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Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2019 pp 321–332Cite as

What’s Vs. How’s in Online Hotel Reviews: Comparing Information Value of Content and Writing Style with Machine Learning

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Abstract

Writing style is an important rhetorical feature of textual information. However, its value has not yet been well understood within the context of social media. This research compares two major aspects of textual content, i.e., content and style, to determine the information value of online hotel reviews. Using TripAdvisor hotel reviews, several machine learning techniques based on natural language processing (NLP) are applied to predict review helpfulness. The results indicate that textual features are core features of online reviews; that style is a more influential aspect than content; and, that combining both features produces the best results. This study contributes to the understanding of user-generated content in the textual format within the hospitality and tourism contexts. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Pamplin College of Business, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Seunghun Shin, Qianzhou Du & Zheng Xiang

Authors
  1. Seunghun Shin
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  2. Qianzhou Du
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  3. Zheng Xiang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Seunghun Shin .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Business School, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Juho Pesonen

  2. Faculty of Informatics, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Julia Neidhardt

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Shin, S., Du, Q., Xiang, Z. (2019). What’s Vs. How’s in Online Hotel Reviews: Comparing Information Value of Content and Writing Style with Machine Learning. In: Pesonen, J., Neidhardt, J. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2019. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05940-8_25

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