Asymmetry of Hotel Ratings on TripAdvisor: Evidence from Single- Versus Dual-Valence Reviews

ABSTRACT

Hotel ratings given by reviewers on travel-related social media sites are generally perceived as symmetric. Using the perspective of positive–negative asymmetry, we challenge this perception by comparing the prevalence of single- and dual-valence reviews associated with opposite hotel ratings. Drawing on the findings of a content analysis of 500 reviews of a hotel on TripAdvisor, followed by three-way log-linear analyses, we found that dual- (vs. single-) valence reviews appear more frequently in extremely negative (“terrible”) than extremely positive ratings (“excellent”), but less frequently in moderately negative (“poor”) than moderately positive ratings (“very good”). In addition, men posted more dual-valence reviews than women when the rating was “terrible.” The findings, which add to the positive–negative asymmetry literature, imply that users should not review an equal number of positive and negative reviews prior to their booking decisions, and that hoteliers should motivate more of their male guests to write online reviews.

一般认为，评论者在旅行相关社交媒体网站上给出的酒店评分是对称的。我们利用肯定和否定不对称的视角，通过对比与相反酒店评分相关的单效价或双效价评分的流行率，质疑了这一观点。根据对 TripAdvisor 上某一酒店的 500 条评论进行内容分析结果，以及随后的三向对数线性分析，我们发现，双效价（对比单效价）评分在极为否定评分（“糟糕”）中在比极其肯定评分（“极好”）中出现的频繁更高，但在中度否定（“差”）评分中出现的频率低于中度肯定评分（“很好”）。此外，当评分是“糟糕”时，男性发表的双效价评论多于女性。这些发现，被加入到肯定和否定不对称表述中，调查结果，其中添加到正性负不对称文献中，意味着用户在做出预定决定前，不应查看同等数量的肯定和否定评论，同时酒店经营者应鼓励更多的男客人写在线评论。

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• hotel
• online review
• positive–negative asymmetry
• review ratings
• social media

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editor for their constructive comments on improving an early version of this article. The work described in this article was partly supported by a grant funded by the University of Macau (SRG2014-00013-FBA).