NB: This is a guest article by Kelly A McGuire, PhD, SAS Executive Director of Hospitality and Travel Global Practice, and Breffni M. Noone, PhD.
The advent of social media, and the popularity of consumer review sites, has changed the way that consumers buy hotel rooms.
The industry has moved from price transparency – when the OTAs made it easy to compare hotel room prices, to value transparency – where price and user generated content (UGC) is freely available at the point of purchase.
Read full story at: http://www.tnooz.com/2013/08/21/news/price-ratings-and-reviews-how-consumers-process-ugc-and-price-when-buying-a-hotel-room/