Purpose – The paper aims to identify the main hotel management response strategies to a negative online review and examine their influence on the trust of potential guests reading reviews in usergenerated media. Design – Five response strategies that emerged from the literature were empirically tested: personalization, empathy, confession, denial, and excuse. A mixed-method was applied, and the research was conducted in two phases using a qualitative method with a scenario-based approach and a quantitative research using the PLS-SEM method. Methodology/Approach – A focus group was used to provide a basis for the survey. The survey included one real negative hotel review and five hypothetical responses written according to the five observed strategies. Each response was followed by a set of statements examining the level of trust. A total of 435 questionnaires completed. The influence of each strategy on trust was tested individually. Findings – The results show that personalization, empathy, and confession as response strategies positively influence the trust of potential guests, whereas denial and excuse as response strategies have a negative effect on trust. Originality of the research – The research systematizes previous literature and identifies the main response strategies to a negative online review. It empirically tests all five strategies so that they can be observed in relation to each other. Moreover, this research includes the concept of trust as a dependent variable. The results can help scholars to build further models and hotel managers to understand how they should respond to negative online reviews.

Tourist animation is a combination of services and content aimed at improving the overall experience of the tourist service. The purpose of animation activities is to provide the guest with more than anticipated, to outperform guests’ expectations. The importance and significance of the added value that is provided to guests is increasingly emphasized. This paper was designed to overcome the deficit of research conducted in the field of tourist animation, especially the part related to the influence on customer satisfaction and loyalty. The main purpose of this research was to identify the factors of guest satisfaction that are positively related to the loyalty of guests in the hotel industry in the Republic of Croatia, through a review of the literature and the theory of guest satisfaction. Therefore, an empirical study was conducted in order to examine the impact of animation program offerings on guest satisfaction and loyalty from a manager’s perspective using a qualitative study. From the collected and analyzed data, it is possible to presume that the quality of animation programs, animators, and communication with the guest has a positive effect on guest satisfaction. Also, it has been found that the offer of animation programs affects the return and loyalty of guests. Based on the results obtained at the end of the paper, guidelines for further development in this area are proposed. The contribution of this paper is reflected in the acquisition of new knowledge regarding the impact of animation programs on guest satisfaction and loyalty, with an emphasis on the comprehensiveness of animation programs.