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The Impact of eWOM on Behavioral Intentions towards Hotel Selection

among International Tourists in Amphoe Hua Hin, Prachuabkirikan, Thailand
Khanchai Ongkamongkol* and Dr.Tipparat Laohavichien**

Abstract
The purposes of this study were: 1) To study the impact of eWOM on Planned Behaviors
(attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) 2)To study how Planned Behaviors impact
on Behavioral Intentions (WOM, Revisit, and Complaint). The population is International tourists coming
into Thailand. The sample comprised of 400 International tourists in Amphoe Hua Hin, Prachuabkirikan.
Questionnaire is used as a mean of collecting data and were distributed by simple random sampling
method. The data is analyzed in terms of simple linear regression. The major findings are as follows: 1)
eWOM is significantly impact Planned Behaviors at 9.4% with significant level p < 0.05 2) Planned
Behaviors is significantly impact Behavioral Intentions at 9.5% at significant level p < 0.05.
Key Words: eWOM, Tourism, Planned Behaviors, Word of Mouth

Introduction
In the past decade, technology made it more possible for people to get access to the Internet,
allowing more transactions and interactions in the online community to grow rapidly. According to the
survey of overall Internet usage in Thailand by the Electronic Transactions Development Agency of
Thailand, it has found that the percentage of daily usage hour on Internet more than 20 hours has
doubled its value from 18.7% in the year 2001 to 38.5% in the year 2013. Besides these findings, the
survey also reveal about the device that people use to access to the Internet, and interesting enough,
smartphones and portable computers are picking up its pace, showing a big shift from 12.2% to 69.5%
and 36.1% to 67.9%, respectively, while the usage of Internet via desktop computer is showing a small
*

Ph.D. students in Business Administration, Kasetsart University; Email: khanchai.ongkamongkol@gmail.com

Assistant Professor Doctor of Faculty of Business Administration, Kasetsart University; Email: tiptee@hotmail.com

