The impact of online user reviews on hotel room sales [Summary]

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Date
2009
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Virginia Tech
Abstract

Despite hospitality and tourism researchers’ recent attempts at examining different aspects of online word-of-mouth [WOM], its impact on hotel sales remains largely unknown in the existing literature. To fill this void, we conduct a study to empirically investigate the impact of online consumer-generated reviews on hotel room sales. Utilizing data collected from the largest travel website in China, we develop a fixed effect log-linear regression model to assess the influence of online reviews on the number of hotel room bookings. Our results indicate a significant relationship between online consumer reviews and business performance of hotels

Description
Keywords
Online reviews, Online sales, Hotel, Hotel sales
Citation