Does Negative Online Review Matter? An Investigation of Travel Consumers

ABSTRACT Recent literature on negative online reviews (NOR) indicates its growing strategic importance in understanding consumer behavior and brand image. While past literature shows the adverse effect of NOR on low‐involvement products such as books and digital music, there is a dearth of research on its impact on high‐involvement decisions, such as visiting a travel destination. There is also less understanding of how consumers perceive and process NOR characteristics. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of NOR characteristics (level of detail and source credibility) on review credibility, destination image, and intention to visit a travel destination. Two 2 * 2 between‐subject factorial experiments were conducted to examine the effects of the level of detail (general vs. detailed) and source credibility (high vs. low) using different sample and design settings. The results revealed that detailed NOR and high source credibility of NOR increased review credibility. The negative effect of detailed NOR on intention to visit was higher among older adults. The cognitive and affective destination image mediated between review credibility and intention to visit. The study has several implications for destination marketing organizations and contributes to the NOR literature.