Focus on Information Technology

Cornell Hospitality Quarterly

118
d Allen
CQXXXX10.1177/1938965512463118
Responding to Online Reviews: Problem 54(1) 64­–73
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DOI: 10.1177/1938965512463118
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Sun-Young Park1 and Jonathan P. Allen1

Abstract
Using online reviews in the co-creation of the service experience remains an attractive but elusive goal, based on case studies
of how four high-end hotels in the western United States respond to customers’ reviews posted on TripAdvisor. Chosen
specifically because they represent two divergent approaches for responding to reviews, the two sets of hotels provide a
springboard for further study of how hotels can interact with customers through social media. Two of the hotels regularly
responded publicly to guest comments, whereas the other two almost never posted answers to guest complaints—even
though they monitored and reacted to those complaints. A comparison of management styles from the two sets of hotels
was disparate in the following three areas: perceived accuracy of online reviews, internal communications style, and the
approach to using online reviews for management purposes. First, hotels that responded frequently considered posted
reviews to be an honest gauge of consumer sentiment, whereas nonresponders believed that reviews represented only
extremely positive or negative views. Second, frequent responders had a collaborative communication style that involved
regular meetings and consultations, whereas the infrequent responders (IRs) met only as needed. Some of the IRs also
typically relied on an external corporate manager to handle social media, whereas the frequent responders commonly
used internal staff. Finally, while all the hotels viewed posted comments as one mechanism to identify and solve customer
problems, only one hotel went beyond that to make customer reviews a part of a strategic approach to an ongoing
relationship.

Keywords
hotel online reviews, case study method, value co-creation, strategy

Online reviews have transformed consumer decision-
making in the hospitality industry (Litvin, Goldsmith, and
Pan 2008) by making information about “experience goods”
such as a hotel stay available to anyone on the internet. As
online reviews have increased in importance, research has
begun to reveal the importance of online reviews from a
consumer standpoint. Hospitality managers now face a new
question: Do I respond to online reviews, and if so, how?
Little can be found about online review responses in the
academic literature. Managers looking at online review
sites for examples will likely find, as we have, that hospi-
tality firms are using very different approaches to online
review response, even within the same brand families.
Some hotels or restaurants respond to every single review,
whereas other direct competitors rarely or never respond
online. Still others respond to every review for a short
period and then go silent again. Thus, we were motivated by
the practical challenge of hospitality managers deciding
when and how to respond online. Why do hotel managers
decide to respond (or not) in a certain way, and what major
issues affect their decisions?
In this paper, we report on our exploratory study of
online review responses in high-end hotels. Luxury and
upscale hotels are of particular interest, because they tradi-
tionally focus on highly individualized attention and face-
to-face interactions, which may be in contrast to online
communications. We have conducted four case studies of
luxury and upscale hotels in one Western city in the United
States. Two of our case-study hotels respond relatively fre-
quently to online reviews posted about their hotel, whereas
the other two respond rarely or never. By comparing across
cases, we examine the processes through which high-end
hotels manage online review responses, and the underlying
reasons for their choices. Through analyzing online response
patterns of all 34 four- and five-star hotels in this city, we
show that there is substantial diversity in practice. We also
present preliminary data on how often high-end hotels
respond to both positive and negative reviews. Our findings
can help hospitality managers make informed decisions
1
University of San Francisco, CA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Sun-Young Park, School of Management, University of San Francisco,
2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA
Email: sypark5@usfca.edu

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Park and Allen 65
about how to respond to online reviews, what choices they
have, and the major issues that should be taken into account.
Previous Research on Online
Reviews and Value Co-Creation
We have yet to find any major, peer-reviewed research on
firms’ online review responses. Accordingly, our review of
previous research focuses on two other relevant types of
studies—the literature on online reviews from the consumers’
perspective and the literature on value co-creation.
The literature on online reviews generally supports the
idea that online reviews have become an important and
powerful decision-making resource for consumers (e.g.,
Litvin, Goldsmith, and Pan 2008), especially through elec-
tronic word-of-mouth (e.g., Chen and Xie 2008). Studies
have reported that consumer perceptions and behavior are
significantly affected by online review content, although
the effect can depend on the type, purpose, and volume of
reviews.
For example, Vermeulen and Seegers (2009) found in an
experiment that consumers’ mere exposure to hotel online
reviews (positive or negative) increased the probability that
they would include those hotels in their choice set for
decision-making consideration. In a study of the largest
Chinese travel website, Ye, Law, and Gu (2008) found a
positive association between average review ratings and
hotel room sales. In contrast, when it came to books, lower
rating reviews were found to influence book sales more
than the higher ones on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.
com in a study by Chevalier and Mayzlin (2006), who fur-
ther concluded that consumers’ decisions may be influenced
more by review contents than the rating statistics.
