ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH AMONG HOTEL GUESTS: DEMOGRAPHIC AND TRIPOGRAPHIC FACTORS

Abstract

Positive word-of-mouth from customers is a sought after desire for any organization. Inter-consumer influence is directly related to company image, customer satisfaction, retention and acquisition, overall costs and profits. With the advancement of technology, the impact of recommendation (electronic word of mouth) as a reliable source of product information is ever increasing as the customers are able to interact in a very large scale through electronic mediums. Some products and services such as automobiles, financial services and tourism require high involvement from customers’ perspective as they involve high risk and a larger amount of finances. Tourism is an intangible service, and bought less frequently. It is harder to evaluate it prior to actual consumption. In order to minimize the risk, tourists spend a great amount of time, effort and money for a vacation without unpleasant surprises. This is why they tend to rely heavily on recommendations of experienced travellers. The easiest way to reach this valuable information is through internet. Most tourism services are available online, there are also forums, newsgroups, blogs and commercial web sites that offer traveller comments and ratings. Web is considered as the most important source of information by most travellers. However in order for this information to be presented at travel sites (e.g. tripadvisor) it should be uploaded in advance by a traveller who “have been there and done that”. Therefore it is very important to identify those advocates who are likely to spread positive word of mouth through electronic channels. This study after the literature review and an empirical study on hotel guests in Turkey, tries to identify customers who are more likely to create eWOM (electronic word of mouth). Describing the characteristics of those opinion leaders would help hospitality organizations to better serve those clients and improve their likelihood to reach new customers.

Keywords

• e-WOM, word-of-mouth recommendation, demographics, tripographics, luxury hotels

ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH AMONG HOTEL GUESTS: DEMOGRAPHIC AND TRIPOGRAPHIC FACTORS

Abstract

Positive word-of-mouth from customers is a sought after desire for any organization. Inter-consumer influence is directly related to company image, customer satisfaction, retention and acquisition, overall costs and profits. With the advancement of technology, the impact of recommendation (electronic word of mouth) as a reliable source of product information is ever increasing as the customers are able to interact in a very large scale through electronic mediums. Some products and services such as automobiles, financial services and tourism require high involvement from customers’ perspective as they involve high risk and a larger amount of finances. Tourism is an intangible service, and bought less frequently. It is harder to evaluate it prior to actual consumption. In order to minimize the risk, tourists spend a great amount of time, effort and money for a vacation without unpleasant surprises. This is why they tend to rely heavily on recommendations of experienced travellers. The easiest way to reach this valuable information is through internet. Most tourism services are available online, there are also forums, newsgroups, blogs and commercial web sites that offer traveller comments and ratings. Web is considered as the most important source of information by most travellers. However in order for this information to be presented at travel sites (e.g. tripadvisor) it should be uploaded in advance by a traveller who “have been there and done that”. Therefore it is very important to identify those advocates who are likely to spread positive word of mouth through electronic channels. This study after the literature review and an empirical study on hotel guests in Turkey, tries to identify customers who are more likely to create eWOM (electronic word of mouth). Describing the characteristics of those opinion leaders would help hospitality organizations to better serve those clients and improve their likelihood to reach new customers. 

Keywords

• e-WOM

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