Winning the Battle: The Importance of Price and Online Reviews for Hotel Selection

Abstract

Traditionally, price has been one of the main revenue management levers that allow hotels to sell the right product to the right customer at the right time. Recent research in the area of electronic word-of-mouth has found that travelers' online reviews may also be an influential factor affecting other customers' booking decisions. However, it is challenging to determine the value of online reviews for customer decision making and to compare this value to hotel room prices. Therefore, the main goal of this study is to investigate which factors (room rate, online reviews' rating score, or the number of reviews by other travelers) are more important for customers' booking decisions and the optimal combination of these factors for booking a hotel. Conjoint analysis was applied to measure the relative importance of the aforementioned factors for travelers' booking decisions. The results revealed that the overall online rating was the most influential factor with regard to customer decision making about

The Mediating Role of Real-Time Information Between Location-Based User-Generated Content and Tourist Gift Purchase Intention

“…Consumer-generated content exists as reviews, ratings, and opinions expressed via online platforms. Such content engages customers through increased product awareness, moreover, it is considered a valuable input for purchase decisions (Batra & Keller, 2016;Ciftci et al, 2020). Correspondingly, the digital marketing approach is shifting from business to consumer to peerto-peer model (Akçura & Altınkemer, 2002;Yılmaz, 2020).…”

“…The tourism industry is continuously growing and expanding (Werthner & Ricci, 2004). Similarly, Web 2.0 online social platforms where consumers exchange their experiences of products and services are on the rise (Batra & Keller, 2016;Ciftci et al, 2020). Location-based content and real-time data sharing are among the most prominent tools used by the tourism industry to entice customers (Berger et al, 2002;Xiang et al, 2015).…”

Examination of Online Visitor Comments for Accommodation Enterprises Operating in Kırklareli Province via Content Analysis

“…Despite extensive research in the field of online hotel reviews, the value of attributes of online accommodation reviews, such as rating score and number of reviews, is still unknown for booking decisions (Neirotti et al, 2016). However, an important part of the research shows that online reviews affect the sales of accommodation businesses (Ciftci et al, 2020). The fact that only 62 of the 465 comments analyzed in this study were answered by the accommodation enterprises supports this view.…”

A conjoint analysis of attributes influencing attendance of academic conferences

“…According to Hair et al (1998), marketing researchers have extensively used conjoint analysis to examine the service or product preferences of consumers. Also, in hospitality and tourism research, conjoint analysis has been widely used (Ciftci et al , 2020; Pan et al , 2018; Renaghan and Kay, 1987). Since CBC analysis is close to what consumers face while selecting a product or service (Ares et al , 2010), a CBC analysis survey design was preferred in this study.…”