IMPACT OF VALENCIA, APPEAL AND CLARITY OF ONLINE REVIEWS ON HOTEL PERFORMANCE: CASE STUDY FROM BRAZIL

This study aimed to analyze the effects of valence, appeal and clarity of online reviews on the performance (non-financial and financial) of hotels. Data were collected from primary sources, through a questionnaire in Brazilian hotels, and from secondary sources, through web scraping on the TripAdvisor digital platform. Transformers neural networks were used for multidimensional textual analysis of 89,290 online reviews and, subsequently, structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to investigate the relationships of the empirical model. The results show that the valence (sentiment of reviews and reputational rating) and clarity (detail and comprehensibility) of online reviews are positively associated with non-financial performance and that online reviews with emotional appeal are negatively associated with non-financial performance. It was also found that non-financial performance positively and significantly affects the financial performance of hotels.

Key-words:
online reviews; valence; appeal; clarity; financial performance; non-financial performance; hotels