 Social influence bias in ratings: A field experiment in the hospitality sectorSimona Cicognani, Paolo Figini and Marco Magnani Tourism Economics, 2022, vol. 28, issue 8, 2197-2218 Abstract: We investigate the empirical phenomenon of rating bubbles, that is, the presence of a disproportionate number of extremely positive ratings in user-generated content websites. We test whether customers are influenced by prior ratings when evaluating their stay at a hotel through a field experiment that exogenously manipulates information disclosure. Results show the presence of (asymmetric) social influence bias (SIB): access to information on prior ratings that are above the average positively influences the consumers’ rating of the hotel. In contrast, information on ratings that are below the average does not affect reviewers. Furthermore, customers who have never been to the hotel before the intervention are more susceptible to prior ratings than customers who have repeatedly been to the hotel before. Finally, customers who are not used to writing online reviews are more prone to SIB than customers who frequently write online reviews. Our findings suggest that online rating systems should be adjusted to mitigate this bias, especially as these platforms become more relevant and widespread in the hospitality sector. Keywords: online ratings; field experiment; consumer behaviour; social influence bias; hospitality sector (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:toueco:v:28:y:2022:i:8:p:2197-2218 DOI: 10.1177/13548166211034645 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Tourism Economics |
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