TOURISM MANAGEMENT

Infusing new insights: How do review novelty and inconsistency shape the usefulness of online travel reviews?

Zhang, Xi; Zhang, Xiaoxia; Liang, Sai; Yang, Yang; Law, Rob

Abstract

Review usefulness represents a vital indicator for evaluating the quality of online reviews in the tourism industry, and various heuristic cues have been recognized as determinants of this indicator. This study constructs a comprehensive conceptual framework based on the heuristic-systematic model to observe how two systematic cues, namely, review novelty and inconsistency, shape the perceived usefulness of reviews. Through an empirical analysis based on 1,744,693 reviews of 62,543 restaurants in the United States, we unveil a positive effect of review novelty on review usefulness but a negative effect of review inconsistency. We also underscore the moderating effects of several heuristic cues in the model, including review valence, reviewer expertise, and restaurant popularity. These results indicate that systematic and heuristic cues simultaneously and interactively determine review usefulness. The findings present theoretical implications to the literature and practical implications to hospitality professionals and designers/managers of review platforms.

Keywords

Perceived usefulness; Review novelty; Review inconsistency; Heuristic-systematic model; Online travel review

Research topic

Tourist Experience, Digital Platform and Pricing

Research method

Econometrics, Big Data

Geographic area

US

Additional links for this paper

ResearchGate

Publisher Website

Web of Science

HOW TO CITE

Zhang, X., Zhang, X., Liang, S., Yang, Y., and Law, R. (2023). Infusing new insights: How do review novelty and inconsistency shape the usefulness of online travel reviews? Tourism Management, 96, 104703

Additional Reads

2026

Journeys and generosity: Understanding tourism’s impact on altruistic spending

Annals of Tourism Research

2026

Restaurant week paradox: from relation to transaction in online reviews

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

2026

Taking stock: Lessons for theory and practice from COVID-19 tourism research

ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH