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Hospitality businesses have been challenged to pick fitting electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) management strategies, yet accurate return on investment assessments and contextual contingencies interpretation essential for leveraging eWOM power are largely absent. This study aims to fill these gaps and develop a tool aiming at more holistic and accurate eWOM management assessment.

An agent-based model is developed based on eWOM-related hospitality/business theories and empirical evidence on the NetLogo 6.0.2 platform, wherein a series of simulated experiments are conducted.

Simulation patterns suggest that conformity to the majority’s choice of eWOM usage can be beneficial for consumption satisfaction, yet conformity to a group’s eWOM posting choice can compromise satisfaction. Compared to the brief reputation-boosting benefit of exaggerated advertising, honesty in advertising is preferable given its compatibility with competing eWOM distribution and long-term reputation benefits.

A preliminary tool is developed for hospitality businesses that aids the clearer interpretation of and more accurate/cost-efficient assessment of effectiveness in managing eWOM distribution. Generic directions for improved eWOM management are also provided.

A prototype model is established that surpasses existing models in its ability to capture the complexity of eWOM management and more accurately assess management effectiveness. The authors also reveal emerging novel patterns concerning the interactive dynamics of eWOM behaviors and contextual influences. The research also adds to the scarce agent-based model applications in hospitality research/practices and recommends future potential applications.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between customer’s electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) regarding their direct service experiences with firms and these firms’ company value. The authors drew on the marketing-finance interface research approach to demonstrate how interactive social media adopted by individual customer relate to important firms’ financial performances.

The authors used seven American airline companies’ customers’ tweets collected during a 52-week observation period and paired with their corresponding financial data using stock returns and volatilities. Sentiment analysis algorithm and a vector autoregressive (VAR) model quantified the strong association between customer’s eWOM and these firms’ stock returns and volatilities.

The results show that customer’s eWOM regarding a firm positively associate with the firm’s stock return but negatively associate with its stock volatility; as negative valence of customer’s eWOM increases, the positive effect of eWOM on firm’s stock return decreases; the negative eWOM impacts on the stock market more profoundly compared with when both positive and negative sensitivities are considered; and eWOM’s wear-out effect is much shorter than that of traditional WOM.

The authors address a literature gap where little is known for how customer’s eWOM, that is evaluating firm services, can ultimately impact on firms’ long-term financial performances. The authors discuss how findings from this study offer implications for marketing management as well as strategic insights for practitioners and investment analysts alike.

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) natural language processing may see the emergence of algorithmic word of mouth (aWOM), content created and shared by automated tools. As AI tools improve, aWOM will increase in volume and sophistication, displacing eWOM as an influence on customer decision-making. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the socio technological trends that have encouraged the evolution of informal infulence strategies from WOM to aWOM.

This paper examines the origins and path of development of influential customer communications from word of mouth (WOM) to electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and the emerging trend of aWOM. The growth of aWOM is theorized as a result of new developments in AI natural language processing tools along with autonomous distribution systems in the form of software robots and virtual assistants.

aWOM may become a dominant source of information for tourists, as it can support multimodal delivery of useful contextual information. Individuals, organizations and social media platforms will have to ensure that aWOM is developed and deployed responsibly and ethically.

aWOM may emerge as the dominant source of information for tourist decision-making, displacing WOM or eWOM. aWOM may also impact online opinion leaders, as they may be challenged by algorithmically generated content. aWOM tools may also generate content using sensors on personal devices, creating privacy and information security concerns if users did not give permission for such activities.

This paper is the first to theorize the emergence of aWOM as autonomous AI communication within the framework of unpaid influence or WOM. As customer engagement will increasingly occur in algorithmic environments that comprise person–machine interactions, aWOM will influence future tourism research and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects that reference prices and associated information sources (websites that consumers use to explore and their friends who have similar perspectives on value) have on deal evaluation and intention to disseminate electronic word of mouth (eWOM).

