In the tourism industry, most customer feedback and searches for relevant information take place online. Therefore, it is important to improve understanding of the business consequences of both customers’ online comments and businesses’ online visibility. For this study, the authors collected comments and visibility data (advertising expenditures) from a leading rural tourism infomediary website, related to 408 French rural lodging establishments. A complementary survey provided information about the lodging establishments’ performance (reputation and profitability). The results reveal that tourists’ positive perceptions of global service quality, as reflected in their comments, depend on their dual perceptions of the lodging and the surroundings. In turn, positive global service quality perceptions and visibility on an infomediary website positively affect business performance. These findings have implications for tourism scholars, as well as for establishment owners trying to track the factors that affect tourists’ evaluations of their service provision.
"It is very important to highlight the understanding of the business consequences of online consumer reviews, online visibility, presence expertise of businesses, number of accommodations, market intelligence, and management response. The authors gathered data on rural tourism establishments (RTA) from a website leading infomediary for rural tourism, related to 235 French RTAs. The performance of RTAs and market intelligence was provided by complementary survey. The results of the study show how consumers position RTAs based on their positive perceptions help managers to understand what leads the consumer to position the RTA and which characteristics are most relevant. The implications of this study are for both tourism specialists and RTA managers who, in their pursuit of success, attempt to track and assess the real connections between the RTA's specific consumer positioning based on their insights, provided in the online review comments, defined business strategy, and management behavioral competencies."
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.