How do visitors to online hotel reviews evaluate the competing positive and negative testimonials? It was an issue that Eunkyoo “Ellen” Kim, CSUF assistant professor of management, was determined to find out.
“I was interested to know how people process all of the competing reviews they read online,” says Kim, whose interest led to a co-authored article published in Vol. 6, Issue 2 of theJournal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology. “We found that consensus among reviews overrides the sequence in the minds of consumers.”
Kim conducted the study with Chung Hun Lee of Sejong University in Seoul, Korea.