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Journal ArticleDOI

Online travel reviews as persuasive communication: The effects of content type, source, and certification logos on consumer behavior

01 Dec 2013-Tourism Management (TOURISM MANAGEMENT)-Vol. 39, pp 1-9
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared tourists' posts to managers' posts, containing vague versus specific content, and with or without peripheral certification logos, and found that tourists' beliefs about utility, trustworthiness, quality and corporate social responsibility on attitude toward the resort and purchase intentions.
About: This article is published in Tourism Management.The article was published on 2013-12-01 and is currently open access. It has received 433 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Consumer behaviour & Certification.

Summary (4 min read)

1. Introduction

  • Social media have evolved rapidly into a major opportunity and challenge for many businesses, especially in the hospitality and tourism sectors.
  • Examples include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, third-party review sites, and private blog sites.
  • One result of social media is that the ability to communicate about key attributes and experiences related to a destination or product is no longer confined to marketing personnel.
  • In tourism, third-party review sites such as Trip Advisor TM enable travelers to comment on products and destinations they have experienced, and consumer-generated online reviews now routinely inform and influence individual travel purchase decisions (Gretzel & Yoo, 2008; Lu & Stepchenka, 2012; Xiang & Gretzel, 2010).
  • This disparity creates additional complexities for tourists attempting to assess the value and reliability of posts (Senecal & Nantel, 2004; Park & Kim, 2008).

2. Theoretical background

  • Persuasive communication, such as in marketing collateral, aims to influence attitudes, and hence behavior, through presentation of both core and peripheral information.
  • This heuristic-systematic model proposes two distinct modes of information processing: systematic processing, which involves deep levels of engagement with the information, careful attention, analysis and reasoning; and heuristic processing, which is less demanding and more efficient, using salient and easily comprehended cues to activate judgemental shortcuts or everyday decision rules called heuristics (Chaiken, 1980; Chaiken & Ledgerwood, 2012).
  • Therefore, consumer attitudes toward staying at such a resort are expected not only to predict consumer willingness to make a booking, but also to mediate the influence of beliefs formed as a result of online informational cues on purchase intention.
  • Consistent with theories of attitude formation and persuasion, empirical findings suggest that individuals form impressions, and thus beliefs, in part owing to the source of information, where they perceive personal, user-generated information as more informative than information derived from either editorial comment or the firm’s marketing materials (Dickinger, 2011).
  • Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H4.

3.1. Overview

  • To investigate the research questions, the authors employed an experimental method using simulated web-based content that included realistic photographs, review comments, and environmental logos.
  • In consultation with a graphic artist, the authors devised a standard template for a resort review website that mimics the look and feel of an accommodation review website.
  • A fully crossed between-subjects design was employed.
  • Most content and design elements were held constant, with only the independent variable of content varying.
  • In sum, the design was a 2 x 2 x 3 (credibility cues) factorial between-subjects design containing 12 cells.

3.2. Participants

  • Participant contact names were obtained from a market list company, drawn from an Australian database.
  • Most participants (97%) had experience with booking accommodations online, most (96%) also indicated that they relied on reviews when making a hotel booking, and a majority (68%) said that they often or always used the Internet to actually book their accommodation.
  • Of participants, 61.7% agreed that being part of a green accreditation system is important for tourism products, services, and resorts.
  • The incentive for participation was entry into a draw to win one $500 pre-paid Visa gift card or one of two $100 Visa gift cards.

3.3. Materials/Design

  • Twelve versions of a simulated website were developed to depict an eco-friendly resort named “Forest Reserve Resort.”.
  • All aspects of the website remained constant, with the exception of the manipulated independent variables (source, logo, and content).
  • Other standard features included the name of the website (“Latest Accommodation Advice”), the photo of the resort (see Figure 2 for an example of one condition), and inactive links to other parts of the website.
  • Each simulated website contained six reviews on the right hand side of the page.

3.3.1. Manipulated variables

  • Three variables were manipulated in this study: source, content, and logo.
  • Manager reviews endorsed the resort’s eco-friendly practices such as waste recycling, and the customer reviews commented on the resort’s eco-friendly facilities from the perspective of a previous patron.
  • The content of the reviews was either specific or vague.
  • Finally, for the manipulation of credibility cues, the website showed either no logo, or a green eco-certification logo, or both a green eco-certification logo and a gold logo for a service quality award.

