Effect of user-generated content on consumer's perception.

Through various online platforms, consumers are able to share their opinions and experiences regarding a particular tourism product, and engage in electronic word-of-mouth in the form of user-generated contents. When traditional word-of-mouth becomes digital, the wide-spread, anonymous nature of the Internet provides consumers with a new outlet for their information search. This research aims to find out how information on these UGC sites influence Singaporean consumers’ perception of hotels. Our study investigated the influence of the following factors: perceived source credibility, shared geographical location between reviewers and UGC users, personalization of reviews from hotels, timeliness of hotels’ responses, mix of review valence, number of available reviews and consumer familiarity with the reviewed hotels. This study also examined the resulting impact of the formed perception on consumers’ ultimate purchase decision. This research could be of interest to hoteliers seeking to understand the effects of user-generated contents on Singaporeans.BUSINES