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Stars, Votes, and Badges: How Online Badges Affect Hotel Reviewers

  • Markus Schuckert*
  • , Xianwei Liu
  • , Rob Law
  • *Corresponding author for this work
  • Hong Kong Polytechnic University
  • School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

ABSTRACT: As online reviews, ratings, and helpful votes in e-commerce platforms become industry-centric, this study examines how virtual badges affect the online behavior of reviewers and readers based on status-seeking theory in an online environment. This study finds that online readers prefer reviews with low ratings to those with high ratings; however, reviewers with high-level badges tend to post moderate ratings and avoid extreme ratings. Casting doubt on the efficiency of current online incentive systems, user-generated content websites may establish a qualitative index to measure the quality of customer reviews from a long-term perspective to encourage reviewers to continue creating high-quality contents.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)440-452
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Travel and Tourism Marketing
Volume33
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 3 May 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Experience
  • motivation
  • online badges
  • reputation

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