scholarly journals Online travel review rating scales and effects on hotel scoring and competitiveness

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Martin-Fuentes ◽  
Juan Pedro Mellinas ◽  
Eduardo Parra-Lopez
Keyword(s):  
Rating Scales ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Initial Comparison ◽  
Biased Ratings ◽  
Hotel Managers ◽  
Online Travel ◽  
European Markets ◽  
Potential Customers ◽  
Typical User ◽  
Online Travel Agencies

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine whether different scales and ways to collect reviews and ratings found on online travel agencies (OTAs) can affect hotels, and whether hotels obtain the same or different evaluations. Design/methodology/approach Hotel ratings from five OTAs in four European markets were collected and compared in pairs. An initial comparison was made with the hotel scores of each OTA to show what a typical user would see. Then, a rescaled score (0-10) was used to compare all the OTA scales appropriately and to distinguish between what customers observe and what the reality is. Findings The results reveal that Booking.com that uses a scale (2.5-10) and Agoda with a scale (2-10) seem to give higher rating scores than Atrapalo (1-10), Travel Republic (0-10) and hotel reservation service (1-10). However, when the scores are rescaled (0-10), the worst ratings are found on Booking.com followed by Agoda. Practical implications OTAs should include, next to the scores, the scale used to rate hotels so as to provide users with better and clearer information. Moreover, rating questionnaires should match the verbal denominations with their numerical values to avoid biased ratings. Social implications OTAs and hotel managers are losing information provided by customers because customers are not aware of the scale when rating hotels. Moreover, hotel ratings are used by potential customers to obtain a clearer image of an establishment. However, if some hotels are being overrated by some scales, customers might have higher expectations, which may not be met. Originality/value The unique rating scales of Booking.com and Agoda provide additional insights into their hotel evaluations, which seem to be apparently higher when in fact they are not.

Managing service innovations at online travel agencies: evidence from China

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Mu ◽  
Bart Bossink ◽  
Tsvi Vinig ◽  
Suchuan You
Keyword(s):  
Success Factors ◽  
Innovation Management ◽  
Service Innovation ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Service Development ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Travel Agencies ◽  
Online Travel ◽  
Online Travel Agencies

Purpose Research on service innovation management of online travel agencies (OTAs) remains relatively scarce. This study aims to illuminate the detailed components of managing service innovations at OTAs. Design/methodology/approach An in-depth case study is conducted at Trip, the largest OTA in China. A coherent framework of managing service innovations at OTAs is proposed through refining an existing framework from new service development (NSD), and concerning the success factors of service innovation. Based on theoretical synthesis and empirical analysis, the NSD framework is adapted, restructured and refined for service innovation management at OTAs. Findings The proposed framework contains three facets and associated managerial elements: (1) resources, including stakeholders, technologies and systems; (2) contexts, including innovation strategy, structure and culture; and (3) ideation, including idea generation and idea application. Different success factors are attached to the managerial elements. The facets, managerial elements and success factors serve as the components in the framework. Research limitations/implications This study provides academia with an analytical framework to understand and interpret service innovation management at OTAs, which can be used as a point of departure for future research. Practical implications The analytical framework inspires OTA managers to adopt a structured approach in service innovation management, and policymakers to design related interventions. Originality/value This study offers a first step toward the investigation of service innovation management at OTAs, specifically in China. The proposed framework is potentially applicable to other industries.

scholarly journals Social media promotions and travelers’ value-creating behaviors: the role of perceived support

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 633-650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis V. Casaló ◽  
Jaime Romero
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Word Of Mouth ◽  
Perceived Support ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Travel Agencies ◽  
Online Travel ◽  
Online Travel Agencies ◽  
Monetary Promotions

Purpose Encouraging travelers to create value that benefits firms is of great relevance for companies that operate in online contexts. The purpose of this study is to investigate, focusing on online travel agencies, how monetary promotions (i.e. economic incentives) and non-monetary promotions (i.e. draws and contests) conducted through social media enhance customers’ voluntary behaviors (i.e. suggestions, word of mouth, and social media interactions) that go beyond brand choice, which may provide benefit to firms. Design/methodology/approach The research model draws on the social exchange theory, equity theory and the concept of perceived support – how customers perceive that companies care about their well-being. The authors collect information from 491 users of online travel agencies in Spain and test their hypotheses using partial least squares. They also evaluate the existence of indirect effects. Findings Promotions developed by companies make customers more likely to perform, voluntarily, the helping behaviors of suggestions, word of mouth and social media interactions, through the influence of perceived support. Research limitations/implications Use of a single survey to collect measures and restriction of the sample to Spanish-speaking travelers suggests caution in generalizing the results. Future research could investigate other company-initiated actions and other value-creating behaviors of travelers. Practical implications Promotions help develop perceived support for customers, which leads to voluntary, valuable traveler behaviors. Promotions may be also sufficient to trigger some customer behaviors, such as word-of-mouth. Originality/value Based on the social exchange and equity theories, this paper investigates the influence of social media promotions on customers’ voluntary behaviors via perceived support.

Reacting to negative online customer reviews

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 401-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rico Piehler ◽  
Michael Schade ◽  
Ines Hanisch ◽  
Christoph Burmann
Keyword(s):  
Hospitality Industry ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Purchase Intentions ◽  
Service Industries ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Customer Reviews ◽  
Online Customer Reviews ◽  
Reduction Methods ◽  
Hotel Managers ◽  
Potential Customers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of explanation and compensation, as specific accommodative management responses to negative online customer reviews, on potential customers. Design/methodology/approach The scenario-based online experiment with 306 participants investigates the effects of explanation and compensation on potential customers’ purchase intentions in the hotel segment of the hospitality industry. Findings The results reveal that combining an explanation with compensation is the most effective management response; providing neither an explanation nor compensation is the least effective. The effects of management responses that entail providing only an explanation or compensation do not differ significantly. Research limitations/implications Continued research should investigate the effects of specific accommodative management responses in other service industries and other cultural settings and consider different kinds of explanations and compensation. Practical implications Hotel managers in the hospitality industry should reply to negative online customer reviews by combining an explanation with compensation. Service providers that currently lack structures and procedures to identify service failures and their causes or that cannot take corrective actions should provide compensation. Service providers that currently have limited financial resources should provide explanations. Originality/value This study analyses the effects of explanation and compensation on potential customers’ purchase intentions. In addressing the effects on potential customers, instead of on complainants, the conceptual framework represents a novel combination of management responses from service recovery research with signalling theory, the search-experience-credence framework and risk reduction methods.

scholarly journals “Hotel – OTA” interaction and its influence on the optimization of urban hotels’ distribution channels

2021 ◽  
Vol 129 ◽  
pp. 06001
Author(s):  
Irina Atanasova ◽  
Ivaylo Ivanov
Keyword(s):  
Business Performance ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Regression Methods ◽  
Travel Agencies ◽  
Hotel Managers ◽  
Business Metrics ◽  
Performance Results ◽  
Online Travel ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Online Travel Agencies

Research background: The interaction between hotels and the online travel agencies (OTAs) influences the hotel sales, creating dependencies, which the hotel managers are reluctant to accept. The indicators that evaluate urban hotel sales in Bulgaria in the scope of partnership with OTA are examined. The influence of the modern digital tools to enhance business performance results is reviewed. Purpose of the article: Focusing on Bulgarian urban hotels, the research measures the impact of diverse factors for shaping an adequate business model of an urban hotel. The effect of the share of the hotel sales via OTA platforms, the number of OTAs used, the occupancy rate, the RevPAR and the Booking.com rating score is considered. Finding an appropriate model for digital behavior of urban hotel enterprises is one of the aims of the survey. Methods: A questionnaire distributed among urban hotels situated in industrial towns of Bulgaria is conducted. Linear regression and logistic regression methods are applied for the purpose of the study. Findings & Value added: The importance of channel manager technology for business metrics in this sector is concerned. Three generalized hotel operating models are extracted. It is concluded that there is a necessity for constant management and review of the hotel - OTA relations.

What Generation Y in Greece thinks about Green Hotels

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 268-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Karavasilis ◽  
Dafni-Maria Nerantzaki ◽  
Panagiotis Pantelidis ◽  
Dimitrios Paschaloudis ◽  
Vasiliki Vrana
Keyword(s):  
Generation Y ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Environmentally Conscious ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Green Hotel ◽  
Buying Behaviour ◽  
Hotel Managers ◽  
Potential Customers ◽  
Green Hotels ◽  
Hotel Customers

Purpose – Environmental awareness has significant impact on hotel selection. As hotel customers’ become more ecologically conscious tend to prefer hotels that have environmental policies in place. The purpose of this paper is to examine customers’ perceptions of what a green hotel should do or should be and exploring intentions to choose a green hotel. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical research study was conducted using an online survey. The questionnaire used investigates what a green hotel should do or should be environmental concerns, eco-friendly attitudes, eco-friendly activities, awareness, overall image, intention to pay more and intention to visit a green hotel. In total, 159 completed and usable questionnaires were received. Findings – Findings reveal that potential customers’ are highly environmentally conscious. However, they are not fully aware about green hotels and do not always intent to visit a green hotel, or are willing to pay more. Originality/value – Hotel customers’ perceptions towards intention to visit a green hotel are different among various ages and geographic locations. Thus, the study focuses on perceptions of Generation Y in Greece. Hotel managers should be aware of customers’ buying behaviour towards green practices and communicate more, green hotel practices.

Room with a view: how hedonic and utilitarian choice options of online travel agencies affect consumers’ booking intentions

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Scholl-Grissemann ◽  
Benedikt Schnurr
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Shopping Behavior ◽  
Factorial Experimental Design ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Travel Agencies ◽  
Booking Intentions ◽  
Online Travel ◽  
Online Travel Agencies

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate how hedonic and utilitarian choice options of online travel agencies (OTAs) affect consumers’ process enjoyment and booking intentions. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply a one-factorial experimental design. The stimuli consisted of screenshots of the fictitious OTA “www.my-holiday.com”. Participants were told to imagine they were planning a city trip to San Francisco and that, during an internet search, they came across a new OTA called “www.my-holiday.com”. Findings The authors find that both booking intentions and process enjoyment are higher for hedonic OTAs, i.e. OTAs which offer more hedonic choice options such as entertainment and spa. The authors conclude that these toolkits strongly relate to pleasurable experiences and positive emotions. Therefore, these options drive positive affective reactions in terms of process enjoyment, which subsequently affect booking intentions. Additionally, the authors find that preference insight positively affects consumers’ booking intention as the number of choices provided by the OTA increases. Originality/value This paper contributes to tourism research on online travel shopping behavior. The authors apply knowledge from research on online customization tools to an OTA context and show that hedonic and functional choice options of OTAs significantly reflect on consumer behavior.

scholarly journals Hotels that most rely on Booking.com – online travel agencies (OTAs) and hotel distribution channels

2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Martin-Fuentes ◽  
Juan Pedro Mellinas
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Data ◽  
Travel Agencies ◽  
Independent Hotels ◽  
A Chain ◽  
Simple Ratio ◽  
Online Travel ◽  
Online Travel Agencies

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to know which hotels mostly rely on Booking.com, investigating the level of presence on Booking.com around the world by country, hotel size, hotel category and managerial form. Neither the company nor the hotels provide this information, so the authors use the number of reviews as an indicator of estimated sales. Design/methodology/approach Data from 33,996 hotels worldwide are downloaded from Booking.com using a Web browser automatically controlled, developed in Python, that simulated a user navigation (clicks and selections). The comparison between independent hotels and hotels belonging to a chain is performed by a Student’s t distribution test and the comparison of hotel categories and hotel size is analyzed by a one-way ANOVA test. Findings The results show that three factors clearly influence the usage level of Booking.com: independent vs chain hotels, small vs large hotels and low vs high category hotels worldwide. The authors also observe that hotels from Europe are the ones that rely more on Booking.com. Originality/value The originality of this research is to identify the factors that make hotels to have a greater (lesser) dependence on Booking.com within each destination and geographical area. Moreover, the use of big data from hotels worldwide allows the authors to know the level of use of Booking.com in dozens of countries, especially those with the highest tourist activity. This work expands the capabilities of big data in the hospitality industry research, and with a simple ratio, this study counteracts the lack of public data on hotel sales through Booking.com. This new approach could be extended to the analysis of other online travel agencies (OTAs), which use similar review systems.

Does interest alignment between hotels and online travel agencies intensify review manipulations?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Chen ◽  
Tianwei Tang ◽  
Yongjian Li ◽  
Di Fan
Keyword(s):  
Search Engine ◽  
Travel Agency ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Travel Agencies ◽  
Interest Alignment ◽  
Customer Trust ◽  
Online Travel ◽  
Online Travel Agency ◽  
Online Travel Agencies

PurposeThis study examines whether a higher interest alignment between online travel agencies (OTAs; hosting platform) and hotels (business owners) will intensify review manipulation activities.Design/methodology/approachWith a panel data set collected from a Chinese online travel agency and a travel search engine, the authors develop a matching-based difference-indifference approach to examine the presence of partnership-intensified review manipulation.FindingsThe authors find that the ratings of agency's partner hotels (with a higher interest alignment) are abnormally higher than those of matched non-partner hotels (with a lower interest alignment), after they are benchmarked with their ratings on the search engine (without a partnership business model). Further, the analysis results indicate that this partnership-intensified manipulation deteriorates the hotel's sales performance because of damaged customer trust and satisfaction.Originality/valuePrevious studies implicitly assume that review manipulator is independent from the hosting platform. This is the first study examining the role of the hosting platform in review manipulations.

Curvilinear effects of e-loyalty in China’s online tourism industry

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xueyan Yang ◽  
Xiaoni Zhang ◽  
Samuel Goh ◽  
Chad Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Virtual World ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Consumer Loyalty ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Travel Industry ◽  
Online Travel

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand e-loyalty in the travel industry. Specifically, this paper aims to examine the curvilinear relationship between predictors and e-loyalty. Design/methodology/approach An empirical study was conducted using an online survey with one of the largest travel companies in China. Structural equation modeling was used to test the models, and pair-wise nested F-tests were used to compare the models. Findings Results show that the curvilinear model has greater explanatory power of loyalty than traditional linear models. The results of pair-wise nested F-tests show that the loyalty model exhibits statistically significant R2 improvement compared to the linear model. However, the R2 improvement in the integrated model is not statistically different from that in the linear model. Confirmation and satisfaction are found to be salient factors influencing loyalty. Research limitations/implications This study makes important contributions to the online community literature by understanding the drivers of loyalty in the travel industry. However, there are limitations. First, this study addressed member loyalty of an online travel community with data collected from one company. Thus, generalizability is limited. Online communities and firms may have different characteristics, resulting in different factors influencing consumer loyalty. The authors plan in the future to collect data from other online travel companies and examine their model with different samples so as to check the generalizability of the current findings. Second, the authors collected a snapshot view on loyalty. Both researchers and managers note that small changes in loyalty and retention can yield disproportionately large changes in profitability (Reichheld et al., 2000). Consumer loyalty may change over time, so to maintain and increase profits, it is important to monitor such change. In the future, the authors plan to conduct a longitudinal study of community members to evaluate their loyalty over time. Practical implications As China seeks to gain additional market share in the global tourism market, travel companies should make use of websites as a marketing tool to attract and retain customers. These actions enable a travel company to enhance its competitiveness. More and more people use the internet for tour deals, bookings and finding tour-related information. Effective use of websites can affect the competitiveness of ecommerce companies. E-vendors could assess and adopt the dimensions recommended in this paper to help better understand areas for improvement. It is common today for consumers to buy travel products online instead of going through a travel agent. Considering the importance of reciprocity in formulating consumer satisfaction and loyalty in the virtual environment, companies should monitor reciprocal behavior on the virtual community. With advancement in technologies, consumer behaviors have changed and more consumers prefer social interactions in the virtual world. Companies can analyze posts in the virtual environment to assess reciprocity and may design a mechanism to foster reciprocal behaviors. By leveraging reciprocity, firms can better connect satisfaction with loyalty. More than 70 per cent of executives surveyed by McKinsey (2012) said that they regularly generate value through their Web communities. In addition, to pay attention to consumer to consumer reciprocity in the virtual world, companies should listen to what customers say in their online community, as this attention is an indication of reciprocity between consumers and companies. The ideas and opinions expressed in the online community tell the company customers’ perception of the value of its products and customers’ needs. Such attention to the voices in the online community will help companies to better tailor products/services to meet customers’ needs. Furthermore, the voices expressed in the virtual community are also effective in developing and maintaining new internet marketing opportunities such as email marketing, giveaways, search engine optimization, pay per click and shopping comparison marketing. Companies interested in retaining and attracting customers should leverage their established virtual communities and pay close attention to online posts and evaluate members’ satisfaction. Such effort will provide tangible benefits. As shown in Ye et al.’s study, traveler reviews produce a significant impact on online sales (Ye et al., 2011), with a 10 per cent increase in traveler review ratings, boosting online bookings by more than 5 per cent. This finding suggests that businesses should link online user-generated reviews to business performance in tourism. Finding incentives for users to share might be one way to improve interactivity and further create stickiness on the part of the website. Originality/value This paper is one of the first studies to address the need to move beyond linear models of e-loyalty and to additionally examine potential curvilinear and interactive effects. This study also identifies key variables such as reciprocity and satisfaction as determinants of e-loyalty in the Chinese online travel and tourism industry.

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