An empirical investigation of the longitudinal effect of online consumer reviews on hotel accommodation performance

Abstract

This study empirically investigates the effects of online consumer reviews on hotel accommodation performance in an e-commerce context. Online consumer reviews include two types: online consumer satisfaction and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOM was also regarded as the proxy of consumer loyalty. Hotel-level online consumer reviews from three well-known online travel agencies (i.e., Agoda.com, Expedia.com, and Trip.com) and financial data from 88 hotels were combined and analyzed using the Hayes’ PROCESS Macro. Based on the service-profit chain (SPC) framework, the two forms of online consumer reviews, satisfaction, and eWOM, were hypothesized to have positive effects on performance. The hypothetic effects were assessed in terms of the concurrent model and three lagged models. The results indicate that satisfaction has a positive effect on eWOM. However, to our great surprise, the two forms of online consumer reviews did not directly affect hotel accommodation performance across the concurrent model and the three lagged models. Additionally, online consumer satisfaction did not influence hotel accommodation performance via eWOM. The results have several important theoretical and practical implications for online consumer relationship management in the hospitality and tourism industry. The results of this study can further clarify the relationships among online consumer satisfaction and eWOM (customer loyalty), and performance.