3.4. Procedure

  • Following ethical clearance by the university human ethics review committee, e-mail addresses of 5,000 prospective participants were purchased from a reputable, privacy-compliant Australian market list company.
  • All members of the sample were randomly assigned to one of the 12 conditions represented by different combinations of the three independent variables.
  • Data were collected using the online survey software Qualtrics™.
  • Each member of the sample was sent an e-mail inviting participation in the study by clicking a link to the questionnaire.
  • A final sample of 537 participants represented a response rate of approximately 11%.

4.1.1. Content

  • Participants completed two items assessing the effectiveness of review content manipulation: “I think the reviews provided specific information” and “Overall, I felt most of the reviews were a bit vague.”.
  • Participants with extreme scores (for example, those in the specific condition who disagreed that most reviews were specific) were deleted.
  • Independent samples ttests were conducted to test whether the means varied in the expected direction for the specific and vague conditions on these items.

4.1.2. Source

  • Individual reviews were shown as being generated by either a customer or a manager associated with the resort.
  • To further check this manipulation, the authors asked participants to indicate whether all review comments were made by customers (true, false, unsure).
  • The pattern of responses for those in the customer condition and the manager condition were opposite, in that respondents in the customer condition tended to recognize that comments were from customers, and those in the manager condition tended to recognize that comments were not from customers.

4.1.3. Credibility cues

  • Pre-testing of the certification and award logos was undertaken in a separate phase of the research.
  • Similarly, the authors selected the award logo design that received the strongest level of agreement for it being representative of a high standard.
  • One eco-certification logo, or an eco-certification logo plus an award logo.
  • 1.4. Realism of stimulus material Responses for three realism checks were also examined, with higher scores indicating that participants perceived the simulated website as more realistic and were more able to imagine using the site.
  • Participants also indicated that they were able to imagine using the website to evaluate the resort (M = 5.47, SD = 1.11).

4.2. Analysis approach

  • Prior to examining the effects of experimental manipulation on consumer beliefs formed from online reviews, it is necessary to confirm that these beliefs about an eco-resort example actually influence customers’ purchase intentions through attitudes towards the eco-resort.
  • Therefore, in stage one of the analyses the authors tested the belief, attitude, intention model of persuasive communication presented in Figure 1, using regression equations and mediation analysis.
  • In stage two of the analyses the authors used three-way factorial ANOVA to test the effects of the manipulated variables on the belief components of the model.

4.2.1. Stage one analysis: Beliefs–attitude–intention model

  • Attitude formation theory argues that attitudes toward an object are based on a set of beliefs about that object, and in this eco-accommodation context those beliefs include perceptions of the utility of the reviews, trust, the quality of the resort, and its corporate social responsibility.
  • Table 2 summarizes the relationships between all the antecedent variables and purchase intention (for example, willingness to make a booking).
  • The interrelationships between the antecedents were also moderate to strong, with those between trust, quality, and corporate social responsibility being strongest of all (see Table 2).
  • Equation 1 tested whether beliefs predicted purchase intention; equation 2 determined whether beliefs predicted attitudes as the mediator; and equation 3 tested whether the contribution of beliefs to purchase intention was fully mediated by attitudes toward staying at the resort, as predicted by theories of attitude formation and persuasion.
  • Therefore in accordance with the recommendations of Huberty and Morris (1989) a series of ANOVAs rather than MANOVA was considered more appropriate for analysis of the effects of experimental manipulations in this context.

5. Discussion and conclusions

  • Which focuses on an eco-accommodation context, the important antecedents of customer purchase intention are beliefs about the utility of reviews, trust, and CSR beliefs, as well as positive attitudes toward staying at the resort.
  • As expected from attitude formation theory, participants’ beliefs in the utility of the reviews, together with their trust in the resort and the reviews, inform consumer attitudes toward staying at the resort, which in turn mediate the effect of such beliefs on purchase intention.
  • Consumers seem to pay at least some attention to environmentally relevant cues as well as eco-certification or similar award logos on websites, and the results of their experiment indicate that the presence of such logos seems to influence perceptions of a venue’s CSR, which is apparently an important factor in consumer decision making for this type of accommodation.
  • Determining the exact mechanism involved would require further investigation.
  • Specific content in online communication can be viewed as a more trustworthy and thus more persuasive basis for argument than vague content when written by customers.