A stratified survey is conducted to empirically test the relations between reference prices, associated information sources (the top five Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) websites and top five Facebook friends with similar perspectives and values on consumption), deal evaluation, and eWOM intention. The study uses a Facebook API to help participants pick five Facebook friends to act as their favorite sources for advice on shopping.

The results suggest that consumers’ deal evaluations (as shaped by the recency effects of previous exposure to prices and the influence of Facebook friends and C2C websites) have carry-over effects on their eWOM intentions. The influence of Facebook friends and C2C websites on deal evaluation is as powerful as that of reference price, especially concerning the mean and the lowest prices.

The findings encourage marketers to invest their resources in targeting online groups, and suggest that C2C website marketers should set their offer prices between the mean and the lowest prices.

This study extends prior research on the motives for eWOM dissemination and elaborates an approach to initiate eWOM intention through deal evaluation.

Despite its volume, the academic research on the impact of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on tourism and hospitality consumer behaviour is fragmented and largely limited to investigating a small scope of its impact. The purpose of this paper is to bridge this gap by synthesising the existing literature, providing a conceptual framework for the various dimensions of this impact.

This paper is based on the meta-synthesis and a critical conceptual analysis of relevant academic literature identified using a keyword search of papers via the Web of Science and Scopus databases, followed by a snowballing process comprising tracking the citations to the resources referred to in the identified papers.

This conceptual analysis illustrates how the full spectrum of the impact of eWOM on tourist behaviour spans well beyond the limited scope traditionally focussed on by tourism and hospitality researchers. This scope, encompassing multiple cognitive, normative and affective dimensions, is illustrated in an evidence-based conceptual framework proposed in this paper, providing a systematic tool to identify the less-studied aspects of this important phenomenon.

This paper synthesises the large and fragmented body of literature on eWOM and proposes a novel conceptual framework, illustrating the vast scope of the various cognitive, affective and normative mechanisms through which eWOM affects consumers’ choice of tourism and hospitality products. Furthermore, this paper provides a synthesis of the state-of-the-art of research in this field, highlights the existing gaps and provides researchers with a systematic tool to identify pathways towards breaking the status-quo in progressing beyond the current boundaries of academic research in this field.

游客感知对清真旅游目的地的影响：结构模型分析

尽管有大量研究, 但有关网络口碑eWOM对旅游业和酒店业消费者行为的影响的学术研究仍是零散的, 并且在很大程度上只限于调查其影响的一小部分。本文的目的是通过综合现有文献来弥合这种差距, 为这种影响的各个方面提供概念框架。

本文基于元合成法和对相关学术文献的关键性, 概念性分析。这些文献是通过Web of Science和Scopus数据库对文章进行关键字搜索而确定的。随后是滚雪球式搜索过程, 该过程包括跟踪对已识别文章中引用的资源的引用。

这项概念分析阐述了eWOM对游客行为的影响范围如何远远超出了旅游和酒店业研究人员传统上关注的有限范围。这一范围是基于有理论依据的的概念框架提出的, 并涵盖多个认知, 规范和情感的维度。此范围为识别这一重要且缺乏研究的现象提供了系统的工具。

本文综合了有关eWOM的大量零散文献, 并提出了一个新颖的概念框架, 阐明了eWOM影响消费者选择旅游和酒店产品的各种认知, 情感和规范机制的范围。此外, 本文提供了该领域最新的研究综述, 突出了现有的差距, 并为研究人员提供了系统的识别打破现状的途径, 以超越当前学术界在这个领域的研究局限。

关键字 电子口碑, eWOM, WOM, 酒店, 旅游, 口碑

研究论文

El Boca a Boca Electrónico en el Comportamiento del Consumidor Turístico y Hotelero: Estado del Arte

A pesar del gran volumen de investigación académica sobre el impacto de eWOM en el comportamiento del consumidor turístico y hotelero, esta se encuentra fragmentada y en gran medida se limita a investigar un pequeño alcance de su impacto. El propósito de este artículo, es cerrar esta brecha sintetizando la literatura existente y proporcionando un marco conceptual para las diversas dimensiones de este impacto.