In this sense, online reviews may play a more important
role in information-sharing among consumers for aware-
ness purposes rather than directly influencing purchase
decisions (e.g., Duan, Gu, and Whinston 2008; Luca 2011;
Vermeulen and Seegers 2009). An example of the impor-
tance of content over rating was found by Duan, Gu, and
Whinston (2008), where the volume but not the rating of
online reviews influenced movie sales. These authors con-
cluded that online reviews act as word-of-mouth informa-
tion among consumers for better awareness about movies,
not as a persuasive decision-changer that influences movie
box-office revenues. Similarly, Vermeulen and Seegers
(2009) showed the stronger awareness effect of online
reviews (regardless of reviewer expertise) for lesser-known
hotels. The impact of online review responses by service
providers, however, remains unexplored.
Zhu and Zhang (2010) also found an informational
impact of online reviews on sales for less popular online
games, for which “alternative means of information acqui-
sition are relatively scarce” (p. 143). In the context of hotels,
this may imply that online reviews play an important role in
consumer decision-making.
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The effects of online reviews on consumers’ perceptions
of firms and offerings, and decision-making suggest that
consumers are not passive receivers of value created by
hotels but are active participants in co-creating value that
matters to them by contributing their own reviews.
Consumers, individually or collectively, provide “autono-
mous co-creation” of contents (i.e., voluntarily posting
online reviews), which constitutes “the value of many web-
sites” (Zwass 2010, p. 12). As defined by Prahalad and
Ramaswamy (2004), “Co-creation is about joint creation of
value by the company and the customer. It is not the firm
trying to please the customer” by “deciding . . . what is of
value to the customer” (p. 8).
The traditional views of value creation in the marketing,
management, and strategy literature are shifting yet con-
verging toward value co-creation (Normann and Ramírez
1993; Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004; Ramaswamy and
Gouillart 2010; Vargo and Lusch 2008), or similarly, shared
value (Porter and Kramer 2006, 2011). Normann and
Ramírez (1993) argued that the value-chain perspective is
no longer valid or effective for business innovation and
strategy and called for the “value constellation” perspective
in which the firm needs to deepen the understanding about
the ways customers utilize the firm’s offerings in leverag-
ing their own value creation.
Similarly, Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) and
Ramaswamy and Gouillart (2010) emphasized the need for
engaging all stakeholders in identifying and creating value
together by focusing on the interactions among them. In this
process, they argued, new ideas can be generated, which
enhances experiences and benefits for all parties, and the
firm can foster competitive advantage from the continual
engagement. Customers can also be innovators who create
new offering ideas, which firms have commercialized (von
Hippel 1976, 1986). Porter and Kramer (2006, 2011) also
discussed the notion of “shared value” whereby firms create
economic value by resolving societal needs instead of mak-
ing trade-off decisions between profit-making and social
contributions. Thus, the firm’s “goal is not to create value
for customers but to mobilize them to create their own value
from the company’s various offerings” (Normann and
Ramírez 1993, 69).
As Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) put it, “companies
can no longer . . . craft marketing messages, and control
sales channels with little or no interference from custom-
ers” (p. 5), because customers want to, can, and do exercise
their influence in interactions to create their own value, uti-
lizing what is offered in the market. In the context of hotels,
Shaw, Bailey, and Williams (2011) found that co-creation
provides a useful framework for understanding how cus-
tomers are involving themselves with new product develop-
ment and marketing.
In this study, we treat the management of online
reviews—how hotel managers respond, and why—as an
important example of how service providers might co-create
66 Cornell Hospitality Quarterly 54(1)
value with consumers and other stakeholders in practice.
The co-creation literature, with its focus on high-level stra-
tegic transformations in marketing, gives little guidance
regarding how firms should engage in value co-creation.
Based on the lack of research on firms’ responses to online
reviews, we posed our exploratory research questions as
follows:
Research Question 1: How are hotel executives
handling online reviews? Do they respond to all
reviews or only to positive (or negative) reviews?
Do they have any policies or processes in place?
Research Question 2: How are hotel brands different
or similar in their approaches to managing online
reviews?
Research Question 3: Why do hotel executives choose
a certain approach to managing online reviews?
Research Design
For this exploratory research, we used a comparative case-
study design, primarily for theory building rather than the-
ory testing (e.g., Eisenhardt 1989; Eisenhardt and Graebner
2007). Theory building from case studies is a research
strategy that creates theoretical constructs based on case
studies—rich, empirical descriptions of particular instances
of a phenomenon based on a variety of data sources (Yin
2009). Theory building starts with phenomenon-driven
research questions, using a process of “recursive cycling”
(Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007) among case data, emerg-
ing theory, and, at the end of the study, existing literature.