**

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shrunk from 92.1% to 77.5%. With this information presented, it has been realized that the age group
between 20-24 years old, 37.9% access to the Internet via portable computers while 25-29 years old,
31.1% access via smartphones, and one interesting fining for age 59 years old and above, this group has
presented with a largest number of using tablet PC to access to the Interenet. Regarding the usage
behavior, the top three activities of overall age group are sending-receiving emails with 54.4%, 52.5% for
information searching, and 33.2% for social network activities. With significant growth of the Internet Usage
in Thailand, people are always-on, making this market space a promising place for marketing manager
to incorparte this chanel into their marketing campaign and strategic planning, in order to get a deeper
customer insight regarding behevaior and aiming at the right target.
Internet travel services come to play a very crucial role in for travelers around the world, with
more emphasize on trust, therefore knowing how the positive and negative WOM can affect peoples
decision on tourism destination could be very useful so that an appropriate marketing tool could be
developed to manage those WOMs to attain customer loyalty. Murray (1991) discovers that in service
marketing context, consumers were more confident in personal sources of information and personal
information had a higher impact on service purchase decisions. For Thailands domestic tourists,
According to the survey by the National Statistical Organization, it has surveyed 63,060 Thai citizens age
more than 15 years regarding their travelling behavior. It has been found that the average of Thai who
travels (to another province) increases to 57.8% in the year 2012, comparing to 50.6%, 48.8%, 50.1%, and
54.8% from year 2011-2008, respectively. The survey reveals that 41.7% of those who travel usually ask
their friends and relatives about the tourism destination that they will go. Advertising and other marketing
materials play less important in convincing about tourism destination. Thus, we can emphasize that WOM
play a particularly crucial role for those services that have high-credence qualities, such as tourism
industry.
eWOM
Mohammad defines word of mouth as a communication about products and services between
people who are perceived to be independent of the company providing the product or service, in a
medium perceived to be independent of a company. This informal communication is among people who
are perceived to have little commercial vested interest in persuading someone else to use the product
and therefore no particular incentive to distort the truth in favor of the product or service (Silverman,
2001, p. 25, cited in Mohammad, 2012). eWOM can be defined as any positive or negative statement by
potential, actual, or former consumers about a product or company which is made available to
multitudes of the people and institutes via the Internet (Hening-Thurau et al., 2004). Mayzlin (2006)
express that this new type of WOM gradually become significant in consumer opinions and Chatterjee
(2001) confirms that it is assumed to be even more effect type of WOM in the off-line world due to its
greater accessibility and reach. Fond and Burton (2008) states that with the help of the Internet, it
enables an individual to give feedback, response, their POV, to many others by all means of broadcasting
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method such as e-mails, discussion board, or web blogs, in a written format of eWOM, enhancing a
higher credibility than marketing wordings on the Internet. Sen and Lerman (2007) found out that the
interaction of the reviews greatly impact consumers attitude toward any reviewed product. In tourism
industry, travel reviews are helpful because it gives an individual an idea based on what others have
experience before (Park et al., 2007). Xia and Bechwati (2008) has confirmed that consumers feel online
review are more trustworthy and helpful when assessing the review against their own opinion which as a
result led to higher purchase intentions. According to Park (2007), online review has two roles: serves as
information provider about products or services, and serves as a recommendation. For tourism industry,
due to its intangibility, services are not evaluated until consumption; therefore, purchases dealing with
service industry usually contain higher risk, so customers are much more reliant on the interpersonal
influence of the eWOM (Lewis and Chambers, 2000).
eWOM in Tourism Industry
Due to the nature of the service product, pre-purchase trial of services are rarely existed,
therefore WOM is playing important role for service marketing by turning the intangibles into tangibles
(Mohammad, 2012). WOM is particularly significant to the travel industry as it is being viewed as higher
credible source of information as the sender is seen to be independent from the organization providing
the service, getting no gain from the post (Silverman, 2001). It has been found that service consumers
were more confident in personal sources of information and this had greater influence on buying
decisions (Murray, 1991). There were several researches in tourism area that has demonstrated the
influence of both positive and negative WOM upon tourism products. In Australia, ONeill et al. (2002),
expert in wine tourism, discover that visitors WOM can boost wine sales when they return homes and
tell others of their experience. In the US, Litvin et al. (2004) revealed that tourists hotel selections were
heavily influenced by the WOM recommendations of opinion leaders. The effect of WOM has been
expressed to impact on receivers awareness (Sheth, 1971), attention (Mikkelsen et al., 2003),
consideration (Grewal et al., 2003), brand attitudes (Herr et al., 1991; Laczniak et al., 2001), intentions
(Grewal et al., 2003), and expectations (Webster, 1991). Talking specifically about tourism industry, a few
studies have been shown about eWOM on tourism destination choice.
The Impact of Word of Mouth
The impact of consumer word-of-mouth on consumer behavior and firm performance has been
traditionally documented in consumer or marketing research (e.g., Bone, 1995; Bowman and Narayandas,
2001; Gruen, Osmonbekov, and Czaplewski, 2006). The advent of the Internet dramatically expanded the
scale and scope of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication (Chen and Xie, 2008). In the past, WOM
communications had geographic constraints and were conducted mainly among local networks (Brown
and Reingen, 1987). Now, however, consumers can easily and freely reach hundreds and thousands of
other consumers reviews through the Internet and can exchange with each other their opinions,
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experiences, evaluations, and knowledge about companies, products and services (Chuanyi, 2010). As a
result, the diffusion of WOM among consumers has become faster and more efficient than ever, and the
market power of WOM is reaching an unprecedented scale.
For the significant market impact of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), researchers have begun to
explore the relationships between eWOM and consumers decision making and market outcomes in
recent years (e.g., Chen and Xie, 2008; Godes and Mayzlin, 2004). However, because this topic represents
a relatively new research area, theory construction and methodology development are still in their
infancy, resulting in several basic and important unanswered research questions. One of these
fundamental questions concerns the effectiveness of eWOM communication in terms of how much
attitudinal and affective information from eWOM senders can be accurately perceived by eWOM receivers
and furthermore shapes eWOM receivers attitudes and emotional states, and finally their future
purchasing intentions toward a product or service (Chuanyi, 2010).
With this in mind, this study aims at the International tourists to see how eWOM would affect
their decision making in choosing a hotel. The specific purposes of the research are given below:

Purposes of the Study

The purpose of this study was to investigate how eWOM would affect International tourists
coming to Amphoe Hua Hin with respect to hotel selection:
1. To study the impact of eWOM on Planned Behaviors (attitudes, subjective norms, and
perceived behavioral control)
2. To study the impact of Planned Behaviors impact on Behavioral Intentions (WOM, Revisit, and
Complaint)

Methods
Population, Sample, and Sampling: The population in this study was International tourists
coming to Thailand. From January to September, International tourists reached 17.5 millions. The sample
comprised of 400 International tourists calculated from Cochrans equation of calculating sample size.
Through calculation, author has adapted 5% allowable error and able to obtain a sample size of 384.16
or 385 intended respondents. However, through calculation, the minimum sample size that the research
should obtain is 385 respondents; the researcher has decided to go for 400 respondents and will be
mainly using questionnaires survey as a tool of collecting data.
Data Collection Procedure: Researcher has adapted questionnaires from Chuanyi 2010 and
Mohammad 2012 for testing against Theory of Planned Behavior. Questionnaires were distributed to
International tourists around Amphoe Hua Hin, Prachuabkirikan Province, based on convenient sampling.

