Online Consumer Reviews in the Hotel Sector: Why and How to Answer?

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the practices of the online review management by hotels. Little research has been done so far on the responses to online reviews by the hotels and on their impact on actual and potential clients. Expert face-to-face interviews have been realized with hospitality and social media professionals in France in 2015–2016, completed by an analysis of two online review web sites (TripAdvisor and Booking.com). The results show differences existing in the online review responding practices: from a simple monitoring without response to a regular policy of response to all reviews. Several factors could explain these differences, such as belonging to a hotel chain, hotel category, financial and human resources dedicated to customer service, or the responsibilities of the staff. The results could help the hotel managers in their practice of answering the online reviews and any other organization dealing with customer reviews.