Booking Decisions Have Lost Significance †Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Explain On Booking Decisions Have Lost Significance? Answer: Introducation As stated by Flanagin et al., (2014), star rating has created the situation where the consumer can review a product or service before they actually purchase it. The concept that one has to purchase and use a particular thing before they can actually review it has lost and all that matters is the review on the particular product. The influence of customer rating has increased to a large extent in the purchasing decision. The higher stars ratings lead to more orders while lower star ratings will lead decrease the orders for no doubt. The aim of this essay is to develop an argument on how important is the star rating when it comes to purchasing decision. The websites like the Tripadvisor.com has increased the influence of the star rating and made it almost mandatory for the consumers to go through the star ratings before they make their final purchasing decision. Originally created star ratings of hotels meant the level of luxury that the particular hotel provided. The Five Stars indicated the most luxurious hotel compared to the lower star ratings. This definitely indicates the quality of service and the expected experience of a person while staying in that hotel (Holleschovsky Constantinides, 2016). These ratings were determined by the professional experts dealing with hospitality and tourism activities or by the authorities of the hotel itself. However, the rating definition has changed and the consumers have got the authority to rate the hotels based on their individual experiences. If the reliability of the star rating as considered, Mudambi, Schuff and Zhang, (2014,) revealed that one cannot blindly trust on the ratings as showed in the Tripadvisor.com. because it has definitely failed many times in providing the actual information to the consumers. The reviews that are posted in the site are very subjective to the particular reviewer (Park Nicolau, 2015). It is full of refinements and portrays individual experiences that are sure to vary from one person to the other. In a personal blog, it has been found that a blogger faced problem in Istanbul when she was misguided by the five stars rating of a hotel that ultimately turned out to be a bad experience for her in reality (Theguardian.com, 2013). There are definitely many such cases when the consumers have been misguided and ultimately they had to suffer. When it comes to the ratings made by the consumers on a particular hotel, place, product or services, there are certain speculations made behind the reason of rating. As revealed by Flanagin et al., (2014), it has been evident that the products that have high ratings have higher reviews as well. The proposed idea behind this is that the particular product is genuinely good and any person who gets acquainted with that product tells something good about it. This automatically creates an image when any visitors of that particular site can easily be manipulated considering the higher rating of the particular hotel (Theguardian.com, 2013). On the other hand, low rating definitely lowers the expectation of the consumer and will definitely create a negative impact on the consumers. Every internet user has got the opportunity to show their contribution in rating a particular business or brand and at the same time to share their experience with others. The reviews can be speculative in nature and anyone can visit the website of a hotel and can make speculative comments over there that could hamper the image of the hotel without any doubt (Telegraph.co.uk, 2013). This is the reason that the marketing process has become very challenging for those who are in the Hotel business because checking these hotel booking sites is the primary thing that the consumers do in recent time. There have been many ways to increase the ratings of a particular business. As Google is the most used search engine, it has to perform certain responsibilities towards the misinterpretation of star ratings (Park Nicolau, 2015). Recently, Google has taken a step further where the consumers can get a glace of the organisations with five star ratings and so the concept, Get Your Five Stars noticed easily. This would automatically create a potential impact on the visitors of the particular site (Liu Park, 2015). However, there have been certain changes in determining the star ratings by Google, the search is easily optimised by the number of stars that the particular business has. However, in order to show that there is significant need of reviews as well. Unless, a particular business gets good numbers of reviews from the consumers, it will not be shown in the search history because a single five star rating cannot decide the good or bad of the particular business (Taylor Aday, 2016 ). This is a good step taken by the search giant because this way, the reviews can be considered authentic and the viewers can easily rely on the same. There is no doubt that the traditional rating system has changed and many hotels are using the medium of star rating at Tripadvisor as a means of promotion of their business. This has been successful as well because it is easier for the consumers to check the ratings and make decisions accordingly. Moreover, the reviews also portray personal opinion that one can relate with. This is the reason that the hotels are changing their marketing strategies and are focusing on showing their five stars rating over the hotel booking sites like TripAdvisor. By the end of the discussion, it has to be said that no checks are made on the reviews and this can seriously lead to misguide the viewers of the ratings. In order to improve the same, the marketing team of the hotels need to be active on the social networking sites and they need to clear out any kind of misinterpretation or speculations if made against their business. Apart from this, being active over the other social media like Facebook an d Twitter can also help the hotels to carry on their marketing and promotional activities in a better way. References: Flanagin, A. J., Metzger, M. J., Pure, R., Markov, A., Hartsell, E. (2014). Mitigating risk in ecommerce transactions: perceptions of information credibility and the role of user-generated ratings in product quality and purchase intention.Electronic Commerce Research,14(1), 1-23. Holleschovsky, N. I., Constantinides, E. (2016). Impact of online product reviews on purchasing decisions. Liu, Z., Park, S. (2015). What makes a useful online review? Implication for travel product websites.Tourism Management,47, 140-151. Mudambi, S. M., Schuff, D., Zhang, Z. (2014, January). Why aren't the stars aligned? An analysis of online review content and star ratings. InSystem Sciences (HICSS), 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on(pp. 3139-3147). IEEE. Park, S., Nicolau, J. L. (2015). Asymmetric effects of online consumer reviews.Annals of Tourism Research,50, 67-83. Taylor, D. C., Aday, J. B. (2016). Consumer generated restaurant ratings: A preliminary look at OpenTable. com.Journal of New Business Ideas and Trends,14(1), 14-23. Telegraph.co.uk (2013) Tripadvisor reviews: can we trust them? Retrieved from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hotels/8050127/Tripadvisor-reviews-can-we-trust-them.html [Accessed on: 10-8-2017] Theguardian.com (2013) TripAdvisor restaurant reviews: how much can you trust them? Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/jul/30/tripadvisor-restaurant-reviews-trust-travel [Accessed on: 10-8-2017]