The Impact of Online Negative Hotel Reviews and Merchant Response Strategies on Potential Consumers’ Purchase Intentions: A Perceived Trust Perspective

Abstract

Based on online negative reviews, the paper explores the influence mechanism of emotional and attributive reviews on potential customers’ purchase intentions. Against the background of online hotel booking, using ability, benevolence, and integrity in perceived trust as intermediary variables, we constructed a two-factor group experiment with 2 (types of online negative reviews) × 5 (merchant response strategies). This study was conducted by randomly recruiting participants from a university, utilizing a questionnaire-based experimental approach. Two hundred fifty valid questionnaires were collected for statistical analysis, including t-test, analysis of variance, and structural equation model. This paper reveals the influence of online negative reviews and merchant response strategies on ability, integrity, and benevolence. It verifies the mechanism of three factors and potential customers’ purchase intention. Concurrently, this study provides crucial inspiration for hotel managers to focus on addressing the service quality issues in the reviews and develop tailored response strategies to enhance customers’ perception and trust.