Travel Review Websites as Information Resources Perceived by Consumers

Abstract

When it comes to tourism, consumer-oriented marketing lies parallel to other businesses. Apart from the old-fashioned and sometimes manipulative methods, such as travel agents' suggestions, the new savvy tourists opt to conduct their travel plans online with good reasons. Indeed, tourism and tourism products show highly intangible characteristics. Travel review websites (TRWs) are one of the most popular sources to overcome the characteristic of intangibility of the tourism industry. This study investigates the role of TRWs on purchase decision and their manipulating power on purchase behavior perceived by two independent sample groups-academicians and tourists. The results reveal that there are significant differences between the two groups' perceptions when the objectiveness and consistency of TRWs and factors of TRWs as resources and as manipulators are considered