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'The hotel were graet' : The effects of valence and language errors on the attitude towards the hotel, review credibility, booking intention and eWOM intention of consumers

Hilbrink, E.M. (2017) 'The hotel were graet' : The effects of valence and language errors on the attitude towards the hotel, review credibility, booking intention and eWOM intention of consumers.

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Abstract:Today when consumers are searching for a hotel, they often consult online reviews. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has become one of the most influencing marketing tools, where people can share their opinions anonymously. In the hospitality industry where experience products are provided, online reviews are particularly important, because the quality of the service is unknown before consumption. Online reviews play a critical role in the online sales of the hospitality and tourism industry. There are many studies done into online reviews in the hospitality industry, because they have a strong impact on the sales, awareness and booking intentions of consumers. In this study the review valence and language mistakes in online reviews are researched. Valence refers to the positive and negative orientation of information about a hotel. The mistakes in online reviews are compared to well written online reviews. In this research the influence of valence and the mistakes in online reviews are measured on the consumers’ attitude towards the hotel, review credibility, booking intention and eWOM intention. The research question is: To what extent do valence of online reviews and language mistakes in online reviews of hotels have an influence on the review credibility, attitude towards hotel, booking intention and eWOM intention of consumers? In this study a 3 x 2 experimental design was used, in total there were six versions, each version consisted of a list of ten different online reviews. Regarding the valence there were two versions established, namely one with only positive reviews (10;0) and one with a mix of positive and negative reviews (7;3). Regarding the language there were three versions established, namely well written reviews, reviews with grammar mistakes made by the writer and machine translated (MT) reviews with mistakes. A questionnaire was used to explore the effects of these variables. There were 206 respondents, the mean age was 35 years. The respondents are recruited through Facebook and through email. The respondents are Dutch and mainly from the Eastern part of The Netherlands. . An univariate analysis was performed to measure the main effects. The results regarding the valence indicated that positive reviews had a more positive influence on the attitude towards the hotel, review credibility, booking intention and eWOM intention, compared to the mix of positive and negative reviews. The results regarding the use of language indicated that well written reviews had a more positive influence on attitude towards the hotel, booking intention and eWOM intention, compared to the reviews with mistakes. There was an interaction effect between valence*language for the review credibility. The credibility was the best when the reviews were positive and MT. This study confirmed that only positive reviews have a more positive influence on the consumers compared to the mix of positive and negative reviews, which means that hotels should focus on satisfying their guests and stimulate them to spread positive online reviews. This study also confirmed that well written reviews have a more positive influence on the consumers, compared to online reviews with mistakes. Therefore mistakes in online reviews must be avoided. Because there is still not much known about mistakes in online reviews (made by either humans or machine translations), a recommendation for future research is to investigate in the mistakes in online reviews.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:05 communication studies
Programme:Communication Studies MSc (60713)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/71647
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