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Citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the effect of an organizational response to negative customer reviews on the perceptions and evaluations of prospective customers toward an online negative review and any accompanying hotel response, and found that the provision of an online response enhanced inferences that potential consumers draw regarding the business's trustworthiness and the extent to which it cares about its customers.

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References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article seeks to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ, and delineates the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena.
Abstract: In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators.

80,095 citations


"Online travel reviews as persuasive..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...To test Hypothesis 1, we used mediation analysis (Barron & Kenny, 1986), which applies a series of regression equations to determine the nature of the underlying relationships between the antecedents (beliefs), the proposed mediator (attitudes), and the criterion (purchase intention)....

    [...]

Book
01 Jun 1975

36,032 citations


"Online travel reviews as persuasive..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...The current research design is founded on well-tested theories (Ajzen, 2001; Ajzen & Fishbein, 2000; Brinol & Petty, 2009; Eaton, Majka, & Visser, 2009; Fishbein, 1963; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975)....

    [...]

  • ...Using an attitudinal model (Ajzen, 2001; Chaiken,1980; Chaiken & Ledgerwood, 2012; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981), we test how three characteristics of online postings influence four antecedent beliefs and how these beliefs drive attitudes and affect purchase intentions....

    [...]

Book
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: Buku terlaris New York Times and The Economist tahun 2012 as mentioned in this paper, and dipilih oleh The NewYork Times Book Review sebagai salah satu dari sepuluh buku terbaik tahune 2011, Berpikir, Cepat and Lambat ditakdirkan menjadi klasik.
Abstract: Buku terlaris New York Times Pemenang Penghargaan Buku Terbaik Akademi Sains Nasional pada tahun 2012 Dipilih oleh New York Times Book Review sebagai salah satu dari sepuluh buku terbaik tahun 2011 A Globe and Mail Judul Buku Terbaik Tahun 2011 Salah Satu Buku The Economist tahun 2011 Salah Satu Buku Nonfiksi Terbaik The Wall Street Journal of the Year 2011 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Pekerjaan Kahneman dengan Amos Tversky adalah subyek dari Proyek Undoing Michael Lewis: Persahabatan yang Mengubah Pikiran Kita Dalam buku terlaris internasional, Berpikir, Cepat, dan Lambat, Daniel Kahneman, psikolog terkenal dan pemenang Hadiah Nobel dalam Ekonomi, membawa kita pada perjalanan pemikiran yang inovatif dan menjelaskan dua sistem yang mendorong cara kita berpikir. Sistem 1 cepat, intuitif, dan emosional; Sistem 2 lebih lambat, lebih deliberatif, dan lebih logis. Dampak dari terlalu percaya pada strategi perusahaan, kesulitan memprediksi apa yang akan membuat kita bahagia di masa depan, efek mendalam dari bias kognitif dalam segala hal mulai dari bermain pasar saham hingga merencanakan liburan kita berikutnya ― masing-masing dapat dipahami hanya dengan mengetahui bagaimana kedua sistem tersebut membentuk penilaian dan keputusan kami. Melibatkan pembaca dalam percakapan yang hidup tentang bagaimana kita berpikir, Kahneman mengungkapkan di mana kita bisa dan tidak dapat mempercayai intuisi kita dan bagaimana kita dapat memanfaatkan manfaat dari pemikiran yang lambat. Dia menawarkan wawasan praktis dan mencerahkan tentang bagaimana pilihan dibuat baik dalam bisnis kita dan kehidupan pribadi kita ― dan bagaimana kita dapat menggunakan teknik yang berbeda untuk menjaga gangguan mental yang sering membawa kita ke dalam masalah. Pemenang Penghargaan Buku Terbaik Akademi Sains Nasional dan Hadiah Buku Los Angeles Times dan dipilih oleh The New York Times Book Review sebagai salah satu dari sepuluh buku terbaik tahun 2011, Berpikir, Cepat dan Lambat ditakdirkan menjadi klasik.

