The Perceived Influence of User Reviews in the Hospitality Industry

Trust in user opinions at hotel review sites now outweighs advice on holidays from travel agents. Hospitality marketers would be wise to take note of this power of consumer advocacy revolution. Yet, many hotels and restaurants are unsure how to respond to user reviews, or what would be deemed "best managerial practices" in handling social media, including user reviews. This uncertainty could, partly, be due to the lack of understanding of how consumers perceive and use online reviews, and scholarly research on user reviews predominantly focused on goods, not services. Hence, we chose to explore in this study how consumers peruse reviews of products with major service components. Specifically, we focused on the influence of user reviews of hotel and restaurants on prospective customers as these two hospitality areas are well populated by consumer reviews at highly visited third-party websites. Managerial implications of the study's findings were discussed and suggestions for future research offered.