Exploring the adoption and processing of online holiday reviews: A grounded theory approach

The proliferation and increasing significance of online reviews for all kinds of consumption decisions imply the need for a better understanding of their influence in the tourism context. Holiday selection neither happens in a vacuum, nor is it exclusively based on online holiday reviews. In order to gain a holistic and realistic understanding one needs to consider: the concurrent influence of other, more conventional, holiday content elements (e.g. photos, textual descriptions), as well as the relevant cognitive mechanisms for processing this kind of information. With the aid of a purposively developed navigation prototype, respondents were subjected to a variety of holiday representations. Surprisingly early in the research process the ensuing observation and questioning unveiled fairly consistent patterns of content processing and decision-making. This explorative-qualitative study suggests that online reviews play a secondary, complementary role to holiday selection and that they are subjected to a set of heuristics before being adopted and utilised.