Determining the Impacts of Online Customer Reviews on International Students' Online Hostel Booking Intentions: A Preliminary Study

With the rapid growth in the number of international student enrollment, Taiwan is increasingly becoming one of the popular academic destinations in East Asia. While University on-campus accommodation is typically limited, most international students are required to find accommodation off-campus. Also, students prefer to live in youth hostels while traveling around the island. Students mostly use online platforms to find and book accommodation facilities like youth hostels, dormitories, and hence the online customer reviews (OCR) are critically important for students' decision-making. The main purpose of this preliminary research is to determine the impacts of positive and negative online customer reviews (OCR) on international students' online hostel booking intention. In addition, it explores the moderating effects of price consciousness and booking website or app reputation. Data collected from 109 international students in Taiwan were analyzed with the help of the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach to test the hypothesized relationships. Results indicate that negative OCR significantly impacts students' online hostel booking intention while positive OCR does not. Results further indicate that student price consciousness significantly moderates the relationship between negative OCR and students' online hostel booking intention. We believe the findings of this study are beneficial for businesses in the hospitality and tourism industry for creating an online review management strategy.