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Research Article

A Multi-Level Analysis of Factors Affecting Online Review Helpfulness in the Global Hotel Market

Park, Cheol1 · Lee, Jungwon1

1 Korea University

Published: January 2021 · Vol. 50, No. 3 · pp. 585-609

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17287/kmr.2021.50.3.585

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Abstract

Online reviews are the most trusted source of information by hotel customers and play a role in reducing the uncertainty associated with a hotel choice. Recently, the perceived usefulness of review is an important factor in determining the effectiveness of electronic word-of-mouth communication. The online review usefulness literature mainly focused on review and reviewer factors, but company factors or cultural factors were not considered. This study analyzed the factors affecting the usefulness of review in the hotel industry by dividing them into review, company, and national level. We collected 10,611 Tripadvisor reviews of 225 hotels from 9 countries, and analyzed the effects of review, company, and country-level factors on review usefulness through multi-level negative binomial regression analysis. As a result of the analysis, it was found that there is a systematic difference in the usefulness of review according to culture and company factors.
Keywords: Review usefulnessculturecompanyonline reviewinternational comparisonhotel