indicate that, when a review is posted by a reviewer with low expertise level, consumers actually exhibit lower levels of attitude and reservation intention if the review is written in figurative (vs. literal) language. When the reviewer possesses high expertise level, the language style effect was attenuated. Finally, serial mediation tests show that the causal link between language typicality → perceived reviewer expertise explains the language style effect on consumers' pre-purchase evaluations.     

Thematic analysis of reviews on the air quality of tourist destinations from a sentiment analysis perspective

This thematic analysis examines whether reviews on transactional and social media websites can reflect the air quality of a tourist destination. We used linguistic and sentiment analysis methods to establish an analytical framework for assessing the credibility of the reviews with sufficiency and consistency analyses. We collected Ctrip and Sina Weibo reviews to analyze the sentiment values using deep learning and Baidu sentiment dictionary methods. We found that although the sentiment value of the Ctrip transactional comments on air quality was high, they hardly reflected reality. Conversely, the Sino Weibo social media comments were highly credible, despite their low sentiment values. Tourists' perception of air quality is mainly affected by intangible air factors (such as pollutants), then tangible air factors, hydrology factors and terrain factors. The study uses online reviews to analyze air quality and provides a reference for the environmental management of destinations and decision making among tourists.     

Building a model of commitment for Generation Y: An empirical study on e-travel retailers

The primary goal of this study was to develop a theory-based model of relationship commitment in an online travel context. Leaning on the foundations of marketing literature and the two theories of relationship commitment (organizational commitment theory, and investment model), this study develops a conceptual framework that explains how Generation Y develops commitment to a travel web vendor. Affective commitment and calculative commitment were found to vary in terms of their impact on word-of-mouth communications. The results showed that the affective commitment was most effective for developing and maintaining long-term relationships with Generation Y. In addition, the study suggested that investment size was positively related both to affective commitment and calculative commitment. Finally, satisfaction was found positively related to affective commitment and negatively related to calculative commitment. The theoretical and managerial implications were discussed as well.     

The impact of e-word-of-mouth on the online popularity of restaurants: A comparison of consumer reviews and editor reviews

With the growing availability and popularity of web-based opinion platforms, online product reviews are now an emerging market phenomenon that is playing an increasingly important role in consumer purchase decisions. Generally speaking, there are two types of online reviews: consumer-generated reviews that are based on personal experiences, and reviews that are written by professional editors. However, little prior research efforts have been devoted to evaluate whether these two types of reviews have different influences on the behavior of online users. This study shows that consumer-generated ratings about the quality of food, environment and service of restaurants, and the volume of online consumer reviews are positively associated with the online popularity of restaurants; whereas editor reviews have a negative relationship with consumers’ intention to visit a restaurant's webpage. The findings will help hospitality researchers and practitioners better understand the impact of electronic word-of-mouth on purchase decisions.     

Do consumers care about CSR in their online reviews? An empirical analysis

This research investigates how consumers assess hotels’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices when writing online reviews. The study explores the CSR discourse in online reviews over a 10-year period, highlighting how CSR’s social and environmental dimensions relate to the main hospitality topics (experience, amenities, location, transactions, value). Based on a longitudinal automated text analysis covering 480,000 reviews across six European cities, the findings reveal that hotel customers have gradually begun paying more attention to CSR factors, particularly to social and environmental ones. However, the aggregate results suggest that the overall CSR consumer discourse is still very limited, although it does have important implications in terms of consumer emotions and hospitality dimensions.     

Helpful Reviewers in TripAdvisor,an Online Travel Community

Online communities need a critical mass for communication, information, and entertainment and should provide useful information for their members in order to obtain this critical mass. The abundance of online travel reviews increases cognitive costs of travelers, and travelers use extrinsic cues to judge the quality of online reviews to eliminate costs associated with the information process. Of various cues used in online environments, this study examined an online reputation system in TripAdvisor.com and profiled the reviewers who post helpful reviews in the online travel community. The key findings include that helpful reviewers are those who travel more, actively post reviews, belong to any age and gender groups, and give lower hotel ratings. This study adds to research of online travel reviewers by characterizing helpful information creators among online content creators.     

Online destination image: Comparing national tourism organisation's and tourists' perspectives

This study examines the perceived and projected online destination images (DI) manifested in tourist-generated content (TGC) and national tourism organisation (NTO) generated content. Through visual content analysis and mise en scène analysis of photographic data as well as content analysis and perceptual mapping analysis of textual data, the differences between perceived and projected online DI of Eastern Taiwan were explored. TGC and NTO contents were both found to have similarly represented Eastern Taiwan as a destination abounds with “natural environment”, “infrastructure”, “specific activities”, and “tourist attractions”. However, several important DI dimensions were under-represented in the NTO content, for example, “food and beverages”, “transportation”, “information” and “accommodation”. The findings further reveal that the TGC textual content tended to outperform NTO textual content in reflecting affective DI; and photographic content, in general, was more effective in conveying affective attributes. The findings provide useful insights for practice and future research in DI management.     

Investigating cross-national heterogeneity in the adoption of online hotel reviews

Increasing reliance of potential guests on online hotel reviews has given rise to trepidation among some hospitality managers recently, thus necessitating a better understanding of its adoption. Literature on multicultural studies have suggested that behavioral models do not universally hold across cultures. In view of the limited generalizability and applicability of extant cross-cultural studies to this context, this study generates cross-national insights into the antecedents of travelers’ intention to use online hotel reviews to better understand the use of consumer-generated reviews across cultures. Generally, the predictive power of the model derived from the Motivation Theory and TAM holds true for both the United States and Singapore. Nonetheless, tests for structural invariance reveals some noteworthy differences between the two countries. The results highlight the complex cognitive mechanisms determining the acceptance of online hotel reviews in each country as moderated by national culture orientations. Findings hold implications for practitioners and researchers as they navigate through social media in different cultural contexts.