The strategic management of online reviews in tourism, hospitality and leisure businesses: A conceptual framework

This pilot study develops a conceptual framework for the strategic management of online hotel reviews. Specifically, our enquiry sought to 1) Identify key stages of the conceptual framework relevant for the effective management of customer voice and decision-making; 2) Discuss effective ways of how Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure (THL) organisations can move along the various stages of the conceptual framework; 3) Incorporate THL organisational, infrastructure and data management dimensions in the conceptual framework.

Interviews with three organisations from the tourism, hospitality and leisure sector were conducted in order to advance our understanding of how the collection, management and synthesis of large volumes of disparate data currently facilitate and enhance the decision-making, benchmarking effort, and performance of THL enterprises.

Overall, our initial research has shown that THL enterprises are at different levels of social media awareness and management due to a variety of micro and macro-level circumstances. Internal factors such as organisational dependence and lack of knowledge and resources, as well as external factors such as the competitive situation seemed to influence the engagement with social media management.