The halo effect: A longitudinal approach

Abstract

The halo effect is a cognitive bias whereby people form an opinion about a characteristic of an attribute of a product based on their predisposition (positive or negative) toward another attribute. No formal testing of this effect is available in the hospitality and tourism literature. Thus, this study fills this gap by analyzing a sample of 21,338 hotels. Results indicate that: i) the halo effect is supported (the “other” attributes explain nearly 50% of the focal attribute “location”); ii) asymmetric effects exist because negative variations have a stronger influence than positive variations (the halo effect actually becomes a crown of thorns); and iii) varying effects exist over the range of the dependent variable.