International Journal of Hospitality Management 46 (2015) 36–45 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Hospitality Management jou rn al hom ep age: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman eWOM effects on hotel booking intentions, attitudes, trust, and website perceptions Riadh Ladhari * , Mélissa Michaud Faculty of Business Administration, Laval University, Quebec, Canada a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Electronic word of mouth Facebook Online reviews Attitude and trust toward hotel Booking intentions a b s t r a c t The objective of the study is to examine the effect of comments generated on Facebook on the choice of a hotel. More specifically, it focuses on the study of the influence of comments written by Facebook friends on the intentions of booking a hotel, the trust in the hotel, the attitude toward the hotel, and the perception of its website. The research also examines the moderator role of Internet users’ trust in those comments on these relations. To test these effects, an experimental design was created by manipulating the valence of the comments (positive vs. negative). A survey among 800 university students has confirmed all the hypotheses of the study on the influence of comments generated on Facebook in the users’ decision-making process. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The importance of WOM is well established, especially in the field of information retrieval and purchase decisions, particularly in the tourism and hospitality industry (Liu and Park, 2015). With the introduction of social media and digital channels, its influence has expanded exponentially; while conventional word of mouth is limited to a social, often personal, network which is quite narrow and confined, word of mouth on the Internet (hereafter eWOM) has a reach over a worldwide network. With the rapid growth of Web 2.0 applications and communication platforms, and the explo- sion of the bidirectional exchange of information on consumer products and services, simple “conversation channels” (online noti- fications, reviews, opinions or recommendations) have become a source of real opportunities and challenges (Serra Cantallops and Salvi, 2014). For tourism and hospitality managers, web 2.0 appli- cations and social media platforms are the most appropriate tool to gain knowledge about their customers, developing and main- taining effective relationships with them, and reacting to service failure (Escobar-Rodríguez and Carvajal-Trujillo, 2013; Hsu, 2012). However, hospitality managers no longer have control over the disseminated information or created image on these challenging applications and platforms (Sparks and Browning, 2011). Internet has given consumers countless advantages in compari- son with traditional WOM. The most important of these advantages * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 418 656 2131x7940; fax: +1 418 656 2624. E-mail address: riadh.ladhari@fsa.ulaval.ca (R. Ladhari). include the speed and ease of access to information, its availability for long periods of time, and a certain proximity (virtual face-to- face) without the face-to-face human pressure (Mauri and Minazzi, 2013). Internet platforms allow broad dissemination of informa- tion via blogs, forums, communities, and specific websites devoted to the evaluation of products or services (Mauri and Minazzi, 2013; Sparks and Browning, 2011). In the specific case of the hospital- ity and tourism industry, these online platforms are important sources of information as products and services are experiential and consumption experiences are subjectively evaluated by con- sumers (Lee and Cranage, 2014; Litvin et al., 2008; Liu and Park, 2015; Papathanassis and Knolle, 2011; Xie et al., 2014). The hospitality sector is the most strongly influenced by eWOM (Serra Cantallops and Salvi, 2014). Given the growing easiness of access to the Internet and the ability to produce online content, consumers now rely on online reviews generated by other users to form an opinion about tourist destinations and hotels (Sparks and Browning, 2011; Ye et al., 2011; Xie et al., 2011). The recognition of the importance of online reviews leads to their increased popu- larity among travelers (Liu and Park, 2015). A number of websites specialized in tourism and hospitality flourish on the web (e.g., Tri- padvisor, Hotels.com, Expedia, Yelp.com, Citysearch, Orbitz). Many of them enable users to exchange information, opinions or rec- ommendations concerning certain destinations, hotels, and other tourist services (O’Connor, 2008; Ye et al., 2011; Liu and Park, 2015). These online platforms provide excellent tools for tourists to doc- ument and relive their travel experience such as expressing their satisfaction level with the hotel stay experience (Filieri and McLeay, 2014; Ip et al., 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2015.01.010 0278-4319/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.