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This chapter presents a summary of the literature on the influence of the Internet and other digital innovations on markets, consumers, and firms. The review leads to a list of topics in need of research in the general areas of big data, online and mobile advertising, consumer search, online privacy, online reviews, social networks, platforms for online transactions, and the impact of the Internet on retail markets, including multi-channel and omni-channel retailing. We discuss the big data approaches that have been applied to problems of targeting and positioning and suggest areas for further development of these approaches. We also discuss the emerging area of mobile advertising, which can further enhance targeting. On the consumer side, the evidence indicates that the Internet has greatly lowered the costs of search and access to retailers. Much of the consumer data are transmitted to sellers, and much of the online advertising is transmitted to consumers, through platforms, such as Google. We conclude that better models of competition among these platform firms are needed and that they need to be examined for anti-trust violations. While online retailing has grown rapidly, it still has a relatively small share of retail sales. Since sellers can combine the advantages of online and offline channels, it has been common for sellers to branch into multi-channel retailing. Given the increased availability of detailed consumer data, omni-channel selling, which emphasizes strategies for the various touchpoints that lead to a transaction, is an area for further development.

The aim of the chapter is to examine the importance and use of reviews in the marketing communication of selected spa tourism enterprises on the Internet. The subject of the research are reviews as an important part of the online reputation of spa tourism enterprises and the object of the research is marketing communication on the Internet. The chapter focuses on spas located in Slovakia. The primary sources are the results of a quantitative survey conducted by standardized observation of the websites and profiles of all spa tourism enterprises in Slovakia under study on the social networks Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube based on predetermined criteria. At the same time, the results of the primary survey are conducted by the method of questioning using the technique of structured interviews. The chapter uses theoretical research methods such as analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, and generalization. The chapter presents the results of qualitative research using the Sankey diagram, processed by Atlas.ti software. The results of the research point to the fact that spa tourism enterprises in Slovakia use their own websites and social networks to communicate in the online environment, where they monitor both positive and negative reviews. However, they often do not work with reviews systematically enough and do not make use of standardized procedures and available technologies that would enable them to manage their online reputation more effectively.

Online reputation manager has become increasingly important in tourism industry. Managers, regardless of working for a hospitality structure or a tourism destination, are paying more and more attention in respect of the importance of reputational levels. Online reputation, in fact, originates in visitor's user-generated contents (UGCs) but reverberates on the whole web, on successive visitors' attitude and behavior, and on managed organization performances. How to manage online reputation in tourism and destination management anyway mostly stayed an anecdotal topic for many years. While best practices exist, indeed, literature has frequently neglected their systematization. Building on this need, this book will try to improve and organize the existing body of knowledge on this topic to help future hotel and destination managers to better deal with the mounting environmental complexity.

In this chapter, we introduce a new construct we call “Perceived Deception in Online Consumer Reviews” (PDOCR). Online reviews of products are very important to companies and customers, yet they are vulnerable to unethical representations. Even regardless of whether a deceptive review has been posted or not, we take the position that it is important to understand consumers’ perceptions of deception because it is a consumer’s perception that leads him or her to experience subsequent feelings and opinions and to consider follow-up actions. We draw on the literature and build on the Elaboration Likelihood Model and Cognitive Dissonance Theory to create an overarching framework of antecedents of PDOCR, consequences, and moderators. We also report findings from a sample of in-depth interviews with real consumers about their thoughts on these phenomena and related constructs. We use our framework and theories and the qualitative data to derive Research Questions that we hope will spur future research on these important issues.

The aim of this chapter is twofold: (i) to perform a synthesis of the academic research regarding the changes of tourist consumer behavior brought about by social media; and (ii) to suggest a set of strategies for tourism businesses to address resulting challenges.

Extensive literature reviews have been executed on the motivating factors and the effects of online reviews.

This analysis of the related research identified three main topics, namely: (1) the antecedents, the factors motivating tourists to write online reviews; (2) the impact of eWOM on providers of tourism services (business perspective); and (3) the influence of online reviews on consumers’ behavior (demand perspective). This chapter focuses on the impact of online reviews on tourism businesses and suggests suitable strategies.

This study is based on a literature review and implications indicated by previous studies; hence the suggestions are indicative rather than conclusive. A need exists for empirical studies to fully validate the chapter’s suggestions.

