The Effects of Online Consumer Review to Online Hotel Booking Intentions: A Study in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Abstract

The aim of this research is to investigate the relationships among online hotel review, guest’s attitude referring to the behavior and online hotel booking intention in Ho Chi Minh City context. This study involved 268 participants (18 – 26 years old) who are young citizens in Ho Chi Minh City and have read online hotel review before. The proposed relationships and variables are tested by using SPSS and PROCESS software. As a consequence, this present paper witnesses that online hotel booking intention is influence by online review’s attributes: usefulness, credibility, valence and volume. Timeliness of online review, nonetheless, is found to have no weight in the relationship. Moreover, guest’s attitude and its mediating relationships do play a remarkable role in the framework, which used to be relatively overlooked. In practical, the present research implies that more attention to online reviews should be high on hotel manager’s agenda to reach a great number of potential customers. However, hoteliers should not try to manipulate these reviews to avoid the reversed effect.