Cornell Study Finds Increasing Balance in Online Hotel Reviews

The popular view of online hotel reviews is that many are unfairly negative, but a new study published in the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (CQ) finds that as more reviews are posted on a site, the overall tone becomes more balanced.

The study, "Online Customer Reviews of Hotels: As Participation Increases, Better Evaluation Is Obtained", by Santiago Melián-González, Jacques Bulchand-Gidumal, and Beatriz González López-Valcárcel, is the featured article in the August 2013 CQ.

The journal is published by Sage Publishing on behalf of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration.

The authors, who are all on the faculty at University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, analyzed a broad and varied sample of 16,680 hotels in 249 tourist areas.

They found that early reviews of a business do tend to be disproportionately negative. As the number of reviews increases, however, the reviews become more balanced, and the negative effect is mitigated.

Indeed, this study agrees with an earlier CQ article that found that positive comments overall are more common than negative reviews - although many reviews are extremely positive or negative.

Based on this study, the authors suggest that hoteliers should try to increase the number of reviews they receive to balance the positive and negative comments regarding their property, in addition to investigating and correcting the causes of negative comments.

Glass Ceiling

Also appearing in the August 2013 CQ is a new study by HVS Executive Search which questions the common view of the so-called glass ceiling.

Senior author Juliette Boone said the study reveals that personal choices are the greatest hindrance to women's advancement, although workplace barriers do exist. At the same time, both men and women placed family first in their personal priorities, with career coming in third.

Other articles in the August 2013 CQ include content analysis of the top 100 hotels' websites and a model for including customers in hotels' organizational citizenship activities.