Power of apologetic responses in online travel community

Abstract

Many prior studies confirmed the effectiveness of applying managerial response strategy on the performance of service providers. However, studies focusing on the effect of the specific types of managerial response remain limited. Thus, based on a longitudinal dataset, the present study uses a machine-learning method to identify the apologetic responses and investigates their effectiveness on hotels’ subsequent review volume. Results show that the proportion of reviews that received apologetic responses significantly improved the hotels’ future review volume. This positive effect is amplified if hotels previously have more expert reviews, more reviews from leisure customers, and higher overall ratings. Hotel managers can improve the effectiveness of apologetic response strategies by mostly targeting negative reviews and writing the response contends, including the information of explanation and commitment. The findings of this study can present implications to relevant literature and active hotel managers.