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.