TY - JOUR
T1 - Choosing between hotels
T2 - impact of bimodal rating summary statistics and maximizing behavioral tendency
AU - Coba, Ludovik
AU - Rook, Laurens
AU - Zanker, Markus
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Rating summary statistics are basic aggregations that reflect users’ assessments of experienced products and services in numerical form. Thus far, scholars primarily investigated textual reviews, but dedicated considerably less time and effort exploring the potential impact of plain rating summary statistics on people’s choice behavior. Notwithstanding their fundamental nature, however, rating summary statistics also are relevant to electronic commerce in general, and to e-tourism in particular. In this work, we attempted to fill this void, by exploring the effects of different types of rating attributes (the mean rating value, the overall number of ratings, and the bimodality of rating distributions) on hotel choice behavior. We also investigated whether individual differences in the cause of people’s maximizing behavioral tendency moderated the effect of rating summary statistics on hotel choice behavior. Results of an eye-tracked conjoint experiment show that people’s high or low on decision difficulty as the cause of maximization determined whether and how rating summary statistics have an impact on the choice between hotels. Implications for the tourism and hospitality domain are addressed.
AB - Rating summary statistics are basic aggregations that reflect users’ assessments of experienced products and services in numerical form. Thus far, scholars primarily investigated textual reviews, but dedicated considerably less time and effort exploring the potential impact of plain rating summary statistics on people’s choice behavior. Notwithstanding their fundamental nature, however, rating summary statistics also are relevant to electronic commerce in general, and to e-tourism in particular. In this work, we attempted to fill this void, by exploring the effects of different types of rating attributes (the mean rating value, the overall number of ratings, and the bimodality of rating distributions) on hotel choice behavior. We also investigated whether individual differences in the cause of people’s maximizing behavioral tendency moderated the effect of rating summary statistics on hotel choice behavior. Results of an eye-tracked conjoint experiment show that people’s high or low on decision difficulty as the cause of maximization determined whether and how rating summary statistics have an impact on the choice between hotels. Implications for the tourism and hospitality domain are addressed.
KW - Conjoint analysis
KW - e-Tourism
KW - eWOM
KW - Eye-tracking
KW - Maximization
KW - Rating summaries
KW - Recommender systems
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074750181&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s40558-019-00156-z
DO - 10.1007/s40558-019-00156-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074750181
SN - 1098-3058
VL - 22
SP - 167
EP - 186
JO - Information Technology and Tourism
JF - Information Technology and Tourism
IS - 1
ER -