Avoiding the dark side of positive online consumer reviews: Enhancing reviews' usefulness for high risk-averse travelers

Casaló, Luis V.; Flavián, Carlos; Guinalíu, Miguel; Ekinci, Yüksel

doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.01.010

Cited by 172 publications

(136 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(70 reference statements)

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“…Performance risk (hereafter termed risk) is widely known as an important determinant of purchase behavior (Mitchell and Greatorex 1993), and hotel firms invest in reducing risk for consumers to drive sales (Shulman, Cunha Jr, and Saint Clair 2015). All purchases carry risk, and this may be increased, when offerings have not been experienced first-hand and can be characterized as high-involvement, two factors that are particularly true for online hotel purchases (Mitchell 1992;Casaló et al 2015). The effect risk has on tourists' purchase intentions may also be determined by the individual level of risk aversion, which makes risk aversion a "personal characteristic relevant" to the study of purchasing travel-related offerings online (Casaló et al 2015).…”

Section: Individual Differences: Risk Aversionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, concerning risk aversion, a key barrier to the online purchase of hotel stays is perceived risk or uncertainty over whether the accommodation will be of high quality (see Shulman, Cunha Jr, and Saint Clair 2015). As established by prior research (Casaló et al 2015), tourist-generated, written reviews play an important role in purchase decisions, especially for risk-averse tourists. We contribute to these findings and show that individual risk aversion may also act as a boundary condition to the negative effects of amateur aesthetics on visual appeal, in that risk-averse tourists may find hotels depicted through amateur aesthetics as visually appealing as those depicted through professional aesthetics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Role of Photograph Aesthetics on Online Review Sites: Effects of Management- versus Traveler-Generated Photos on Tourists’ Decision Making

Marder

Erz

Angell

et al. 2019

Journal of Travel Research

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AcknowledgmentsWe wholeheartedly thank Catherine Hedler for her expert wizardry in assisting with the development of our controlled stimuli in Photoshop. Furthermore, we would like to thank Elena Osadchaya, whose complaint about guest photographs detracting from the appeal of hotels helped spark the underlying idea of this research.Tourists searching for information about destinations on online review sites are concurrently exposed to two different photograph aesthetics, professional (produced by destination managers) and amateur (generated by travelers). While the former is glossy and sharp, the latter is often grainy and overexposed. Although aesthetics are important factors in tourist decision-making, the effects of the exposure to both types of photo aesthetics remain largely unexamined. This research investigates how both types of aesthetics, either singularly or in combination, affect a destination's visual appeal and tourists' booking intentions through four controlled experiments (N = 1282). Our results show that despite the 'messy' beauty in amateur aesthetics, photos with professional aesthetics make a depicted destination appear more visually appealing, ultimately driving booking intentions. However, the negative effects of amateur aesthetics are mitigated when (i) viewed by risk-averse tourists, (ii) presented alongside positive reviews, and (iii) accompanied by a greater number of professional photos.

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Section: Individual Differences: Risk Aversionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Photograph Aesthetics on Online Review Sites: Effects of Management- versus Traveler-Generated Photos on Tourists’ Decision Making

Marder

Erz

Angell

et al. 2019

Journal of Travel Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These sentiments have been found to influence consumers’ cognitive brand evaluation (Lau‐Gesk & Meyers‐Levy, ; Wu, ). Similarly, a sentimental tone in text can influence consumers’ evaluation of online reviews (Casaló, Flavián, Guinalíu, & Ekinci, ).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online Review Helpfulness: Role of Qualitative Factors

Agnihotri

Bhattacharya

2016

Psychology and Marketing

125

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Consumers are increasingly reading online reviews before making any purchasing decisions. The significance of online reviews has only grown over the years. Though in the past, scholars have emphasized the impact of quantitative factors (e.g., review ratings) on online reviews, only recently have they begun to explore the role of qualitative aspects of online reviews. Content readability and associated sentiments in text provide two important qualitative cues that influence the helpfulness of online reviews. However, the extant literature has overemphasized the linear association between these aspects and the helpfulness of reviews. Using the elaboration likelihood model and the classic ideal point concept, the current work asserts that after an ideal point is attained, lucid and sentimental reviews diminish in utility (i.e., helpfulness of an online review for consumers decreases). This may happen because consumers are wary of fraudulent reviews. This study proposes that if experienced reviewers give such extreme reviews, then consumers might still draw utility from these reviews. In other words, this study explains the moderating role of reviewer experience, which heuristically influences consumers’ trust of online reviews, thus making even too simplistic or extremely sentimental reviews helpful.

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“…Online reviews are related to brand trust and willingness to buy, which can affect the consumption decision of hotel [3], restaurant [4], etc. The negative online reviews are more useful than positive comments for risk-averse travelers.…”

Section: Related Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Based on Logistic Regression the online Reviews False Identification Model Study

Zhang¹

2017

dtssehs

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Abstract. In this paper, a questionnaire survey was made on the key factors to identify the false comments from the perspective of consumer perception, including words, number, comment tone, detailed degree, three days before the comments number, first week comments, total comments number, 2 weeks before comments number, additional comments number, photo show number, good review, medium comments or bad comments, sellers reputation, from 0 to 9 o'clock and 21 measurement items, in the case of taobao commodity comments, artificial traversal 60 kinds of commodities in 6885 comments to collect data, it is concluded that additional comments number, slide show number, and medium review number of significant differences when consumers perceive false comments. By constructing the Logistic regression model, detailed degree, three days before the comments number and slide show number are the key influencing factors, overall percentage prediction rate was 85%, the discriminant function effect is better. The results show that the three indexes can be used as a consumer in judging comment whether false goods, shopping is the basis of risk.

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Avoiding the dark side of positive online consumer reviews: Enhancing reviews' usefulness for high risk-averse travelers

Cited by 172 publications

References 39 publications

The Role of Photograph Aesthetics on Online Review Sites: Effects of Management- versus Traveler-Generated Photos on Tourists’ Decision Making

The Role of Photograph Aesthetics on Online Review Sites: Effects of Management- versus Traveler-Generated Photos on Tourists’ Decision Making

Online Review Helpfulness: Role of Qualitative Factors

Based on Logistic Regression the online Reviews False Identification Model Study

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