Impact of Online Reviews On Customer Purchase Decisions For Accommodations
Date: 31st May 2021Abstract
Online reviews have become very common all around the world to help customers make better decisions
on their purchases. A study by BrightLocal, shows almost 87% of customers have read online reviews
for local businesses in 2020.
This research looks in-depth into how online reviews influence customers’ purchase decisions. We
will also use this research to make recommendations to business owners on how they can have a
well-defined strategy to manage online reviews on various aggregator websites.
The business that we used for this study is The Malthouse, Aylesbury. As part of the primary
investigation, we asked the business owner a set of questions over email to understand their
perspective on how they handle online reviews.
We evaluated existing literature on online reviews and how online reviews affect the purchase
decision process for a customer.
As part of the primary research in this project, we surveyed 218 people to understand the
significance of online reviews in the accommodation sector, the factors that influence customers
when deciding to leave feedback or not and their views on solicitation of reviews by the business.
We also want to understand the value customers place on online reviews while making purchase
decisions and how negative and positive reviews affect their perception of a business. Secondary
motive of the survey was to gauge the impact of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic on customer behaviour
with respect to reading and writing online reviews.
Using the responses from the survey, we were able to gather insights into customer behaviour and
make recommendations for businesses.