Este documento se basa en un análisis metasíntesis crítico y conceptual de la literatura relevante académica identificada, mediante una búsqueda de artículos por palabras claves a través de las bases de datos de Web of Science y Scopus, seguido de un proceso de “bola de nieve” que comprende el seguimiento de las citas de los recursos mencionados en los artículos identificados.

Este análisis conceptual, ilustra cómo el espectro total del impacto de eWOM en el comportamiento turístico se extiende mucho más allá del limitado alcance que tradicionalmente han realizado investigadores del turismo y hoteles. Este nuevo alcance, que abarca múltiples dimensiones cognitivas, normativas y afectivas, se ilustra en un marco conceptual basado en la evidencia propuesta en este documento, que proporciona una herramienta sistemática para identificar los aspectos menos estudiados de este importante fenómeno.

Este documento sintetiza la gran cantidad de literatura fragmentada sobre eWOM y propone un marco conceptual novedoso, que ilustra el amplio alcance de los diversos mecanismos cognitivos, afectivos y normativos a través de los cuales eWOM afecta la elección de los consumidores de productos turísticos y hoteleros. Además, este documento proporciona una síntesis del estado de la investigación en este campo, destaca las brechas existentes y brinda a los investigadores una herramienta sistemática para identificar vías para romper el statu quo en el progreso más allá de los límites académicos actuales en este campo.

Boca a boca electrónica, eWOM, WOM, Industria hoteleram, Turismo, Boca a boca

– Trabajo de investigación

In light of the growth of internet usage and its important role in the field of e‐commerce, electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM) has been changing people's behavior and decisions. People count on other users' opinions and information; they sometimes even make offline decisions based on information acquired online. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise eWOM activity from an input‐process‐output (IPO) perspective; propose a classification framework based on the identified academic literature; analyze eWOM literature in terms of quantitative development and qualitative issues that are useful to both academics and researchers; and provide directions and guidelines for future research studies in eWOM.

The authors performed a systematic literature review of peer‐reviewed published journal articles and examined the current state of knowledge on eWOM literature based on a comprehensive search of several leading databases. In total, 94 articles were identified that comprised contributions from different strands of eWOM research. The scope of this investigation was limited to the timeframe of 2000‐2009.

The present study finds that research in eWOM is relatively new and has evolved only during the last ten years. This ten‐year study is deemed to be representative of the available eWOM literature. It is also shown that many scholars have incorporated established theories to explain eWOM communication phenomena. The current study not only fills the current gap in eWOM research but also provides a roadmap in analyzing eWOM communications.

This study serves as a consolidated database that may be used to guide future research. It provides a structured approach to analyzing the literature and identifying trends and gaps in order to map out an appropriate agenda for eWOM research. The proposed integrated classification framework can serve as a roadmap for academic research.

This paper systematically reviews the current state of eWOM research. To contribute to the development of a more comprehensive database for eWOM research, a classification framework of the eWOM literature is presented, building on the IPO model, by summarizing and organizing prior research into three areas covering antecedents, processes, and consequences of eWOM. The authors further summarize the theories and models that previous scholars have applied to their studies.

Interest in the Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) in connection with tourism is constantly growing not only among consumers but also among theoreticians. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of studies that focus on eWOM in the tourism sector using the snowball method. The article is based on a review of the literature of 60 studies that focus not only on consumer behavior in tourism and the impact of eWOM on tourism supply but also on the impact of hotel managers' responses to other consumer behavior and tourism companies. The results of the studies show that eWOM has a significant impact not only on consumer behavior but also on tourism supply. Manager responses can also strongly affect other consumer behavior in decision-making. When eWOM is distributed, consumers are influenced by their emotions, motives, and also by the websites to which they have decided to contribute. The chapter proposes further research areas for different authors.

This paper aims to explore the image of travel destinations after the visit by analysing sentiment orientation of the online reviews, and how this orientation, as well as other electronic word of mouth (eWOM)’s credibility sources, can affect the perceived helpfulness of shared opinions measured through the helpfulness score.