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Data Analysis: The analysis tool that will be adapted for this research is SPSS for descriptive
statistics such as regression and ANOVA impose causal structure to not just statistical point of view, but
theoretically justified results and substantively meaningful. The estimations of the parameters and the
overall fit index of the measurement model are based on the maximum likelihood (ML) method.

Results
Table 1: Summary of Regression Model of eWOM on Planned Behaviors and its coefficients
Model Summary
Model
R
R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
a
1
.307
.094
.092
.41824
a. Predictors: (Constant), AlleWOM
ANOVAa
Model
Sum of Squares
1
Regression
7.258
Residual
69.620
Total
76.878
a. Dependent Variable: All_PLANNED
b. Predictors: (Constant), AlleWOM, p<0.05

df
1
398
399

Mean Square
7.258
.175

F
41.494

Sig.
.000b

Coefficients a
Model
Unstandardized Standardized
t
Sig. 95.0% Confidence Interval for
Coefficients
Coefficients
B
B Std. Error
Beta
Lower Bound Upper Bound
1 (Constant) 3.009
.279
10.783 .000
2.461
3.558
AlleWOM .382
.059
.307
6.442 .000
.266
.499
a. Dependent Variable: All_PLANNED

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Table 2: Summary of Regression Model of Planned Behaviors on Behavioral Intentions and its coefficient
Model Summary
Model
R
R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
a
1
.307
.095
.088
.33851
a. Predictors: (Constant), AllBev, AllAtt, AllSub
ANOVAa
Model
Sum of Squares
df
1
Regression
4.738
3
Residual
45.378
396
Total
50.116
399
a. Dependent Variable: All_INT
b. Predictors: (Constant), AllBev, AllAtt, AllSub, p<0.05

Mean Square
1.579
.115

F
13.784

Sig.
.000b

Coefficients a
Model

Unstandardized Standardized t
Sig. 95.0% Confidence Interval for B
Coefficients
Coefficients
B Std. Error
Beta
Lower Bound Upper Bound
1 (Constant) 5.300
.190
27.905 .000
4.926
5.673
AllAtt
-.104
.028
-.191
-3.751 .000
-.158
-.049
AllSub -.207
.041
-.307
-5.060 .000
-.287
-.126
AllBev .225
.040
.355
5.571 .000
.146
.305
a. Dependent Variable: All_INT
Table 3: Summary of Linear Regression Equation
Objective Independent Dependent
Simple Linear Regression Equations
Variables
1
Planned Behavior = 3.009 + 0.382(AlleWOM)
eWOM Planned Behaviors
2
Planned Behaviors Bahavioral Behavioral Intention = 5.300 -1.04(AllAtt) - 0.207(AllSub)
+ 0.225(AllBev)
Intentions

Discussions
To answer objective number 1 on how the eWOM impacts on the Planned Behaviors, the results
have shown that eWOM has a significant impact on Planned Behaviors at 9.4% at significant level 0.05,
from Table 1, the R-square value. This expresses when International tourists read or come across any

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hotel review online, their Planned Behaviors which include attitude, subjective norms, and perceived
behavioral control could be affected by 9.4%, the rest is explained by other factors. From researcher
point of view, other factors could include the reputation of the hotel, the familiarity with the hotel, the
familiarity with the location, or other Marketing Mix factors.
To understand the complete cycle, we need to look at how those Planned Behaviors would
impact on their Behavioral Intentions, which include giving recommendation, revisiting the hotel, and
making a complaint either to hotel staff or others. From Table 2, looking at the adjusted R-square value,
we can see that Behavioral Intentions are impacted significantly by Planned Behaviors 8.8% at significant
level 0.05. The other factors to explain Behavioral Intentions could be their experience with the city,
hotel, or staff, satisfaction, loyalty, and etc which are not taken into consideration in this study.
Although the impact of both are quite small at 9.4, and 8.8 percent respectively, their power
seems to be very strong in the modern era especially the eWOM via Social Networks, which is now more
powerful than the Internet. Hoteliers missions now are not just controlling their marketing mix, but also
to track any WOM that could be occurring online as they have proven to be a significant factor that could
change the Planned Behaviors and thus affecting the Behavioral Intentions.

Suggestions
This research is conducted by means of questionnaire to obtain quantitative data and to
represent the population from the sample collected. However, in order to understand how International
tourist make decision in choosing hotel, other qualitative methods such as in-depth interview and focus
groups could be taken into consideration to understand wider perspective of their decision making
process. In addition, this study uses Hua Hin as a testing site, future studies could have used other
tourism cities to test this phenomenon in order to come up with a more precise conclusion whether
eWOM would have less or greater effect on Behavioral Intentions. In addition, this research takes only
eWOM as a factor affecting Planned Behaviors. There are other factors to be taken into consideration such
as hotels reputation, familiarity with the location, or other promotional activities held by the hotel would
all have affected their Planned Behaviors and thus affecting their Behavioral Intentions.

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