12,984 citations


"Online travel reviews as persuasive..." refers result in this paper

  • ...These correspond to what Kahneman (2012) calls “slow” and “fast” thinking respectively....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that high involvement leads message recipients to employ a systematic information processing strategy in which message-based cognitions mediate persuasion, whereas low involvement leads recipients to use a heuristic processing strategy, in which simple decision rules mediate persuading.
Abstract: In Experiment 1, subjects read a persuasive message from a likable or unlikable communicator who presented six or two arguments concerning one of two topics. High response involvement subjects anticipated discussing the message topic at a future experimental session, whereas low involvement subjects anticipated discussing a different topic. For high involvement subjects, opinion change was significantly greater given six arguments but was unaffected by communicator likability. For low involvement subjects, opinion change was significantly greater given a likable communicator but was unaffected by the arguments manipulation. In Experiment 2, high issue involvement subjects showed slightly greater opinion change when exposed to five arguments from an unlikable (vs. one argument from a likable) communicator, whereas low involvement subjects exhibited significantly greater persuasion in response to one argument from a likable (vs. five arguments from an unlikable) communicator. These findings support the idea that high involvement leads message recipients to employ a systematic information processing strategy in which message-based cognitions mediate persuasion, whereas low involvement leads recipients to use a heuristic processing strategy in which simple decision rules mediate persuasion. Support was also obtained for the hypothesis that content-mediated (vs. source-mediated) opinion change would shower greater persistence.

4,603 citations


"Online travel reviews as persuasive..." refers background or methods or result in this paper

  • ...…with the information, careful attention, analysis and reasoning; and heuristic processing, which is less demanding and more efficient, using salient and easily comprehended cues to activate judgment shortcuts or everyday decision rules called heuristics (Chaiken, 1980; Chaiken & Ledgerwood, 2012)....

    [...]

  • ...The results of our experiment are largely consistent with attitude formation and persuasion theory (Ajzen, 2001; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981), and confirm some previous empirical findings (Brinol & Petty, 2009; Chaiken, 1980; Dickinger, 2011; Park et al., 2007; Wathen & Burkell, 2002)....

    [...]

  • ...This heuristicsystematic model proposes two distinct modes of information processing: systematic processing, which involves deep levels of engagement with the information, careful attention, analysis and reasoning; and heuristic processing, which is less demanding and more efficient, using salient and easily comprehended cues to activate judgment shortcuts or everyday decision rules called heuristics (Chaiken, 1980; Chaiken & Ledgerwood, 2012)....

    [...]

  • ...A plausible argument is that consumers are likely to invoke heuristic information processing (Chaiken, 1980; Chaiken & Ledgerwood, 2012) when scanning the information available on a website, including eco-logos and labels....

    [...]

  • ...Using an attitudinal model (Ajzen, 2001; Chaiken,1980; Chaiken & Ledgerwood, 2012; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981), we test how three characteristics of online postings influence four antecedent beliefs and how these beliefs drive attitudes and affect purchase intentions....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The nature of perceived behavioral control, the relative importance of attitudes and subjective norms, the utility of adding more predictors, and the roles of prior behavior and habit are highlighted.
Abstract: This survey of attitude theory and research published between 1996 and 1999 covers the conceptualization of attitude, attitude formation and activation, attitude structure and function, and the attitude-behavior relation. Research regarding the expectancy-value model of attitude is considered, as are the roles of accessible beliefs and affective versus cognitive processes in the formation of attitudes. The survey reviews research on attitude strength and its antecedents and consequences, and covers progress made on the assessment of attitudinal ambivalence and its effects. Also considered is research on automatic attitude activation, attitude functions, and the relation of attitudes to broader values. A large number of studies dealt with the relation between attitudes and behavior. Research revealing additional moderators of this relation is reviewed, as are theory and research on the link between intentions and actions. Most work in this context was devoted to issues raised by the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior. The present review highlights the nature of perceived behavioral control, the relative importance of attitudes and subjective norms, the utility of adding more predictors, and the roles of prior behavior and habit.

