TripAdvisor and hotel consumer brand loyalty

Electronic Word-of-Mouth and Consumer Generated Media (CGM) have become important aspects of the hospitality and tourism marketing mix. This research looked at hotel reviews on the CGM review-site TripAdvisor to determine the influence loyalty to a hotel brand has upon postings. From the literature, one would expect brand loyalty to have a positive impact upon a poster's reviews. The findings, however, do not support this relationship. Brand loyalists were found to be neither more or less generous, nor volatile, than were other posters. Implications of these findings are discussed.