The importance of online hotel review content within the process of hotel selection decisions: The research on domestic tourists in Çeşme

The aim of this study is to investigate what kind of online hotel review content is attached much more importance while domestic tourists search information about the hotels located in Çeşme. It is also investigated that those contents would be grouped under which dimensions. Another main purpose of this study is to examine the role of the online hotel review in the tourist purchase decision process. The total number of 388 survey form was collected through both face to face interviews and electronically. Two hundred of them was collected from the domestic tourists who have stayed in the hotels located in Çeşme and shared content through online review communities. The remaining 188 survey was collected collaborating with four different hotels' front office staff. The findings of this research showed that these contents can be collected under four factors. These factors are listed as "staff", "food and beverage", "hotel overall" and "rooms" according to their importance during the domestic tourists' hotel selection process. Research findings also revealed that the online hotel reviews play an essential role in the information search and evaluation of alternatives phases of the tourist purchasing decision process. However, online hotel reviews does not play a remarkable role in the need recognition stage of the tourist purchasing decision process.