Reviewing TripAdvisor and Co.: a quality analysis of hotel review sites

Abstract

As an information source, hotel review websites are growing in importance for both guests and service providers. The greater reliance on this type of user-generated content indicates an increasing need for knowledge regarding its quality. In the present study, a comprehensive theory-based evaluation framework to assess the quality of hotel review websites as the channel through which this content is generated was conceptualized and applied to 10 relevant portals. The quality assessment was performed based on the concept of information adoption, which was operationalized with reference to an established theoretical model. The comparative quality analysis reveals that the greatest differences between the sites are in source credibility and argument quality, while the core competence of these sites is the provision of efficient decision-making aids.

Keywords:

• Electronic word of mouth
• user-generated content
• hotel review websites
• quality management
• content analysis
• information adoption

Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to several peers from tourism research and practice who helped to validate the plausibility of the first draft of the developed evaluation framework, based on their great expertise in hotel review websites, and who peer-reviewed the manuscript. Thanks also to Jolanda Herzog and Silvy Wismer for their help in the pre-testing of the evaluation framework and in gathering the necessary data.