Word of mouth in hospitality management: The case of luxury hotels in China

Abstract

As the most important emerging market and the second biggest luxury goods consumer, China has been receiving a growing amount of foreign investment in luxury hotels. This paper studies China’s luxury hotel industry in terms of its customers’ word-of-mouth (WOM) on hotel staying experiences in five-star hotels of Western and Chinese origins in Beijing and Shanghai. Analyses on the WOM are made from three perspectives: online booking site vs. online meta-search site; Western and Hong Kong/ Macau/ Taiwan/ Singapore (HMTS) hotels vs. Chinese hotels; and hotels in Beijing vs. hotels in Shanghai. These three perspectives respectively draw on the incentive, cultural, and geopolitical factors in evaluating luxury hotels in China. Results of this study are useful for companies in the hospitality industry operating in emerging markets by providing the most updated insights from the most vivid case of the emerging economies.