While researchers have demonstrated the benefits of customer reviews on company sales, a largely uninvestigated issue is the interplay between emotions and cognitive cues of information in the processing of online reviews. Drawing on Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, this paper analyzes: (i) the independent effect of each dimension of emotions (arousal and pleasure), empathy with the reviewer and persuasiveness on perceived helpfulness of online reviews; (ii) the impact of perceived helpfulness on eWOM adoption; (iii) the moderating effect of sequence of reviews on the impact of emotions on perceived helpfulness of online reviews. In order to test the hypotheses of the model an experimental subjects-design was carried out using valence order: positive-negative vs. negative-positive as a condition. Data was collected in January 2016 using a sample of 830 Spanish TripAdvisor users. Participants were instructed to imagine a situation where they were going out for dinner to an Italian restaurant with friends and they were told to read a total of 10 reviews about the restaurant in the same order they were displayed and answer the questions that followed. Data analysis shows a bias effect of sequence of reviews on the impact of emotions and empathy with the reviewer on review helpfulness, which, in turn, influences eWOM adoption. When the sequence of TripAdvisor reviews begins with positive commentaries (POS-NEG), pleasure elicited by eWOM is a stronger driver of perceived helpfulness and empathy with the reviewer than if the sequence is the opposite (NEG-POS). On the contrary, arousal only triggers eWOM helpfulness when the user reads negative commentaries followed by positive ones. This study is novel because it explains how emotions and perceived usefulness of online reviews play a central role in eWOM adoption in tourism services to make consumption decisions.

Responsible customers are becoming increasingly important and the influence of online user-generated content on consumer behavior has been extensively recognized. As a result of these two trends, social media sites are adopting new initiatives on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In the context of tourism destinations, this paper analyses the effects of online comments made by visitors to two mountain resorts about three CSR dimensions: environmental (ENV), sociocultural (SOC) and economic (ECO). Our aim is to analyze the consistency of the effects of eWOM about a single CSR dimension (ENV, SOC, ECO), two CSR dimensions (ENV+ECO, ENV+SOC, ECO+SOC) or three CSR dimensions (ENV+ECO+SOC), in the impact of CSR dimensions on information adoption. Information adoption refers to eWOM perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived influence (PI). PU refers to what extent the information in the eWOM is useful and, in turn, tourists are more likely to adopt it. PI means to what extent consumers’ perceptions of eWOM affects decision-making processes. From an information processing point of view, it is important to analyze whether individuals maintain consistency in their preference for CSR dimensions. Transitivity has been used to measure consistency in product, so it could be applied to measure the consistency of the preference for CSR dimensions, presented singly or combined, on social media sites. Transitivity implies that consumers have a welldefined hierarchy of influence. If there is transitivity, it is expected that, given a set of CSR stimuli, its influence on PU and PI will be consistent. Thus, if the influence of dimension D1 is greater than that of dimension D2 and this, in turn, has greater influence than dimension D3, then D1 must have greater influence than D3. Consequently, we propose the following hypotheses: H1: The hierarchy of influence of online comments on (a) PU and on (b) PI is the same if the comment is about a single CSR dimension or two CSR dimensions. H2: The hierarchy of influence of online comments on (a) PU and on (b) PI is the same if the comment is about a single CSR dimension or three CSR dimensions. H3: The hierarchy of influence of online comments on (a) PU and on (b) PI is the same if the comments are about two CSR dimensions or three CSR dimensions. A within-subjects and between-subjects experiment was carried out to a sample of 612 tourists from Argentina and Spain. Participants were exposed to one of seven scenarios linked to a mountain tourism destination. Each scenario contained one, two or three online reviews related to CSR dimensions. The online comments resembled a typical TripAdvisor layout and were embedded in an online survey, which also contained measures of PU and PI. Our findings suggest that, of the reviews, environmental are the most useful and influential, followed by sociocultural. This hierarchical pattern is consistent when tourists are exposed to online comments about two or more dimensions, but not when comparisons are done between individual dimensions. Our findings suggest that consistency of the consumer's preference for CSR dimensions should be managed in analyzing multiple stimuli on social media sites.

