Exploring the Impact of Heuristic Attributes of Electronic Word of Mouth on Accommodation Sharing Platforms

AbstractWith the rapid development of the sharing economy, accommodation sharing is a growing trend across the global. Consumers’ feelings, opinions, praises, and even criticisms regarding accommodations can be easily posted and shared via review sharing platforms. Word of mouth (WOM) breaks through the oral communication between people, and further turns out to be a more communicative and influential form, electronic word of mouth (eWOM). An empirical approach is applied to explore the relationship between eWOM attributes of accommodation sharing and accommodation popularity on Tujia.com. More specifically, the three heuristic factors of eWOM (i.e., house, review, and host attributes) are identified to influence accommodation popularity, and rental and host types are additionally considered moderating variables to better understand these relationships. This study would provide valuable suggestions for accommodation platform managers and hosts to design more popular accommodations.