Title: A comparative study of online review management in hospitality services

Authors: Run H. Niu; Ying Fan

Addresses: Business Department, Webster University, 470 East Lockwood Ave., St. Louis, Missouri, USA ' Department of Business Analysis, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, 1420 Bluffs Parkway, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Abstract: Managing online reviews has become an essential task for managers thanks to the profound impact of customer online reviews on hospitality services. Multinational hospitality services face mounting challenges of managing online reviews posted by domestic and international customers when operating and competing in different countries. Based on a comparative case study, this paper provides a comprehensive understanding of online review management practices in the hospitality industries in the USA and China. The study develops a conceptual framework for key online review management practices and identifies the similarities and differences of these key practices between the USA and China. The key practices set the groundwork for developing an integrated framework for evaluating online review management practices. The comparison provides guidelines for multinational companies to manage online review management practices in different countries when competing with other multinational or domestic companies.

Keywords: online reviews; online review management; service operations; comparative study; case study; hospitality services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2021.112513

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2021 Vol.38 No.1, pp.22 - 39

Received: 06 Jan 2018
Accepted: 02 Nov 2018
Published online: 20 Jan 2021 *

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