How does electronic word-of-mouth affect the hotel industry?

Abstract

There exists research on electronic word-of-mouth and the different perspectives around it. This includes motives for engaging in electronic word-of-mouth, how to manage it, opportunities and challenges with it. However, there is little research on how electronic word-of-mouth affect the hotel industry. This study is primarily focused on electronic word-of-mouth from a customer’s point of view. Through the survey created for this thesis, I made questions to the respondents examining their relationship to online reviews, how they are getting affected, what they think about the trustworthiness of an online review, how often they stay at a hotel within a year, their habits before and after a purchase of a trip, and more. I have used the information from the literature review and method in order to answer the hypotheses in this study.