Electronic word-of-mouth in hospitality and tourism management

Abstract

Interpersonal influence and word-of-mouth (WOM) are ranked the most important information source when a consumer is making a purchase decision. These influences are especially important in the hospitality and tourism industry, whose intangible products are difficult to evaluate prior to their consumption. When WOM becomes digital, the large-scale, anonymous, ephemeral nature of the Internet induces new ways of capturing, analyzing, interpreting, and managing the influence that one consumer may have on another. This paper describes online interpersonal influence, or eWOM, as a potentially cost-effective means for marketing hospitality and tourism, and discusses some of the nascent technological and ethical issues facing marketers as they seek to harness emerging eWOM technologies.

Introduction

Cyberspace has presented marketers with new avenues to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of communication, and new approaches for the acquisition and retention of customers (e.g., Osenton, 2002; Wind, Mahajan, & Gunther, 2002). One aspect of cyberspace is the phenomenon of online interpersonal influence (Senecal & Nantel, 2004). Because a fundamental principle of consumer behavior is that consumers have the ability to exert powerful influences upon each other, it is only natural that marketers seek to manage interpersonal influence (Dichter, 1966; Haywood, 1989), and with the spread of electronic technologies, it is not surprising that virtual interactions among consumers have proliferated (Goldsmith, 2006). A good example of consumers sharing their hospitality and tourism opinions is the website tripadvisor.com—touted (by the company) as “the largest site for unbiased travel reviews (which) gives you the real story about hotels, attractions, and restaurants around the world. It boasts more than 1,926,031 unbiased reviews and is updated every minute and every day by real travelers; it contains ‘been there, done that’ inside information; and ‘the best deals for your travel dates’” (tripadvisor.com, 2005).

Marketers, who have long sought to harness and manage interactions such as these to their own advantage, have recently begun to consider and devise strategies to manage online interpersonal influence. Hospitality and tourism marketers find the issue of critical importance for the following reasons: hospitality and tourism product offerings, as intangible goods, cannot be evaluated before their consumption, thus elevating the importance of interpersonal influence (Lewis & Chambers, 2000); many hospitality and tourism products are seen as high-risk purchases, for which the emotional risk of reference group evaluation is an important aspect of the decision-making process (Lewis & Chambers, 2000); hospitality and tourism products are both seasonal and perishable, raising marketing stress levels for providers (Rao & Singhapakdi, 1997); the hospitality and tourism industry is intensely competitive, suggesting that the use of online interpersonal influence may provide important competitive advantages for early adopters; and finally, considering the dearth of hospitality and tourism industry-specific literature related to the issue, it would appear that the industry lags behind others in the development and discussion of strategies for managing interpersonal influence in an electronic environment.

This paper first reviews related studies on interpersonal influence and word-of-mouth (WOM). It then provides a conceptual model including sources, mediating variables, and motivations for contributing and seeking WOM, with a discussion of how eWOM differs from the traditional WOM. The paper then outlines challenges and opportunities for the tourism industry and suggests relevant marketing strategies to manage and enhance interpersonal influence online. Finally, the paper touches upon ethical issues related to the industry's use of current communication technologies and suggests directions for future research.