Location
Gran Canaria
Participation
Attend the conference at Gran Canaria in person.
Type of Submission
Paper Presentation
Short Abstract
The travel industry, and in particular travel agencies, face a severe challenge to increase productivity. In a fast-paced digitalization context, embracing ICTs to tackle this challenge should be part of COVID-19 recovery strategies. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) could allow better learning processes, improve communication with customers, and serve as a remarkable diffusion channel. However, this channel is not yet fully embraced by the sector. This research, delimited to Spanish travel agencies in the period 2012-2019, applies a two-stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis to assess whether eWOM and how firms manage eWOM, contributes to achieving higher levels of efficiency. Results show that firms with higher valence and volume of online reviews tend to be closer to the efficiency frontier. Moreover, results show that proactively managing eWOM, by asking customers for their online reviews, answering to negative reviews, doing so promptly, as well as investing in eWOM, positively and significantly contributes to achieving higher levels of efficiency.
anonymized manuscript
Revised Manuscript for ITSA.docx (21 kB)
revised manuscript
Included in
eWOM platforms as productivity catalyzers for travel agencies: a two-stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis
Gran Canaria
The travel industry, and in particular travel agencies, face a severe challenge to increase productivity. In a fast-paced digitalization context, embracing ICTs to tackle this challenge should be part of COVID-19 recovery strategies. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) could allow better learning processes, improve communication with customers, and serve as a remarkable diffusion channel. However, this channel is not yet fully embraced by the sector. This research, delimited to Spanish travel agencies in the period 2012-2019, applies a two-stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis to assess whether eWOM and how firms manage eWOM, contributes to achieving higher levels of efficiency. Results show that firms with higher valence and volume of online reviews tend to be closer to the efficiency frontier. Moreover, results show that proactively managing eWOM, by asking customers for their online reviews, answering to negative reviews, doing so promptly, as well as investing in eWOM, positively and significantly contributes to achieving higher levels of efficiency.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/itsa/ITSA2022/ITSA2022/78