IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v12y2022i2p50-d772108.html

What Factors Make Online Travel Reviews Credible? The Consumers’ Credibility Perception-CONCEPT Model

Author

Listed:
  • Tiziana Guzzo

    (Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies, National Research Council, 00185 Rome, Italy)

  • Fernando Ferri

    (Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies, National Research Council, 00185 Rome, Italy)

  • Patrizia Grifoni

    (Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies, National Research Council, 00185 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

Online reviews have become a fundamental element in searching for and buying a tourism service. In particular, in the phase of post-pandemic caused by the COVID-19, social media are important channels of inspiration of dreams and encouragement to begin envisioning future trips. However, the growing trend of fake reviews is becoming a big issue for consumers. This study proposes and empirically validates a new model that enables predicting consumers’ Credibility Perception of Online Reviews (CPOR) related to tourism, considering all integrated factors of the communication process. A survey was carried out via a structured questionnaire. In particular, 615 answers from Italian travel groups were collected, and correlation and regression analyses were conducted. Results show that the website brand, advisor’s expertise, reviews’ sidedness and consistency, and consumer experience are significant predictors of CPOR. Website usability and reputation are instead weak predictors. This study provides the design and test of a credibility model, contributing to the theoretical and empirical advancement of the literature and enhancing the knowledge on consumer behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Tiziana Guzzo & Fernando Ferri & Patrizia Grifoni, 2022. "What Factors Make Online Travel Reviews Credible? The Consumers’ Credibility Perception-CONCEPT Model," Societies, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-16, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:12:y:2022:i:2:p:50-:d:772108
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/12/2/50/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/12/2/50/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Filieri, Raffaele, 2016. "What makes an online consumer review trustworthy?," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 46-64.
    2. Rezaei, Sajad, 2015. "Segmenting consumer decision-making styles (CDMS) toward marketing practice: A partial least squares (PLS) path modeling approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 1-15.
    3. Hung, Kam & Law, Rob, 2011. "An overview of Internet-based surveys in hospitality and tourism journals," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 717-724.
    4. Sullivan, Yulia W. & Kim, Dan J., 2018. "Assessing the effects of consumers’ product evaluations and trust on repurchase intention in e-commerce environments," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 199-219.
    5. Hee Lye Park & Zheng Xiang & Bharath Josiam & Haejung Maria Kim, 2013. "Personal Profile Information as Cues of Credibility in Online Travel Reviews," Springer Books, in: Lorenzo Cantoni & Zheng (Phil) Xiang (ed.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2013, edition 127, pages 230-241, Springer.
    6. Soo Young Rieh, 2002. "Judgment of information quality and cognitive authority in the Web," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 53(2), pages 145-161.
    7. Patrizia Grifoni & Fernando Ferri & Tiziana Guzzo, 2017. "CREMOR: CREdibility Model on Online Reviews-How people Consider Online Reviews Believable," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(7), pages 56-66, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. K. Pooja & Pallavi Upadhyaya, 2024. "What makes an online review credible? A systematic review of the literature and future research directions," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 74(2), pages 627-659, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Harrison-Walker, L. Jean & Jiang, Ying, 2023. "Suspicion of online product reviews as fake: Cues and consequences," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    2. Onofrei, George & Filieri, Raffaele & Kennedy, Lorraine, 2022. "Social media interactions, purchase intention, and behavioural engagement: The mediating role of source and content factors," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 100-112.
    3. Ben Mimoun, Mohammed Slim & Poncin, Ingrid, 2015. "A valued agent: How ECAs affect website customers' satisfaction and behaviors," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 70-82.
    4. Sabakun Naher Shetu, 2025. "Determinants of generation Z consumers’ mobile online shopping apps continuance intention to use during COVID-19 and beyond—an empirical study," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 1-18, December.
    5. Shobhit Kakaria & Aline Simonetti & Enrique Bigne, 2024. "Interaction between extrinsic and intrinsic online review cues: perspectives from cue utilization theory," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 2469-2497, December.
    6. Rosillo-Díaz, Elena & Muñoz-Rosas, Juan Francisco & Blanco-Encomienda, Francisco Javier, 2024. "Impact of heuristic–systematic cues on the purchase intention of the electronic commerce consumer through the perception of product quality," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    7. Dongyu Chen & Chengchen Huang & De Liu & Fujun Lai, 2024. "The role of expertise in herding behaviors: evidence from a crowdfunding market," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 155-203, March.
    8. Cai, Ya-Jun & Lo, Chris K.Y., 2020. "Omni-channel management in the new retailing era: A systematic review and future research agenda," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    9. Affifa Sardar & Amir Manzoor & Khurram Adeel Shaikh & Liaqat Ali, 2021. "An Empirical Examination of the Impact of eWom Information on Young Consumers’ Online Purchase Intention: Mediating Role of eWom Information Adoption," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(4), pages 21582440211, October.
    10. Xu, Hui & Wu, Yang, 2024. "Do virtual endorsers have a country-of-origin effect? From the perspective of congruent explanations," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    11. Yeo, Vincent Cheow Sern & Goh, See-Kwong & Rezaei, Sajad, 2017. "Consumer experiences, attitude and behavioral intention toward online food delivery (OFD) services," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 150-162.
    12. Pooja Katyal & Reetika Sehgal, 2025. "Unraveling the impact of online consumer reviews on consumer buying behavior," International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, Springer;The Society for Reliability, Engineering Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM),India, and Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, vol. 16(1), pages 330-345, January.
    13. Maggioni, Isabella & Sands, Sean & Kachouie, Reza & Tsarenko, Yelena, 2019. "Shopping for well-being: The role of consumer decision-making styles," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 21-32.
    14. Wang, Zheng & Wang, Lun & Ji, Ying & Zuo, Lulu & Qu, Shaojian, 2022. "A novel data-driven weighted sentiment analysis based on information entropy for perceived satisfaction," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    15. Lee Yien Xing & Khaw Rou Ai & Uma Thevi Munikrishnan & Nurfaradilla Haron & Aeshah Mohd Ali & Nor Aziyatul Izni & Nur Ilyana Ismarau Tajuddin, 2025. "Generation Z: Factors Influencing Online Purchase Behaviour in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 9(3), pages 1701-1716, March.
    16. Yang, Song & Ding, Shiqing & D’Alessandro, Steven, 2018. "Are all Chinese shoppers the same? Evidence of differences in values, decision making and shopping motivations between the Han majority and other minorities in China," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 24-34.
    17. Ray, Arghya & Bala, Pradip Kumar & Rana, Nripendra P., 2021. "Exploring the drivers of customers’ brand attitudes of online travel agency services: A text-mining based approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 391-404.
    18. Pedro Campos & Eva Pinto & Ana Torres, 2025. "Rating and perceived helpfulness in a bipartite network of online product reviews," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 1607-1639, June.
    19. Hallak, Rob & Assaker, Guy & O’Connor, Peter & Lee, Craig, 2018. "Firm performance in the upscale restaurant sector: The effects of resilience, creative self-efficacy, innovation and industry experience," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 229-240.
    20. Yan Chen & Grace Jeon & Yong-Mi Kim, 2014. "A day without a search engine: an experimental study of online and offline searches," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(4), pages 512-536, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:12:y:2022:i:2:p:50-:d:772108. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.