The theory-building approach is most appropriate when the
research questions are critical for organizations, and exist-
ing literature either does not address a research question, or
does so in implausible ways (Eisenhardt and Graebner
2007). An exploratory, cross-case design can address ques-
tions of “how” and “why” by examining management
practice in a real-life context (Myers 2009).
Although many research designs use a single case, a
multiple-case study with cross-case analysis typically pro-
vides a stronger base for theory building (Eisenhardt and
Graebner 2007). We chose to focus on upscale and luxury
hotels in one western U.S. city. High-end hotels from major
international brands were chosen as examples where online
reviews and responses would both have a high potential for
enhancing brand reputation but also face real challenges
about how to engage with customers in a traditionally dis-
creet segment of an industry largely based on face-to-face
interactions. Four hotels were included in our study as com-
parative cases: two hotels considered luxury (i.e., four-star
level on the Forbes/Mobil scale; five bullets on TripAdvisor)
and two hotels considered upscale (i.e., three-star level on
the Forbes/Mobil scale; four bullets on TripAdvisor). In
a theory-building study, cases are chosen on the basis of
theoretical sampling, meaning that they have the most
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potential to reflect important theoretical differences, unusual
phenomena, and for illuminating the relationships between
constructs (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007). The extent to
which hotels respond to online reviews is the most basic
dimension along which our cases could vary, so we selected
two hotels that respond to online reviews relatively fre-
quently (the regular responders [RRs] in Exhibit 2) and two
hotels that respond either infrequently or never, reflecting
the “polar type” strategy of sampling at opposite ends of a
dimension. The other main dimension in our 2 × 2 cross-
case design was a variation between upscale (four star) and
luxury (five star) hotels, with the assumption that different
levels of hotel quality might face varying reputational, mar-
keting, and managerial challenges. An important mecha-
nism for improving case-study quality is to use multiple
sources of data (Yin 2009). For each case, we triangulated
three kinds of data: in-depth interviews with the managers
responsible for online review responses; the hotel’s
responses to online reviews on TripAdvisor; and the hotel’s
official policies or brand strategy documents. Seven in-
depth interviews with general managers and the managers
responsible for the online review process (e.g., directors of
marketing) were conducted in October and November 2011.
Each interview lasted at least 60 minutes, and all but one (at
the request of the respondent) were recorded and profes-
sionally transcribed. Our single source of online review
response data was TripAdvisor, because of the site’s impor-
tance for the hotel industry (e.g., Jeacle and Carter 2011),
and because it was mentioned in all four cases as by far the
most important hotel review site. Online reviews and
responses for the year between October 1, 2010, and
September 30, 2011, were downloaded from the TripAdvisor
site for analysis. Comparisons of stated review policies
from interviews and policy documents with the online data
on actual responses were particularly important.
For the in-depth interview design and analysis, we used
a grounded theory approach (Strauss 1987; Strauss and
Corbin 1990) that is consistent with a theory-building,
cross-case comparison design (Eisenhardt 1989). We asked
relatively open-ended questions about how the hotel han-
dled online reviews, why the hotel handled online reviews
in the way it did, and their perceptions of how online
reviews are affecting hotel strategy now and in the future.
Concept generation took place through a process of open
coding where each researcher performed a careful, line-by-
line reading of the transcripts, using codes that reflected the
actual language of the respondents as much as possible.
Particular attention was paid to codes that reflect conditions
of behavior, interactions among actors, strategies and tac-
tics of actors, and consequences of actions (Strauss 1987).
Over time, we selected a primary or core category of
interest, focused on the coding, and searched data system-
atically for codes that relate to the core category. Thus, we
followed an iterative process of coding, writing data analy-
sis memos, and collecting more data. The product was an
Park and Allen 67

Exhibit 1: Exhibit 2:
Response Rates to Online Reviews for All Four- Response Patterns to Online Reviews by the Four Case-
and Five-Star Hotels in the City, October 2010 to Study Hotels, October 2010 to September 2011
September 2011
Upscale (Four Star) Luxury (Five Star)
Response Response
Rate to Rate to Regular Upscale Regular (UR) Luxury Regular (LR)
Response Positive Negative responder
Reviews Rate (%) Reviews (%) Reviews (%)     19.4% response rate   13% response rate
    16.4% positive   12.7% positive
Median 162 18.02 17.95 41.28 responses responses
First quartile 83.2 3.75 0.20 6.77     45.8% negative   33.3% negative
Third quartile 211.8 42.47 37.61 54.30 responses responses
Infrequent Upscale Infrequent (UI) Luxury Infrequent (LI)
responder
account that provides a new set of concepts consistent with     0% response rate   3.2% response rate
the interview data, in keeping with the goal of including not     0% positive   0% positive
only the new theoretical concepts but also an account of the responses responses
dynamics, or the underlying reasons why the new theoreti-     0% negative   33.3% negative
responses responses
cal connections make sense (e.g., Eisenhardt and Graebner
2007). Following these procedures, we present the results
of overall, within-case, and cross-cases analyses.