Tourist destinations are increasingly affected by travel-related information shared through the Web. More and more people first check the previous travel experiences of other people to build their own destination image and to help them in their choice of destination. This paper analyses the shared opinions related to the city of Barcelona in a well-known eWOM website. The reviewers’ opinion and the credibility sources of eWOM are extracted from the web using a webscraper, while the sentiment score to analyse the discourse orientation (positive vs negative) is calculated using computer-based sentiment analysis techniques.

Online reviews’ users are reluctant to provide extreme polar opinions (very negative, very positive) to any travel subcategory (hotel, restaurant, attractions and night-life) of a tourist destination. The results obtained also reveal that eWOM’s perceived helpfulness grows with the expertise of the reviewer. However, the helpfulness score given to the reviews posted is not influenced by the sentiment orientation of the author’s opinion.

This research is limited to the case study of Ciao, which is a well-known consumer platform, and the city of Barcelona, which is a top touristic destination. However, the approach proposed can be easily extended to other similar consumer platforms and cities using the same methodology.

Understanding the information posted in the media environment is a major concern in the field of marketing destination planning. Positive and negative eWOM offers potential consumers a clear picture on the tourist destination, and this information can be used by Destination Marketing Organisations to meet customers’ needs and expectations. The perceived helpfulness of reviews analysed in this paper can also help practitioners and scholars to understand those factors that make reviews more trustable.

From a methodological point of view, the main contribution of this research is the utilisation of an unstructured approach to the measurement of the destination image based on the sentiment analysis of shared opinions. From a theoretical point of view, the study relates the post-visit destination image with the pre-visit image formation process, using the sentiment orientation of the former and the perceived helpfulness of the latter.

The nature of digital media channels are important factors in explaining consumers’ behavior over the Web, and specifically on social network sites (SNS). The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework explaining consumer engagement with electronic word of mouth (eWOM) communication via SNS, based on key attributes of this media channel.

Based on the expectancy value theory (EVT), a conceptual framework is proposed to model the effect of eWOM channel attributes on eWOM engagement process. Consumer eWOM engagement is conceptualized as a second-order construct. A structural equation modeling procedure was employed to empirically test the model using data collected from two social media communication channels.

First, results suggest that engagement with eWOM can be conceptualized as a second-order construct based on user tendency to receive or share eWOM with other network members. Second, the path analysis model supports the employment of EVT and shows that two key attributes of eWOM channels, social capital and credibility, significantly affect consumer attitude toward eWOM via SNS. Attitude toward eWOM, in turn, affects eWOM engagement. Third, SNS channel type moderates the effect on attitude.

Marketing communication practitioners should note that the strength of social ties plays a key role in spreading eWOM on SNS effectively. This insight should be employed a part of social media marketing strategy.

This is first research that models the effect of social media attributes on eWOM engagement and demonstrates the moderating role of channel type. The model is highly valuable in light of the importance of the concept of engagement in internet research.

In a people-oriented society, it is necessary to understand the electronic word of mouth (eWOM) of information service of the government. Government affair microblogs (GAM), which play an important role in orienting online opinions, listening to public voices, establishing government image, is an ideal channel to achieve this goal. In essence, the application of GAM is to improve the communication efficiency between the government and the public. The purpose of this study is to the influence factors of GAM eWOM which will not only benefits the government in better understanding the information dissemination rules of microblogs but also provides directions for the government to improve the information service over microblogs.

In this paper, the authors investigate and verify the regulating function, herd effect applied on GAM. The authors conduct an innovative empirical study based on perceived value theory, aiming to explore the factors that influence the eWOM of the Chinese Government.

Experiments on 502 GAM users show that social identification positively affects perceived value while effort cost negatively affects perceived value, and perceived value positively influences the microblogs’ eWOM. The authors also find that the herd effect positively regulates the relationship between perceived value and GAM’s eWOM. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

In this research, the regulating effect of herd effect on the relationship between perceived value and GAM’s eWOM has been explored. This study also provides inspirations for future government information service research and administrative measurement.