Impact of Online Reviews on Consumer Hotel Booking Decisions

This essay investigates the influence of online reviews and recommendations on consumer behavior, focusing on hotel bookings within the tourism industry. It examines how consumers utilize the internet and peer reviews to make informed decisions, often trusting these sources more than traditional...Read More

Running Head: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR 0
Consumer Behavior
Online Reviews
Student Name:
Student University:

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR 1
Influence of online reviews or recommendation on the consumers
Hotel booking in today’s time is done through different methods and online booking has
become the most convenient method to book the hotels. In the time of technology based
businesses such online facility of hotel booking has not only supported the companies but has
also helped the companies and individuals to make the process faster and efficient. Hotel
booking is done at the time of holidays or reservations planned by tourists (Sparks &
Browning 2011). The tourists use internet as their medium to attain information while making
a purchase decision. In today’s time, tourists trust more on peer reviews while selecting
products and services and not on information provided by the online and offline promotions
of businesses. Travellers trust more on peer reviewers as according to them they are more
honest and neutral in businesses comparing information as shared (Phillips et al. 2017). In
this essay, the aim is to analyse the impact of online reviews at the time of hotel booking for
the purpose of tourism by consumers and their effect on buying decisions. It is essential to
discuss the reason of trusting on online reviews and recommendations.
The increase in the use of technologies like applications on mobile phones, networks
increases the base of consumers to lead in the market through word-of-mouth
communications. Nowadays, internet mediums are used for providing opinions about tourism
places, hotels and services (Ladhari & Michaud 2015). This allows the companies to attract
new people. This acts as a feedback for the company which allows the hotels to make
changes in their current business operations especially the products and services they are
offering.
In the time when there is false marketing done by the companies, the reviews or
recommendations given on the website or other website seems to be false. There are only few
of them where there is no bias or structured form for consumers is used to post their
experiences and views online (Casalo et al. 2015). However the consumers that posts online
provides important information about the hotels which hotel does not disclose openly. It helps
the other customers at the time of booking to evaluate the quality of services, the online
reviews attracts the tourists to come to their hotels. There are many online websites for
excessing online reviews are Trivago, Booking.com, Tripadvisor and Agoda which generate
the problems due to overload of information troubling the hotel providers for letting them use
online reviews. It can have the negative or positive impact on the perception about the hotel
which accordingly attract or move away a potential consumer from a hotel (Chan et al. 2017).

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR 2
It is important to examine the unexpected relationship between the aspects of the online
consumer reviews and intention of online hotel booking.
Consumers have the habit of looking more towards the negative information rather than
positive which is framed by numerical ratings to increase consumer trust and booking
intentions (Rose & Blodgett 2016). The challenge of technology improvement continues to
grow with the consumers use and access of the web. With the advancement of technology,
the sources available for consumers prospectus starts to grow (Ye et al. 2011). Tourists
product reviews is the part of the information collection process at the time of selection.
Therefore, it is vital to understand multiple elements of searching information online and
consumer behaviour influenced by review especially the probability of hotel booking. It is up
to the likely consumers willing to trust hotel at the time of booking. The trust in the company
can positively affect the purchase decisions (Ert & Fleischer 2016). There are people from
different parts of the world coming to any country or region for travelling purpose and they
book hotels through online mediums. Due to this it is seen that people need a review about
the hotels. In spite of the fact that they know that there are many websites that are paid and
there are many sources trough which hotels generate bogus contents about the hotels and its
quality of services, people check the online reviews (Gavilan, Avello & Martinez-Navarro
2018). More psychological impact is placed by the ratings. People do not have time to read
the whole review or recommendation section hence they generally look at one or two
comments and based on this they decide whether they have to book their place in the hotel or
not. Since there are so many options available on the online mediums hence people also do
not spend a lot of their time on these recommendations.
It is also to be understood that buying decision of the consumers also depends on the
perception of the individual which may vary (Öğüt & Onur Taş 2012). This also varies with
the fact that what is the requirement of the individual and what is the purchasing power of the
individual. If the purchasing power of the people is not so high then they will concentrate less
about the review as their major focus will be towards the getting the services at lower cost.
However the perception of the people changes by reading the reviews and has influence on
their attitude and buying decision (Tsao et al. 2015). For example person that has made his
mood to make purchase by seeing the advertisement and has developed a positive attitude
about the hotel might get changed if the people read the reviews about the hotel. Their
attitude also starts to get changed about booking that particular hotel in terms of the fact that
they start negotiating with the hotel about their services (Park, Ha & Park 2017). This makes

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR 3
more difficult for the hotels to attract people towards their services. It is also seen that before
making the booking people ensure that the problems that were mentioned by the previous
customers is not faced by them. It is seen that people generally checks few reviews and they
find that same problem is mentioned in the most of the reviews given by the previous
customers of their hotels then it surely chances the attitude of the people towards purchasing
decisions. This also goes true in terms of the fact that if the customers are looking for any
special kind of service and they find it in the recommendation or reviews then they
immediately starts making booking (Zhao et al. 2015).
It is also a question that has whether too much trust in the reviews and recommendation is
given. In answering the question, it is critical to understand that what customer is looking for
and what his understanding about the digital marketing. Yes the ones that have lesser
understanding about the digital marketing will be able to trust on the reviews and
recommendation made regarding the hotel (Xie, Zhang & Zhang 2014). Too much trust is
also put in terms of the fact that people start thinking that if the negative comment is
mentioned about the hotel then it will be true and switch to other hotel. Recommendation
made by the third party in the form of marketing is also selected by the company as they feel
that it will according to the demand they have.
In conclusion it can be said that online reviews have severe impact on the way people think
about any hotel irrespective of analysing that whether the review or recommendation is bogus
or it is truth. People book hotels at the international levels as well hence they have all these
recommendations or review that can guide them to make decisions about the purchase (Kim,
Mattila & Baloglu 2011).

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR 4
Bibliography
Casalo, LV, Flavian, C, Guinaliu, M & Ekinci, Y 2015, 'Do online hotel rating schemes
influence booking behaviors?', International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol 49, pp.
28-36.
Chan, ICC, Lam, LW, Chow, CW, Fong, LHN & Law, R 2017, 'The effect of online reviews
on hotel booking intention: The role of reader-reviewer similarity', International Journal of
Hospitality Management, vol 66, pp. 54-65.
Ert, E & Fleischer, A 2016, 'Mere position effect in booking hotels online', Journal of Travel
Research, vol 55, no. 3, pp. 311-321.
Gavilan, D, Avello, M & Martinez-Navarro, G 2018, 'The influence of online ratings and
reviews on hotel booking consideration', Tourism Management, vol 66, pp. 53-61.
Kim, EEK, Mattila, AS & Baloglu, S 2011, 'Effects of gender and expertise on consumers’
motivation to read online hotel reviews', Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, vol 52, no. 4, pp.
399-406.
Ladhari, R & Michaud, M 2015, 'eWOM effects on hotel booking intentions, attitudes, trust,
and website perceptions', International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol 46, pp. 36-
45.
Öğüt, H & Onur Taş, BK 2012, 'The influence of internet customer reviews on the online
sales and prices in hotel industry', The Service Industries Journal, vol 32, no. 2, pp. 197-214.
Park, K, Ha, J & Park, J-Y 2017, 'An experimental investigation on the determinants of
online hotel booking intention', Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, vol 26, no.
6, pp. 627-643.
Phillips, P, Barnes, S, Zigan, K & Schegg, R 2017, 'Understanding the impact of online
reviews on hotel performance: an empirical analysis', Journal of Travel Research, vol 56, no.
2, pp. 235-249.
Rose, M & Blodgett, JG 2016, 'Should hotels respond to negative online reviews?', Cornell
Hospitality Quarterly, vol 57, no. 4, pp. 396-410.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR 5
Sparks, BA & Browning, V 2011, 'The impact of online reviews on hotel booking intentions
and perception of trust', Tourism management, vol 32, no. 6, pp. 1310-1323.
Tsao, W-C, Hsieh, M-T, Shih, L-W & Lin, TM 2015, 'Compliance with eWOM: The
influence of hotel reviews on booking intention from the perspective of consumer
conformity', International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol 46, pp. 99-111.
Xie, KL, Zhang, Z & Zhang, Z 2014, 'The business value of online consumer reviews and
management response to hotel performance', International Journal of Hospitality
Management, vol 43, pp. 1-12.
Ye, Q, Law, R, Gu, B & Chen, W 2011, 'The influence of user-generated content on traveler
behavior: An empirical investigation on the effects of e-word-of-mouth to hotel online
bookings', Computers in Human behavior, vol 27, no. 2, pp. 634-639.
Zhao, X, Wang, L, Guo, X & Law, R 2015, 'The influence of online reviews to online hotel
booking intentions', International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol 27,
no. 6, pp. 1343-1364.