Major changes are challenging the tourist industry, such as new entrants, suppliers’ direct sales without intermediaries, and customers’ bargaining power due to Internet services, among others. In this context, the aim of this research is to assess the influence of two emerging constructs, eWOM adoption and customer engagement, jointly with consumer trust and brand equity, on travel agency loyalty. There is a huge amount of research available regarding the variables considered in this study: (i) brand trust and equity, and brand loyalty, have always been considered in the marketing literature; (ii) engagement and eWOM adoption have aroused interest from researchers since online comments gain popularity and usefulness. But their consideration in literature has been based, in most of the analyses, on symmetric relationships and it then fails to recognize the occurrence of causal asymmetry. In the present research a novel methodology is adopted, fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), which uses Boolean algebra to show how causal conditions combine to bring about outcomes. On a sample of 520 travelers and through a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, data shows that brand trust and brand equity are key drivers of loyalty, measured as a repurchase intention. In fact, jointly both variables lead to travel agency loyalty and when no engagement-enthusiasm dimension exists, for individual repurchase intention, brand equity or brand trust are also needed. Moreover, just engagement in terms of interactions also leads to brand loyalty, but engagement-enthusiasm dimension needs support of eWOM adoption to impact travel agency repurchase intentions. This finding highlights the specific importance of each analyzed variable as key drivers of travel agency loyalty. Theoretical and managerial implications are provided based on results.

Given the increasing competition in the hospitality industry, a key question is to investigate how consumer-generated reviews affect the consumption decision of tourism services. Online reviews are regarded as one form of electronic word of mouth communication (Banerjee & Chua, 2016). While researchers have demonstrated the benefits of the presence of customer reviews on company sales, an issue scarcely investigated is how to assess the impact of informational cues on eWOM adoption for consumer decision-making and how individuals process and integrate conflicting opinions from other consumers. Drawing on dual process theories, this paper analyzes: (1) the impact of systematic information cues (informativeness, credibility and helpfulness of reviews) on eWOM adoption; (2) the moderating effect of conflicting reviews on the impact of eWOM adoption on behavioural intentions. The heuristic-systematic model HSM (Chaiken, 1980) is a widely recognized communication model that attempts to explain how people receive and process persuasive messages. As Zhang et al. (2014) advocated, the HSM provides broader explanations of individuals’ information processing behaviour in the context of online communities than do other models, such as ELM (elaboration likelihood model). We build up and test an expanded HSM model anchored in dual process literature, which includes the influence informativeness, credibility and helpfulness of mixed valence online reviews (systematic information cues) have on eWOM adoption which, in turn, influences behavioural intentions. In order to test the hypotheses of the model an experimental subjects-design was carried out using valence order: positive-negative vs. negative-positive as a condition. Data was collected in January 2016 using a sample of 908 Tripadvisor heavy-users. 461 interviewees answered in the POS-NEG condition and 447 in NEG-POS condition. Participants were instructed to imagine a situation where they were going out for dinner to an Italian restaurant with friends and they were told to read a total of 10 reviews about the restaurant in the same order they were displayed and answer the questions that followed. We used an experimental design. All variables were measured with seven point likert scales. Data analysis shows informativeness activates both review credibility and review helpfulness, which in turn influence eWOM adoption. When the sequence of Tripadvisor reviews begins with positive commentaries, eWOM is a significant driver of intention to visit the restaurant, but when the user reads negative commentaries followed by positive ones, the effect becomes non-significant. This study is novel because it examines the factors that drive consumers to adopt consumer generated content (eWOM) in tourism services and to make consumption decisions. This study demonstrates how systematic information cues and sequence of reviews influence on eWOM adoption and behavioural intentions. Firstly, consumer intentions to visit a restaurant are determined by the consumer's eWOM adoption, which, in turn, is determined by three information cues: informativeness, perceived credibility and helpfulness of the online reviews. Understanding the specific effects of different information cues on eWOM adoption seems to be particularly important given the tremendous competition in the tourism sector. Secondly, this study shows conflicting reviews affect the user in a complex way. When consumer reviews conflict, if the consumer reads positive reviews before the negative ones, eWOM adoption has a stronger influence on behavioural intentions. It seems that users attribute an opportunistic view to the negative comments mainly attributed to the lack of their informativeness, credibility and helpfulness. User behavioural intention to visit a restaurant is directed by systematic and heuristic information cues. Therefore, users examine content of online reviews carefully and they also are influenced by the sequence of comments.