3,813 citations


"Online travel reviews as persuasive..." refers background or methods or result in this paper

  • ...The underlying model holds that behaviors are influenced by attitudes (Ajzen, 2001), attitudes by beliefs (Ajzen, 2001), and beliefs by information received through both core and peripheral channels (Bickart & Schindler, 2001; Dickinger, 2011; Kardes, Posavac, Cronley, & Herr, 2008; Sichtmann, 2007; Wathen & Burkell, 2002; Wilson & Sherrell, 1993), modified by prior experience (Kim, Ferrin, & Rao, 2008; Wang, Beatty, & Foxx, 2004; Yoon, 2002)....

    [...]

  • ...The underlying model holds that behaviors are influenced by attitudes (Ajzen, 2001), attitudes by beliefs (Ajzen, 2001), and beliefs by information received through both core and peripheral channels (Bickart & Schindler, 2001; Dickinger, 2011; Kardes, Posavac, Cronley, & Herr, 2008; Sichtmann,…...

    [...]

  • ...The results of our experiment are largely consistent with attitude formation and persuasion theory (Ajzen, 2001; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981), and confirm some previous empirical findings (Brinol & Petty, 2009; Chaiken, 1980; Dickinger, 2011; Park et al., 2007; Wathen & Burkell, 2002)....

    [...]

  • ...The current research design is founded on well-tested theories (Ajzen, 2001; Ajzen & Fishbein, 2000; Brinol & Petty, 2009; Eaton, Majka, & Visser, 2009; Fishbein, 1963; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975)....

    [...]

  • ...The results of our experiment are largely consistent with attitude formation and persuasion theory (Ajzen, 2001; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981), and confirm some previous empirical findings (Brinol & Petty, 2009; Chaiken, 1980; Dickinger, 2011; Park et al....

    [...]

Frequently Asked Questions (9)
Q1. What are the contributions in "Online travel reviews as persuasive communication: the effects of content type, source and certification logos on consumer behavior author" ?

In this paper, the authors compared tourists ' posts to managers ' posts, containing vague versus specific content, and with or without peripheral certification logos. 

While participants suggested that the simulated online review site was a reasonable reproduction of a real life social media site for an environmentally friendly resort, further studies involving different types of tourism resorts, including those without an environmental focus, would be useful to determine whether different contexts influence the effects of the antecedents on consumer attitudes and purchase intention in different ways. Whether consumers employ systematic or heuristic information processing when interpreting different aspects of website content or not may become more apparent through the collection of additional physiological evidence. Although the effects reported here were small, even small effects can be important for manipulations that are subtle, such as those used in this research ( Prentice and Miller, 1992 ). This argument may be particularly relevant in this study, in which heuristic information processing ( for example, quick decision making with the use of short cuts ) is likely to have been a significant process in respondents ’ formation of beliefs and subsequent attitudes, especially since respondents were not exposed repeatedly to the stimulus and had limited information available on which to make judgements. 

The analysis revealed a small but significant univariate main effect for content (F (1, 525) = 6.28, p =.012, η 2 = 0.01) (small effect) but no significant main effects for source or credibility cues. 

In addition, people tend to use other easily understood information as cues in the processing of information, and consistent with the heuristic information processing model, they may invoke simple if-then approaches when scanning the information available on a website. 

The source of the message (who wrote it) had some influence on customer perceptions and thus beliefs, with customer-generated content generally viewed more trustworthy than manager-generated content. 

Consumers are skeptical of any form of communication they perceive to be skewed toward the interests of the source of the information contained in that communication (Senecal & Nantel, 2004), and such skepticism is likely to be strongly associated with the issue of trust in the information as a direct result of trust in the source. 

In stage two of the analyses the authors used three-way factorial ANOVA to test the effects of the manipulated variables on the belief components of the model. 

Realism of stimulus materialResponses for three realism checks were also examined, with higher scores indicatingthat participants perceived the simulated website as more realistic and were more able to imagine using the site. 

Social media have evolved rapidly into a major opportunity and challenge for manybusinesses, especially in the hospitality and tourism sectors.