IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rcitxx/v23y2020i10p1191-1204.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Self-selection and non-response biases in customers’ hotel ratings – a comparison of online and offline ratings

Author

Listed:
  • Ekaterina Smironva
  • Kiattipoom Kiatkawsin
  • Seul Ki Lee
  • Jinhoo Kim
  • Chung-Hun Lee

Abstract

User-generated hotel ratings have been found to be an important element in customers’ decision making. Nevertheless, most hotel ratings online show average ratings that are extremely positive. Thus, the question is raised of whether online ratings reflect objective evaluation of the reviewers. This study examines the distribution of online ratings and compares it the distribution of offline ratings. Online hotel score ratings reported on Booking.com were extracted and compared with offline rating scores from a field survey. Online and offline hotel ratings of eight hotels located in Seoul were collected. The ratings were compared using Welch’s t-test. Overall, both online and offline ratings for all eight hotels show generally positive distribution curves. The distribution curves exhibit shapes analogous to those considered to contain self-selection bias. The randomized offline ratings did not produce more moderate ratings as predicted. Thus, no indication of non-response bias was found. Practically, this study supports the notion that hotels listed on online travel agencies such as Booking.com may already have passed certain quality criteria, thereby providing competitive marketplaces for customers searching for hotels online.

Suggested Citation

  • Ekaterina Smironva & Kiattipoom Kiatkawsin & Seul Ki Lee & Jinhoo Kim & Chung-Hun Lee, 2020. "Self-selection and non-response biases in customers’ hotel ratings – a comparison of online and offline ratings," Current Issues in Tourism, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(10), pages 1191-1204, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rcitxx:v:23:y:2020:i:10:p:1191-1204
    DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2019.1599828
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13683500.2019.1599828
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13683500.2019.1599828?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lasika Madhawa Munasinghe & Terans Gunawardhana & Nishani Champika Wickramaarachchi & Ranthilaka Gedara Ariyawansa, 2023. "Peer-to-Peer Accommodation User Experience: Evidence From Sri Lanka," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rcitxx:v:23:y:2020:i:10:p:1191-1204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rcit .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.