Power of eWOM and Its Antecedents in Driving Customers’ Intention to Revisit: An Empirical Investigation on Five-Star Eco-Friendly Hotels in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

In recent years, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has greatly impacted the hotel industry, as social media and online review platforms have given customers many opportunities to share their personal experiences with other individuals. Hence, this study aimed to empirically investigate several relationships within the setting of five-star eco-friendly hotels in Saudi Arabia. These included: (1) the direct impact of perceived quality (PQ), positive emotional experience (PEE), and customer satisfaction (CS) on promoting positive eWOM; (2) the potential intermediary role of CS in the connections between PQ, PEE, and eWOM; (3) the direct influence of eWOM on intention to revisit (ITR); and (4) the potential intermediary role of eWOM in the PQ–ITR, CS–ITR, and PEE–ITR relationships. To achieve these objectives, an online questionnaire was developed and directed to a sample of Saudi individuals who have stayed in five-star eco-friendly hotels, particularly in Riyadh City. Based on their previous interactions with these hotels on the TripAdvisor website during the last six months and their willingness to participate in the field study, a convenience sampling technique was utilized to select participants for data collection. The study mainly focused on Saudi individuals to investigate their behaviors and attitudes toward eco-friendly hotels, which have been considered a growing trend in the country in recent years. Participants were emailed individually, and a total of 423 acceptable forms were gathered and subjected to analysis using the PLS-SEM method. The research’s findings revealed that PQ had the strongest predictive power for promoting positive eWOM, leading to a greater increase in ITR than PEE and CS. Moreover, the study identified the significant mediating influence of CS in exploring how PEE and PQ contribute to customers’ intention to spread positive eWOM. Additionally, the results showed the substantial role of eWOM in mediating the relationships between PQ, PEE, CS, and ITR. Based on these findings, the study suggests practical implications for hotel operators and marketers looking to promote positive eWOM and increase revisit intentions.

Exploring the Importance of Destination Attributes of Sustainable Urban Waterfronts: Text and Data Mining of Tourists’ Online Reviews

“…In addition, some scholars have found that the landscape, nightscape, and walkway of an urban waterfront influence people's satisfaction with the space [40]. Therefore, the qualities of destination attributes determine tourist satisfaction as well as future revisit intentions, WOM promotion [28,66,67], service experience, and loyalty (e.g., [61]). In competitive markets, destination attributes play a key role in maintaining competitive advantage [16] and have a meaningful impact on forming a destination's image [55].…”

“…Scholars have claimed that reviews on these websites represent a more general and widespread form of WOM, namely electronic WOM (eWOM) [24,25], and that the ratings represent customers' or tourists' overall satisfaction with the quality, service, or experience of a product or destination [26,27]. For sustainable destination development, eWOM might be more cost-effective [24,28] and influential [29,30] than other sources of information because of the intangible nature of tourism services [31].…”

Assessing Green Practices on Eco-Friendly Hotel Customer Loyalty: A Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling and Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis Hybrid Approach

“…Furthermore, Park and Kang [38] found that customers' green perceptions and their feelings toward eco-friendly artwork influence their intention to visit eco-friendly hotels. Noticeably, the majority of previous studies have mainly focused on foreign visitors or both local and foreign visitors [39,40]. Table 1 below provides an overview of several pertinent prior studies falling within the scope of this study.…”