Purpose
Online consumer reviews have become increasingly important for consumer decision-making. One of the most prominent examples is the hotel industry where consumer reviews on websites, such as ...Bookings.com, TripAdvisor and Venere.com, play a critical role in consumers’ choice of a hotel. There have been a number of recent studies analyzing various aspects of online reviews. The purpose of this paper is to investigate their effects in terms of hotel occupancy rates.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper measures through regression analysis the impact of three dimensions of consumer reviews (i.e. review score, review variance and review volume) on the occupancy rates of 346 hotels located in Rome, isolating a number of other factors that might also affect demand.
Findings
Review score is the dimension with the highest impact. The results suggest that after controlling for other variables, a one-point increase in the review score is associated to an increase in the occupancy rate by 7.5 percentage points. Regardless the review score, the number of reviews has a positive effect, but with decreasing returns, implying that the higher the number of reviews, the lower the beneficial effect in terms of occupancy rates is.
Practical implications
The findings quantify the strong association of online reviews to occupancy rates suggesting the use of appropriate reputational management systems to increase hotel occupancy and therefore performance.
Originality/value
A major contribution of this paper is its comprehensiveness in analyzing the relation between online consumer reviews and occupancy across a heterogeneous sample of hotels.
The objective of the paper is to study the impact that hotel guests reviews posted on consumer-generated websites have on the consumer decision-making process and service expectations.
An ...experimental study has been conducted to test the hypotheses and the research question. 349 young adults were involved in an online survey that asked to imagine searching for a hotel and reading other customers’ reviews of a hypothetical chosen hotel. Three scenarios were created by studying a few comments posted by customers on the main websites used by tourists.
Results show a positive correlation between both hotel purchasing intention and expectations of the customers and valence of the review. On the contrary, the presence of hotel managers’ responses to guests’ reviews has a negative impact on purchasing intentions.
The study enriches the stream of research on word-of-mouth in the hospitality industry and analyses a new operational problem for lodging managers. Hotels should reply to online customer reviews or not?
•Personal reputation is of paramount importance in Airbnb, explaining alone almost 40% of popularity variation.•The presence of storytelling narratives in profiles increases by 8% the popularity of ...the listings.•The ability of sellers to use storytelling in their profiles can significantly boost the popularity of their offer.•Product descriptions play a relevant part in consumer decision-making processes, helping to foster popularity.•The cluster results confirm that personal reputation is strongly associated with popularity.
Drawing on the services marketing and sharing economy literature, the study identifies the leading reputational attributes that boost popularity in sharing economy platforms. As popularity stands as a purchase decision-making tool, the purpose of this paper is to jointly examine the influence of personal reputation and product description. A sample of Airbnb listings was collected in November 2016 in Italy and UK (n = 502). The database consists of popularity variables along with personal reputational attributes and the description of the product being offered. The findings of the study, based on the Shapley Value Regression, suggest that personal reputation is of paramount importance, explaining alone almost 40% of popularity variation. The paper concludes with theoretical implications on self-branding and, given the importance weights of the different attributes in popularity building, practical implications for sellers operating in sharing economy platforms.
Over the last few decades we have witnessed an increasing interest of scholars and especially operators in service quality in the lodging business. Firstly, it is important to observe that the ...diverseness of the hospitality industry also affects the classification of hotel quality. We can actually find many programmes, classifications and seals of quality promoted by public authorities and private companies that create confusion in the consumer perceptions of hotel quality. Moreover,new electronic distribution channels and their ratings are becoming a new way to gather information about a hotel and its quality. Secondly, a point that can cause complications is that different countries and regions can choose differing approaches depending on the features of the classification (number of levels, symbols used, etc.) and the nature of the programme (public, private). Considering these assumptions and the recent changes in the Italian hotel classification system, this paper aims to analyse the situation in Italy, underlining both its positive and negative aspects and comparing it with other European and North American cases. Based on a review of literature and tourism laws as well as personal interviews with public authorities and exponents of the private sectors, we were able to identify critical issues and trends in hotel classification systems. The comparison of case studies shows a heterogeneous situation. Points in common are the scale and the symbol used but, if we analyse the requirements of each category, we discover very different circumstances, also sometimes in the same country. A future European classification system could be possible only after a standardization of minimum requirements and criteria at a national level. In this situation brands and online consumers’ feedbacks become even more considered by the customers in the hospitality industry.
Over the last few decades we have witnessed an increasing interest of scholars and especially operators in service quality in the lodging business. Firstly, it is important to observe that the ...diverseness of the hospitality industry also affects the classification of hotel quality. We can actually find many programmes, classifications and seals of quality promoted by public authorities and private companies that create confusion in the consumer perceptions of hotel quality. Moreover, new electronic distribution channels and their ratings are becoming a new way to gather information about a hotel and its quality. Secondly, a point that can cause complications is that different countries and regions can choose differing approaches depending on the features of the classification (number of levels, symbols used, etc.) and the nature of the programme (public, private). Considering these assumptions and the recent changes in the Italian hotel classification system, this paper aims to analyse the situation in Italy, underlining both its positive and negative aspects and comparing it with other European and North American cases. Based on a review of literature and tourism laws as well as personal interviews with public authorities and exponents of the private sectors, we were able to identify critical issues and trends in hotel classification systems. The comparison of case studies shows a heterogeneous situation. Points in common are the scale and the symbol used but, if we analyse the requirements of each category, we discover very different circumstances, also sometimes in the same country. A future European classification system could be possible only after a standardization of minimum requirements and criteria at a national level. In this situation brands and online consumers’ feedbacks become even more considered by the customers in the hospitality industry.
Introdução: O sal rosa do Himalaia tem se destacado no mercado brasileiro por sua coloração atrativa, além dos apelos ao consumidor que o destacam como um produto “mais natural” e com grande ...diversidade de minerais por ser um sal de rocha. O teor de iodo no sal rosa consumido no país ainda é pouco discutido, mas vital para manter sob controle os distúrbios por deficiência de iodo (DDI). Objetivo: Avaliar amostras de sal rosa do Himalaia quanto aos teores de iodo, à presença de corantes e à rotulagem. Método: Foram analisadas 71 amostras em 13 cidades do estado de São Paulo para determinação de iodo adicionado na forma de iodato, prova qualitativa para corantes artificiais e avaliação da rotulagem com base na legislação brasileira. Resultados: Um elevado índice de insatisfatoriedade dos teores de iodo foi encontrado (56%) e um percentual ainda maior nos sais comercializados a granel (74%). Verificou-se que, dentre as amostras insatisfatórias, o maior percentual de inadequação (28%) foi a ausência de iodo, colocando a população consumidora deste produto em risco para as DDI. A irregularidade de rotulagem mais encontrada foi a ausência da declaração da adição de iodo (46%), com contradições entre a declaração no rótulo e a efetiva presença avaliada analiticamente. Foram verificadas expressões de qualidade não previstas (27%) ou superlativas (14%), assim como alegações não comprovadas por estudos científicos, como a redução de 60% de sódio e a presença de 84 minerais. Nenhuma amostra apresentou adição de corante. Conclusões: O sal rosa do Himalaia analisado apresentou irregularidades importantes para a saúde da população, em especial quanto ao teor de iodo, mas também não conformidades de rotulagem que comprometem o acesso à informação correta sobre o produto.