The power of internet exposure: influence of online news coverage on restaurant survival

Abstract

PurposeFew studies on hospitality firm survival consider the impact of online media exposure. This paper aims to investigate how the online news coverage of restaurants, characterized in terms of the number of articles, channel (Web page or mobile app), topic (operations or products) and consistency (mix of news tones), influences their survival.Design/methodology/approachA yearly panel data set covering 682 news-reported restaurants in Shanghai, China, over the period 2011–2019 is analyzed using a Cox model, and an extended cross-sectional data set containing 9,488 restaurants is used for robustness checks.FindingsA larger number of online news articles, regardless of channel or topic, significantly improves restaurants’ chances of survival, and this positive impact of online exposure is greater if that news is published by mobile apps (rather than on Web pages) or reports topics related to operations (rather than products). Although, generally, news inconsistency is not good for restaurant survival, when the number of online news items is eight or more, inconsistency becomes good for survival.Practical implicationsThis research guides restaurant operators to use news exposure in an online marketing environment to increase the firm’s chances of long-term survival.Originality/valueOnline media exposure has hitherto been ignored in the literature on the survival of hospitality firms. This paper provides a new perspective on hospitality firm survival and also contributes to the literature on media exposure by conceptualizing a unique factor, namely, the consistent online exposure.