ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH AND ELOQUENCE: AN ANALYSIS OF REVIEWS IN HOSPITALITY SECTOR
Keywords:
Electronic word of mouth, hospitality, review, eloquence, social mediaAbstract
With the advent of internet and internet based media, electronic word of mouth has gained prominence in influencing consumer decision. An exploratory study using qualitative analysis has been conducted in the hospitality industry in order to understand the trends in the generation of electronic content in hotel reviews by customers. Two hundred positive and an equal number of negative reviews of a top brand hotel have been explored in the order of appearance in a popular accommodation website. The analysis indicated that customers are more eloquent in describing positive aspects, overall evaluations and positive overall evaluations than negative aspects, attribute based evaluations and negative overall evaluations. Negative evaluations are more based on specific attributes than overall evaluations. The adjectives and verbs used in describing a positive evaluation are found to be more compared to negative evaluation. The findings are at variance with some of the earlier studies. These findings are of practical relevance to hoteliers in focusing their marketing and operation efforts.
References
Anderson, C. K. (2012). The impact of social media on lodging performance. 2. Arndt, J. (1967). Role of product-related conversations in the diffusion of a new product. Journal of marketing Research, 4(3), 291-295.
Bilgihan, A., Okumus, F., & Cobanoglu, C. (2013). Generation Y travelers’ commitment to online social network websites. Tourism Management, 35, 13-22.
Carl, W. J. (2006). What’s all the buzz about? Everyday communication and the relational basis of word-of-mouth and buzz marketing practices. Management Communication Quarterly, 19(4), 601-634. 5. Cha, M., Mislove, A., Adams, B., & Gummadi, K. P. (2008, August). Characterizing social cascades in flickr. In Proceedings of the first workshop on Online social networks (pp. 13-18). 6. Chan, Y. Y., & Ngai, E. W. (2011). Conceptualising electronic word of mouth activity. Marketing Intelligence & Planning.
Dellarocas, C. (2003). The digitization of word of mouth: Promise and challenges of online feedback mechanisms. Management science, 49(10), 1407-1424.
Dobele, A., Toleman, D., & Beverland, M. (2005). Controlled infection! Spreading the brand message through viral marketing. Business Horizons, 48(2), 143-149.
Golan, G. J., & Zaidner, L. (2008). Creative strategies in viral advertising: An application of Taylor’s six-segment message strategy wheel. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(4), 959-972. 10. Goldsmith, R. E., & Horowitz, D. (2006). Measuring motivations for online opinion seeking. Journal of interactive advertising, 6(2), 2-14.
Grönroos, C. (2000). Service management and marketing: A customer relationship management approach.
Gruen, T. W., Osmonbekov, T., & Czaplewski, A. J. (2006). eWOM: The impact of customer-to customer online know-how exchange on customer value and loyalty. Journal of Business research, 59(4), 449-456.
Hennig-Thurau, T., Gwinner, K. P., Walsh, G., & Gremler, D. D. (2004). Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: what motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the internet?. Journal of interactive marketing, 18(1), 38-52.
Hoffman, D. L., Novak, T. P., & Chatterjee, P. (1995). Commercial scenarios for the Web: Opportunities and challenges. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 1(3), JCMC136. 15. King, R. A., Racherla, P., & Bush, V. D. (2014). What we know and don’t know about online word of-mouth: A review and synthesis of the literature. Journal of interactive marketing, 28(3), 167-183.
Kirkpatrick, D., Roth, D., & Ryan, O. (2005). Why there’s no escaping the blog. Fortune, 151(1), 44-50.
Litvin, S. W., Goldsmith, R. E., & Pan, B. (2008). Electronic word-of-mouth in hospitality and tourism management. Tourism management, 29(3), 458-468.
Manovich, L. (2009). The practice of everyday (media) life: From mass consumption to mass cultural production? Critical Inquiry, 35(2), 319-331.
Park, D. H., & Lee, J. (2008). eWOM overload and its effect on consumer behavioral intention depending on consumer involvement. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 7(4), 386-398. 20. Vermeulen, I. E., & Seegers, D. (2009). Tried and tested: The impact of online hotel reviews on consumer consideration. Tourism management, 30(1), 123-127.
