Electronic word-of-mouth in the hospitality industry: a comparative study in top hotels

Academic researchers have demonstrated the increasing importance of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in recent decades as part of the technological development of the internet. The nature of the hospitality industry means that eWOM has much more influence in comparison with other market sectors. This study aims to analyse eWOM and its main impact in the context of the 150 top hotels and hotel groups included in the latest annual report 'Hotels 325'. The study has two main scopes. The first is the evaluation and justification of the increasing importance of eWOM in the hotel industry. The second is the comparative evaluation of the feedback received by customers using Tripadvisor, one of the most influential platforms, by categorising and quantifying the obtained results. A specific conceptual model including different hypotheses was created to support the main scopes. A regression correlation matrix (Pearson and Spearman) was also introduced to measure the relationship of the results. The conclusions show the overall result of the study and its limitations. The outcome of the research supports the implemented hypothesis and the linear relationship between the values.