This chapter outlines a series of adequate strategies formulated for business practitioners divided into two fields, namely managerial and marketing activities.

This study provides practical recommendations/suggestions for tourism businesses in addressing the challenges and opportunities raised within the online context.

The chapter proposes to investigate online reputation of hospitality brands and its measurements. Brand reputation is generally defined as an overall appraisal of a company by its stakeholders, which is the result of the company's past actions and predictions about the company's future (Ferguson, Deephouse, & Ferguson, 2000). Being viewed as the opinion shared among a group of stakeholders (Dowling, 2008), it plays an important role in the tourism industry. With the progress of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), reviews and user-generated contents of destinations and of hospitality companies together with the related emerging brand reputation can influence consumers' behaviors and choices. Brand reputation analysis could be more useful in the hospitality brand management when integrated with brand image and brand identity analysis, mainly because in tourism businesses and destinations, brands are typically affected by an inherent fragility determined by the service nature of products (Casarin, 1996). According to Biel (1991), the meanings that consumers assign to a brand are synthesized into brand associations formed by the components perceived to underlie the brand's image. As well as brand reputation, strong, positive and unique associations reinforce a brand and increase its equity that requires significant internal brand identity efforts, which should create a corresponding brand image through integration in overall marketing programmes (Keller, 2003). It makes sense to develop an analytical research approach that compares online brand reputation (OBR) with brand association matching as a measure of the alignment between brand identity and brand image in hospitality companies. This comparative analysis emerging from brand reputation, brand image and brand identity analysis can reveal divergent situations (i.e., high brand reputation and low brand association matching) and orient brand managers in reviewing online brand communication. Brand reputation and brand image analysis will be contextualized in an online community as a social setting that is considered to be a new type of market (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001). We focus on hospitality online communities populated by consumers and other actors such as influencers and bloggers: their brand perception could be separately compared with brand identity that we will extract from company communications including presentational information and brand-related press releases found on websites, nonfinancial narrative from annual reports, and interviews with managers published in mainstream media sources. In our analysis we will focalize on a cluster of luxury hospitality companies integrating a netnographic and text-mining techniques. We will use both the techniques in order to (1) extract and study brand associations in terms of brand reputation, brand image, and brand identity; (2) develop indicators of brand reputation and brand association matching; and (3) discuss their utility in the management of the hospitality company brands.

In this paper, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of customer feedback literature, highlighting the burgeoning role of artificial intelligence (AI). Customer feedback has long been a valuable source of customer insights for businesses and market researchers. While previously survey focused, customer feedback in the digital age has evolved to be rich, interactive, multimodal, and virtually real time. Such explosion in feedback content has also been accompanied by a rapid development of AI and machine learning technologies that enable firms to understand and take advantage of these high-velocity data sources. Yet, some of the challenges with traditional surveys remain, such as self-selection concerns of who chooses to participate and what attributes they give feedback on. In addition, these new feedback channels face other unique challenges like review manipulation and herding effects due to their public and democratic nature. Thus, while the AI toolkit has revolutionized the area of customer feedback, extracting meaningful insights requires complementing it with the appropriate social science toolkit. We begin by touching upon conventional customer feedback research and chart its evolution through the years as the nature of available data and analysis tools develop. We conclude by providing recommendations for future questions that remain to be explored in this field.

We review the implications of the mobile technology for different stages of the consumer path to purchase including awareness, search, evaluation, store visit, and product choice. Real-time and location-specific access to information and products are identified as distinguishing characteristics of mobile devices. While the literature on digital marketing is well developed, knowledge of the effects on the consumer path to purchase in the presence of dynamic and location-specific information is still scarce. Path to purchase models need to recognize the central and powerful role of user-generated content. Better management of marketing resources would require models that connect investments in mobile marketing to sales, and also model the synergies among different digital and offline media. We conclude with a framework that connects mobile media impressions to product choice, in the presence of other marketing media, and consumer and firm feedback loops.

The objective of the research is to explore the importance of online reputation management through some core concepts: technologies and entrepreneurship. Specifically, the research will explore how in a tourism ecosystem context, it is strategically relevant through the use of Big Data Analytics (BDA) to manage and improve online reputation management. An emphasis will also be placed on the concept of entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities. Finally, the research also explores empowerment issue to shed some considerations on the development of tourists' online reviews.