A study on how online travel reviews affect tourists' planning decision? In the case of Tripadvisor website
Abstract
Ever more consumers read and share travel-related content online which has been
created and posted by their peers rather than by travel service providers. Understanding who
these consumers are, how they determine whether content is credible, and what motivates
them to post reviews is of great interest to providers of review Web sites as well as general
marketers
The main aim of this research is to gain the understanding of what are the main
purposes of tourists when using Tripadvisor website, when they use it and how online
travel reviews have influences on tourists’ planning decisions, the last one is
understanding which factors they based on to analyze a review. A profound
understanding will then lead to some useful commendations for improving Vietnamese
tourism as well as the quality of TripAdvisor website. Therefore this study raises five
main questions: (1) What are main purposes of tourists when using or accessing
Tripadvisor website? (2) Is trip planning behavior related to the use of OTR? (3) How do
OTE affect tourists in the process of planning leisure trips (before, during and after)? (4)
Which factors do tourists based on to evaluate a review? (5) How to overcome barriers
and motivate tourists to post an OTR?
The research process is started off with building a theoretical framework
including independent variables (factors) and researched dependent variable. It is then the
time for developing questionnaires and distributing them to the respondents. Data will be
collected from sources, questionnaire and qualitative approach. After that, data analysis
test is run and findings will come out for later conclusion and recommendations.
From the findings of the research, there are positive relation between Trip
planning behavior and the use of OTR as well as the relation between OTR and trip
planning decision.