The Dimensions of Speech Acts in Hotel Responses for Online Reviews

杨雅怡 李娟

【Abstract】The internet has become an important tool when making travel choices. Electronic Word of Mouth （eWOM） information is becoming increasingly popular online. Customers seem to be more influenced by negative reviews than positive ones， so hotels should be mindful of how they respond to feedback by eWOM. This study analyzed 80 Singapore hotel replies from the perspective of discourse analysis， and found the dimensions of speech acts in these responses.

【Key words】Electronic Word of Mouth; hotel responses; and dimensions of speech acts

【作者簡介】杨雅怡（1988-），女，汉族，四川遂宁人，四川工商职业技术学院助教，英国斯旺西大学硕士研究生，研究方向：英语词汇习得;李娟（1980-），女，汉族，四川广汉人，四川工商职业技术学院副教授，云南大学旅游管理硕士，研究方向：旅游市场营销，酒店管理。

1. Introduction 

The internet has become an important tool when making travel choices （Sparks and Browning， 2011）. Electronic Word of Mouth （eWOM） information is becoming increasingly popular online （Sparks and Browning， 2011; and Xiang and Gretzel， 2011）. Customers seem to be more influenced by negative reviews than positive ones （Sparks and Browning， 2011） so hotels should be mindful of how they respond to feedback by eWOM （Vermeulen and Seegers， 2009）， in order to maintain their corporate image， customer relations and customer loyalty.

Prior discourse studies on hotel responses have been carried out from the perspective of discourse （Biber et al， 2007， cited in Zhang and Vásquez， 2014） but not on Singaporean English which is the subject of this paper. This study analyzed 80 hotel responses from Singapore hotels on TripAdvisor， and found how hotels use dimensions of speech acts in their responses.

2. Literature review

Several studies have shown that eWOM has the potential to enhance or detract from a brand and consequently influence reputation， corporate image， and customer loyalty. EWOM refers to consumers sharing their experiences and evaluations of products or services with other interested parties on the internet， which generates discussion and the accumulation of information.

TripAdvisor is the worlds largest and most popular online tourist community as well as the worlds first travel commentary website （OConnor， 2010）. It has become an immense online “database”， providing users with timely and credible global travel information， objective hotel reviews， a hotel index， selection tool， and price comparison search， data sharing and so forth. Travelers feedback is one of TripAdvisors most prominent features. Conversely， hotel responses are considerably less frequent.