criticized hotels do respond more often. We examined
brands by looking at the response rates across hotels in the
How Are Hotels Responding to same brand. For one brand (with five hotels), response rates
Online Reviews? ranged from 5.5 to 54 percent. Another brand’s three hotels
To put the four case-study hotels in their appropriate con- had response rates ranging from 0 to 64.9 percent. For the
text, we begin by looking at their overall pattern of review two brands with two hotels each, one hotel responded 44.2
responses. During the time of the study, the 34 four- and percent of the time, and its sibling just 16.7 percent. For the
five-star hotels listed by TripAdvisor offered 16,860 beds. other brand, the difference was more pronounced, with one
A total of 5,639 reviews posted on TripAdvisor during the hotel at 35.7 percent and the other at zero (0.9%). Thus,
year addressed these hotels. We judged that 4,148 were we argue that there is no standard way of responding to
“positive” reviews with a rating of 4 or 5 on a five-point online reviews even among hotels within the same brand.
scale, and 473 were “negative” or given a rating of 1 or 2 For the four case-study hotels, Exhibit 2 shows their
on a five-point scale. response patterns to online reviews on TripAdvisor during
Exhibit 1 shows the response rates for all thirty-four the study period. Two of our cases can be classified as RRs
hotels. The median hotel had a little more than three online to online reviews, in the sense that their response rate is
reviews posted on TripAdvisor per week and responded to similar to the 18-percent median for all thirty-four hotels
about 18 percent of those reviews. This same median hotel (19.4% and 13%), and reflect the pattern of responding to
had about ten negative reviews per year but responded to negative reviews at a higher rate than positive reviews. The
more than 41 percent of those. other two cases can be classified as infrequent responders
We found no pattern in how the thirty-four hotels responded (IRs), with their essentially zero response rates to online
to online reviews. Seven of the thirty-four hotels responded to reviews. As a result, understanding the differences between
absolutely no reviews, whereas one hotel responded to nearly RRs and IRs became a major objective of our study.
all of them. While the data in Exhibit 1 suggest that most These findings also give hotel managers an idea of what
hotels responded more frequently to negative than positive high and low response rates look like. Accordingly, we sug-
reviews, fifteen of the thirty-four hotels responded to positive gest that hotel managers should think about their own targeted
reviews at an equal or higher rate. Therefore, we argue that online review response pattern, answering the questions,
upscale and luxury hotels as a class do not yet have a standard “What would we like our overall response rate to be?” and
way of responding to online reviews. “Would we like to position our hotel as a regular responder?
Looking at factors such as hotel size, quality ranking on Or are we comfortable responding somewhat less?”
TripAdvisor, and brand, we again found little correlation
between the size of the hotel, as measured by the number of
beds, and the hotel’s response rate to online reviews Four Cases of Online
(R2 = .055). We did find some correlation between a Review Responses
lower-quality ranking on TripAdvisor and a higher rate of Theory-building research from case studies normally begins
online review response (R2 = .224), indicating that more with an in-depth within-case analysis of the phenomenon in

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68 Cornell Hospitality Quarterly 54(1)
each of the case studies (Eisenhardt 1989). We present a
brief summary of the within-case analysis in this section,
introducing each of the high-end hotels in our sample, and
their overall approach to online review responses.
Upscale Regular (UR) Responder
The UR case is an average-size four-star hotel of nearly 600
rooms, with an emphasis on meetings and events. Part of an
established international brand, UR is in a prime tourist and
business location in our study city. UR has a slightly higher
number of online reviews per year (227) than average. As
we said, the hotel responds to both positive and negative
reviews at about the median rate for four- and five-star
hotels in the city.
At the time of our study, UR had been systematically
responding to online reviews for four years, although the
chain recently changed to having employees at most indi-
vidual hotels responsible for responding to reviews online,
rather than employees at the corporate headquarters. UR
had an explicit social media strategy calling for engagement
with customers online. Companies that do not engage
online, according to their official policy, are at a competi-
tive disadvantage. Unique to our four cases, managers at
UR had a specific target percentage for online review
responses and could cite that figure during interviews.
This hotel employs a dedicated online marketing man-
ager who responds to reviews and who is also responsible
for internet marketing and analytics. The online marketing
manager utilizes online monitoring tools to track reviews,
and is given executive-level guidelines, with the discretion
to involve the director of sales and marketing, and the hotel
general manager whenever necessary. The general manager
feels comfortable with the online marketing manager as his
“voice” but admits only half-jokingly, “I still don’t know
what [the online marketing manager] does.”
In terms of response strategy, the working assumption
at UR is that “we focus on the extreme reviews,” both posi-
tive and negative. A term used often at this hotel in the
context of online reviews is “engagement.” While negative
reviews were to be handled seriously, there is a role for
monitoring and engaging with enthusiastic reviews. “Even
if it’s a positive response . . . we’ll try to selectively say
‘thank you so much for giving feedback’ and say some-
thing to those guests just to engage them in more of an
ongoing relationship,” according to UR’s director of sales
and marketing.
Luxury Regular (LR) Responder
The LR case is part of a newer five-star luxury hotel brand.
This hotel is about half the average size of a high-end hotel
in the city with about 250 rooms. The hotel receives fewer
reviews per year (76) than average but responds to both
positive and negative reviews at about the median rate.
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Two years before the case study, LR ’s general manager
assigned a newly hired sales and marketing coordinator to
respond to online reviews. Over time, online reviews have
become a larger part of this person’s job, which includes
responding to service issues (e.g., immediately resolving
problems on site) on micro-blogging services such as
Twitter.
LR does not have a specific percentage target for the
number of online review responses but has a goal of being
“proactively responsive to all of our reviews” and respond-
ing to all negative reviews. According to the sales and mar-
keting coordinator, if something goes wrong with the
service, “we’d rather be transparent about making a mistake
on that one occasion than look as though we’re trying to
conclude we’re right.” The sales and marketing coordinator
usually monitors online reviews (using online monitoring
tools), and passes relevant reviews to the hotel’s general
manager. Then, the general manager writes the actual
response, and the sales and marketing coordinator posts the
responses online. The sales and marketing coordinator also
looks for patterns in the online reviews, but LR does not
have a specific procedure for reporting and discussing
reviews. At LR, social media in general is seen as an impor-
tant mechanism for promoting their brand in the face of
more established competition.
Upscale Infrequent (UI) Responder
The UI case is part of a well-known four-star brand.
Located downtown, this hotel is slightly smaller than aver-
age with around 350 rooms. UI receives a higher number of
reviews per year (269) than the average four- and five-star
hotel in this city. This hotel did not respond to a single
online review during the entire year of our study.
Reviews for the hotel are managed by a specialist at cor-
porate headquarters who is responsible for up to ten hotels.
Some hotels in this chain have employees that respond to
online reviews on site, but the majority are managed cen-
trally. The online review specialist sends weekly reports
summarizing online review content and trends to general
managers, sales directors, and operations directors at the
individual hotels. The online review specialist responsible
for UI described their brand as taking a “conservative
approach” to online review responses. Initially, this chain
had a policy of responding to every online review, but accord-
ing to the specialist, there were concerns that responding to
every review would appear “inauthentic.” Other hotel brands
have “hipper images . . . . We are probably more conservative
in our responses . . . you may as well be who you are online
as well . . . If we’re coming in there with this slang and trying
to sound different and you show up at the hotel and the voice
doesn’t match the property at all, it is strange.”
The overall approach to online review responses at UI is
to focus on coping with service issues as efficiently as pos-
sible. As explained by their online review specialist, “we
Park and Allen 69
just want to make sure first and foremost that the issues are
corrected . . . Don’t fix it if it isn’t broke.”
Luxury Infrequent (LI) Responder
The LI case is part of an established international luxury
brand. Located downtown, it is one of the smallest high-end
hotels in the city, with around 150 rooms. LI receives far
fewer online reviews than average (sixty-two per year).
This hotel never responded to positive reviews during the
year our study analyzed and responded to only a couple of
negative reviews (3.2% response rate).
LI began paying attention to online reviews three years
before the start of the study, particularly focusing on the
sites TripAdvisor and Yelp. The hotel’s general manager
and director of sales and marketing both use an online
monitoring tool to track online reviews. The LI’s general
manager pays close attention to the ranking provided by
an online monitoring service, comparing a numeric score
for the hotel’s “brand engagement” with a competitor set.
In addition, LI has an internal social media team, which
was formed around the time of our interviews, responsible
for posts to social networking sites such as Facebook and
Twitter, but all responses to online reviews come directly
from the hotel’s general manager. Demonstrating that
comments are taken seriously by providing responses
from the general manager and maintaining control over
brand presentation are the main philosophies of their
approach to online review responses. As explained by the
general manager, “it’s a control thing for me . . . we want
to make sure the brand around is done the right way, the
correct way.” Having the general manager personally
involved ensures that “the people that are looking see that
we treat it seriously and that it’s important to us.” LI has a
specific goal for the number of posts to social media sites,
but does not have a specific goal for online review
responses.
RRs versus IRs to Online Reviews
Our cross-case analysis focused on understanding the dis-
tinctions between RRs and IRs to online reviews. Why do
hotel managers respond to online reviews at their particular
frequency? How are the processes and decisions of RRs
different from those of IRs? We present three characteris-
tics that differentiated RRs and IRs, connected with the
accuracy of the reviews, their internal connection style, and
their overall approach to online reviews.
Perceived Accuracy of Online Reviews
We found that RRs perceived the accuracy of online com-
ments differently from IRs. RRs stated that online reviews
accurately reflect actual incidents, as one of the RRs
expressed,
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I think [the validity of online reviews] is relatively
strong and weighted toward decision-making of the
consumer. I do believe that they pay attention to it.
They make decisions. And I will often ask guests in
our hotels, “Why are you here?” [The guest responds],
“Well, I love the hotel and I checked on TripAdvisor,
and it says X, Y, and Z’ed . . . I wanted to see that or
I wanted to experience that.” So it is a means for the
consumer to make decisions on his or her hotel or
resort or destination. (Hotelier A, November 3, 2011)
In contrast, IRs reported that online reviews represent
extreme perspectives, negative or positive, or that the accu-
racy is difficult to judge or unknown. As one manager
described this view
TripAdvisor really came on the scene . . . five years
ago for me . . . somebody goes up there to rant. It was
the extremes. To me, it’s just like our comment cards.
It’s public, so you get more of the extreme, the people
who really love you and the people who really did not
have a good experience. (Hotelier B, October 5, 2011)
Differences in perceptions of accuracy were related in these
cases to differences in professional background. The managers
responsible for online review responses in the RR hotels tended
to have a background in data analytics, online marketing, and
hotel administration, whereas those responsible in the Irregular
Responder cases had backgrounds in journalism or public rela-
tions and restaurants. One source of this difference that the
interviewees cited is that there is not yet a standard job descrip-
tion for online review responder. Thus, general managers have
the flexibility to choose the type of professional who will man-
age the response process. Our findings suggest that the profes-
sional background of the person in charge of online reviews
can shape how she or he sees the accuracy of online review
comments, together with their response to those comments.
Internal Communications Style
The second characteristic that differentiated RRs and IRs
were the hotels’ styles of internal communication and how
online review information was used in operations and man-
agement. The difference was most apparent for the two
upscale (four-star) hotels. The internal communication style
at the UR was generally collaborative. Managers reported
holding regular and frequent meetings, discussions, and
group-brainstorming sessions as issues arose. One manager
at UR described this situation as,
[as soon as any review that needs attention comes
up], we pow wow immediately . . . and then, we also
discuss it at official meetings . . . we figure out what
and who needs to be involved in each [review].
(Hotelier C, October 12, 2011)
70 Cornell Hospitality Quarterly 54(1)
Exhibit 3:
Approaches to Utilizing Online Reviews
Managers expressed a sense of empowerment to make deci-
sions at their own discretion and that they had the trust of
upper management.
The internal communication style of UI was neither as
collaborative nor as systematic. Managers at UI do not hold
regular meetings about online review issues. This is the
hotel with an off-site specialist who is in charge of online
reviews for multiple properties and who either leaves them
to take care of themselves, similar to a situation “don’t fix it
if it isn’t broke” (Hotelier D, November 16, 2011), or “gen-
erates weekly reports to the general managers, directors of
sales, and the operations directors of the hotels” (Hotelier
D, November 16, 2011). Whenever the specialist thinks a
discussion is necessary with a particular hotel property,
they would arrange it. This UI interviewee explained that
the rationale for isolating the responsibility is to have a con-
sistent brand voice, expressed as,
I write for eight or ten hotels . . . we just try to make
sure that the actual content and tone is proper but as
far as what to write, I write it and if it sounds good to
me I post it.
The internal communication styles of the two luxury (five
star) hotels can be characterized as top-down. The online
review responses are controlled to a much greater extent by
upper management, as described by one manager, the one
who prefers more structural control to make sure that brand
activities are “done the right way, the correct way” (Hotelier
B, October 5, 2011). Although managers may discuss online
reviews in their regular and occasional meetings, the prop-
erty’s general manager creates and approves most responses.
Approaches to Utilizing Online Reviews
Associated with the internal communication styles are the
ways in which hotel management uses information from the
online reviews. We identified two distinct but not mutually
exclusive approaches to utilizing online review informa-
tion. We call these two approaches the problem-solving
approach and the strategic approach (Exhibit 3).
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Problem solving. All four hotels that we studied used the
problem-solving approach, which sees online reviews as a
mechanism for resolving customer complaints as quickly,
efficiently, and discreetly as possible. The problem-solving
approach sees online reviews as another, inescapable chan-
nel for dealing with guest complaints, as expressed by
two comments from the high-control manager: “[Online
reviews] are necessary evil” (Hotelier B, October 5, 2011;
Hotelier E, October 12, 2011) and “[We] handle [online
reviews] like we handle any other complaint . . . treat them
the same” (Hotelier B, October 5, 2011).
The goal is to manage the hotel’s reputation by allowing
guests to vent their frustration, which one manager described
as, “My goal [as a person who manages online reviews], is
to portray the best [image] to the public” (Hotelier C,
October 12, 2011). Another goal is to show that corrective
actions are being taken: “My objective is to resolve [any
problems] at once . . . it’s all about recovery” (Hotelier A,
November 3, 2011).
Strategic approach. The strategic approach uses online
review responses “to engage [guests and general public] in a
more ongoing relationship” (Hotelier C, October 12, 2011).
The strategic approach also uses online review information
to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness and, less
often, create innovative service offerings. The strategic
approach is more long-term and future-oriented, and closely
connects operations and management, as described by one
manager: “We use [online reviews] as means to improve the
service . . . [online reviews] influence the way we may mod-
ify the business and capital investment and how we run our
operation” (Hotelier C, October 12, 2011).
Only one of our four cases stood out as a representative
example of the strategic approach, the UR hotel. Managers
at UR emphasized the importance of continuous education
and learning about the “new world of online reviews”
(Hotelier C, October 12, 2011), and operational and mana-
gerial adaptation to rapid change. Upper management at UR
dedicated full-time resources to the online review manage-
ment process, along with a regular process to link online
reviews with meaningful performance measures, including
profits and loss.
The strategic approach to online review information
use at UR was reflected in their response pattern to online
reviews. UR responded to more reviews in total than any
of the other cases, and responded to more positive reviews.
In contrast, hotels focusing more exclusively on the
problem-solving approach either had lower response vol-
umes and fewer responses to positive reviews (LR),
responded only to negative reviews (LI), or responded to
no reviews at all (UI).
Toward an Online Review Strategy
The implication of our findings is that hotel managers
should consider the overall approach to utilizing online
Park and Allen 71
review information. Hotel managers should decide whether
they anticipate remaining in the baseline problem-solving
approach, with a focus on “playing defense” and trying to
diffuse negative online situations, or whether they wish to
use what we would call a more strategic approach to cus-
tomer engagement, operational improvement, and innova-
tion. While the strategic approach may offer more benefits,
it might only be realistic in the presence of dedicated
resources, a belief in the accuracy of online review, and an
internal communication style that is relatively collabora-
tive. It might also require personnel who are not currently
on staff.
A related issue involves matching the hotel’s strategic
approach with online review patterns and resources. While
we did not test this in this study, we noticed that review
responses online are “sporadic” in the sense that hotels
sometimes respond to every review for a short period and
then go silent. Hotel managers should avoid this type of
inconsistency if the objective is to be a frequent responder
and ensure that time and suitable personnel are available not
just to respond but to discuss and use the information over
time. Whatever response pattern hotel managers choose,
they should consider how to monitor and evaluate the
hotel’s performance. Although not part of our main findings
in this study, we noticed that when comparing stated perfor-
mance goals in the in-depth interviews (“we respond to
every negative review”) to the online review response data
on TripAdvisor, there were often discrepancies, despite the
widespread use of online-review-monitoring tools.
Proposals for Future Research
Our exploratory study findings show that our sample of
upscale and luxury hotels have taken different approaches
to addressing online reviews, including ignoring them
entirely. Given this disparity, we believe that more research
is needed to find effective strategies for responding to
online reviews. One contribution of this research is show-
ing the diversity of online review responses. High-end
hotels vary dramatically in terms of overall response rate,
and the mix of responses to positive and negative reviews.
Another contribution of this study is the distinction in the
case data between how information from online reviews is
utilized and managed internally. The diversity and internal
dynamics need to be explained related to the outcomes that
researchers and managers care about. Therefore, we sug-
gest future research to understand the role of these three
characteristics in the management of online review
responses:
1. Perceptions of online reviews: Because our study
shows two diametrically opposed views regarding
review accuracy, studies could examine the fol-
lowing questions: Do managers see online reviews
as mostly accurate reflections of reality? Or are
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online reviews more about extreme opinions,
venting, and ranting? Are the expertise and expe-
rience of the persons who are closely involved in
managing online reviews associated with their
accuracy perception? Studies could also examine
more about those who see online reviews as being
accurate consumer views, since our study uncov-
ered two different professional backgrounds.
2. Internal communication style: Communication
style represented another bifurcation of our data. A
future study could find out where the hotel indus-
try, as a whole, lies in terms of communication
style and the resulting approach to online reviews.
3. Approach to using online review information: A
broader study could examine exactly how hotels
use online reviews. Hotels with a problem-solving
approach might be associated with infrequent
responding, or focus only on negative reviews.
Hotels with a strategic approach in addition
to problem solving might be associated with
higher response rates, more responses to positive
reviews, and a long and holistic view and practice
of operations and management.
We would especially recommend this third topic for
future study, approach to using online review information,
as it relates to the “value co-creation” with customers and
stakeholders, discussed earlier. Only one of our cases, UR,
showed some of the “co-creation” perspective that is
espoused in the literature in the context of managing online
reviews, because it emphasized “engaging” customers, the
public, and employees in identifying ways to enhance cur-
rent offerings through “ongoing interactions” to identify
and enhance what matters to the stakeholders “together.”
Future studies should investigate the actual processes by
which “value co-creation” occurs in practice in additional
businesses, within or beyond the hospitality and tourism
industries, to further our understanding.
Future studies could also focus on businesses that use the
problem-solving approach and identify the barriers to
engaging in “co-creation” activities. Contrary to a study of
product development processes in U.K. hotels by Shaw,
Bailey, and Williams (2011), which concluded that “co-
creation” is “already relatively well advanced in some ele-
ments of the tourism industry” (p. 213), our exploratory
study found little co-creation for hotels with regard to online
reviews. This might suggest that the vision of value “co-
creation” as the new business logic for hotels might have to
be reevaluated.
Conclusion
Our exploratory study of online review management found
that hotels’ approach to online reviews is all over the map.
The four hotels we studied vary substantially in their
72 Cornell Hospitality Quarterly 54(1)
response patterns to online reviews. Even hotels within the
same brand can have completely different response rates
and patterns. Nonetheless, given that online reviews have
become an important enough information source, hotel
managers should be better prepared with an online review
response plan that works for them.
Our comparative case analysis of four hotels identified
three characteristics that differentiated those that respond reg-
ularly to online reviews (UR and LR) from those that respond
infrequently (UI and LI). RRs perceive online reviews to be
an accurate reflection of reality, communicate and make deci-
sions regularly and collaboratively, and utilize online review
information to solve problems and to strategically coordinate
with other areas of operations and management.
Particularly critical is the relative importance of each of
the two main functions of online review responses: as a
mechanism for problem-solving as efficiently and dis-
creetly as possible, and as a way to engage customers in a
deeper relationship. Some of the main challenges to online
review response come from having to manage the balance
between these two somewhat contradictory issues simulta-
neously. The two approaches demand different kinds of
managerial issues such as resource allocation, internal com-
munication, and the utilization of online review informa-
tion. Awareness of the dual role of online review responses
can offer some practical assistance to hotel managers faced
with these issues.
Beyond high-end hotels, however, we believe that research
on online review response has lessons for any industry that is
based on customer experience, and is now operating in a
much more open and “co-created” business environment due
to the internet. In the business literature, visions of full trans-
parency, openness, and unprecedented direct collaboration
with consumers and other stakeholders are being presented as
managerial and strategic prescriptions—what all businesses
should be doing (e.g., Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004;
Ramaswamy and Gouillart 2010).
Successful “co-creation of value” with consumers, as
represented by our strategic approach to online review
responses, seems to require a specific set of management
practices and resources. However, despite the many calls
for hospitality firms to engage in more co-creation activities
with customers, such as online review responses, the most
effective approaches to customer engagement online remain
elusive. Even in the hotel industry, which is strongly
focused on customer service and experience, effective
“co-creation” appears to be sporadic and difficult to achieve.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
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Bios
Sun-Young Park is an assistant professor at the School of
Management of University of San Francisco. She conducts research
and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on sustainable
business models, strategic management, and service management
and marketing.
Jonathan P. Allen is an associate professor of information systems
at the School of Management of University of San Francisco. His
research interests include sociotechnical systems, social informat-
ics, open technology, and online business practices. He is a senior
editor of The Database for Advances in Information Systems, and
an editorial board member of the International Journal of Electronic
Commerce and the Journal of Information Technology.

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