Study of Whether Online Review Platforms Convey Valid Quality Information: -- Evidence from Escape Rooms in Beijing

Yuanrui Guo

doi:10.54097/hbem.v1i.2674

Authors

Yuanrui Guo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/hbem.v1i.2674

Keywords:

Escape Room; Willingness to Consume; User Satisfaction; Online Reviews; Pricing Strategy.

Abstract

The escape room, as an emerging popular live-action entertainment project in recent years, has become more and more popular among the young generation. Online review platforms have become one of the important channels to disseminate quality information to consumers in this emerging industry. However, critics doubt the credibility of the online platform as a reliable information channel and its influence on consumer choices of escape rooms. Do online review platforms convey valid quality information to the public? Are the prices of coupons an illusion? We seek to answer these questions by investigating the MeiTuan platform, one of the leading online review platforms in China. We apply the method of NLP technics to extract high-frequency words from customer reviews and use linear regression to measure the effect of prices on discount rates. We observe that there was no significant correlation between the store's ratings and the type and the number of coupons the store offered. However, customers with different ratings have different claims in their reviews. Moreover, a price increase has a negligible impact on the discount rate, implying that the platform almost uses a unified discount pricing strategy.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Miaojia Huang, Songqiao Wen, Manhua Jiang & Yuliang Yao, (2021): LDA Topic Mining of Light Food Customer Reviews on the Meituan Platform. Communications in Computer and Information Science, volume 1454.

Yubo Chen, Jinhong Xie, (2008): Online Consumer Review: Word-of-Mouth as a New Element of Marketing Communication Mix. Management Science 54(3):477-491.

Zheng Xiang, Qianzhou Du, Yufeng Ma, Weiguo Fan, (2016): A comparative analysis of major online review platforms: Implications for social media analytics in hospitality and tourism. Tourism Management, Volume 58, February 2017, Pages 51-65.

Susan M. Mudambi and David Schuff, (2010): Research Note: What Makes a Helpful Online Review? A Study of Customer Reviews on Amazon.com. MIS Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 185-200 (16 pages).

ZhiweiLiu and Sangwon Park, (2015): What makes a useful online review? Implication for travel product websites. Tourism Management, Volume 47, Pages 140-151.

Yubo Chen, Scott Fay and Qi Wang, (2011): The Role of Marketing in social media: How Online Consumer Reviews Evolve. Journal of Interactive Marketing, Volume 25, Issue 2, Pages 85-94.

Karen L. Xie, Chihchien Chen and Shinyi Wu, (2015): Online Consumer Review Factors Affecting Offline Hotel Popularity: Evidence from Tripadvisor. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing ,Volume 33, 2016 - Issue 2, Pages 211-223.

Sutanto, M. A., Aprianingsih, A., (2016): The effect of online consumer review toward purchase intention: A study in premium cosmetic in Indonesia. International Conference on Ethics of Business, Economics, and Social Science (pp. 218-230).

Christopher C. Yang, Xuning Tang, Y. C. Wong, Chih-Ping Wei, (2010): Understanding online consumer review opinions with sentiment analysis using machine learning. Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 2(3), 7.

Miaojia Huang, Songqiao Wen, Manhua Jiang, Yuliang Yao, (2021): LDA Topic Mining of Light Food Customer Reviews on the Meituan Platform. Data Mining and Big Data, pp 108–121.