USER-GENERATED REVIEWS AND OFFICIAL STAR RATINGS: CAN THE TWO WORK TOGETHER IN HOTEL EVALUATION SYSTEMS?

Femi Odebiyi () and Vitaliya Gontar ()
Additional contact information
Femi Odebiyi: Department of Business Administration, LCC International University, Lithuania
Vitaliya Gontar: St. Petersburg University, Graduate School of Management (GSOM), Russia

Economic Review: Journal of Economics and Business, 2020, vol. 18, issue 1, 37-48

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to understand the emerging influence of e-WOM (electronic word-of-mouth) as a contemporary feedback system, its role for hotels, and importance for guests. Furthermore, the study identifies the nature of user-generated feedback in terms of determining hotel ratings, and establishing whether similarities between official hotel ratings and guests’ feedback evaluations exist. The qualitative study is based on the analysis of 240 feedbacks, taken from the TripAdvisor.com, for 20 hotels of 3 and 4 star ratings in Klaipeda (Lithuania) and Kaliningrad (Russia), and interviews of eight hoteliers. The most important review categories for guests were found to be that of amenities, service, and location. The findings reveal that the online review system is still not structured enough to become the main evaluation system of a hotel.

Keywords: e-WOM; guest feedback; online review; Star rating (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M31 M39 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://ef.untz.ba/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/ER_MAY-2020_3_1.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tuz:journl:v:18:y:2020:i:1:p:37-48

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Review: Journal of Economics and Business is currently edited by Zijad Dzafic

More articles in Economic Review: Journal of Economics and Business from University of Tuzla, Faculty of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Senad Celikovic ().