Abstract:
During past decades' tourism industry has grown and deepened diversification to
become one of the highest growing industries in the world economy. Modern tourism
is focused in developing and encompassing a growing number of new destinations.
These factors have made tourism as one of ttre key drivers in socio-economic progress.
Normally consumers like to perceive more risks which associated with purchasing
tourism services because they cannot easily evaluate tourism destinations and services
before they make the consumption due to intangibility and heterogeneity of tourism
services. But with the development of web 2.0 applications and broadband internet
consumer-generated media has increased transforrning word-of-mouth
communications into different types of electronic communities and virtual networks
allowing tourists to gain information on different destinations and hotels easier. A lot
of opinions on hotels, travel destinations and services are often provided in the form of
online consumer reviews. But when it comes to Sri Lankan context, there is lack of
information on how backpackers and mass organized tourists use these indicators of
online customer reviews to make their purchase decisions. Having recognized this gap,
this study was designed to investigate the influence of consumer online reviews on hotel
booking intention of backpackers and mass organized tourists. The results indicate that
there is Strong Significant positive relationship between customer online reviews and
hotel booking intention of backpackers and mass organized tourists.
This research will contribute theoretically to fill the gap of knowledge existing in
literature concerning the influence of consumer online reviews on hotel booking
intention with special reference to backpackers and mass organized tourists. This study
support the identification of elements of online reviews that affect hotel booking
intention of backpackers and mass organized tourists. The data were analyzedby using
descriptive, correlation analyses anc multiple regression analysis. Results indicates that
the online customer reviews and hotel booking intention, are high. The results indicate
that there is strongly positive relationship between online customer reviews and hotel
booking intention of backpackers and mass organized tourists. Finally there is a
significant effect of online customer reviews and hotel booking intention. So, this
research can be very important for the development of hotel industry in Sri Lanka.
